Ranjit Singh

Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab of India, was born at Gujranwala on 2d November 1780, the son of a Sikh chief. His father died when he was twelve and his mother when he was seventeen years old. He at once began to show his ambition and capability for rule, and after the shah of Afghanistan had given him the province of Lahore he directed all his energies to the founding of a kingdom which should unite all the Sikh provinces under his own personal rule (see SIKHS). He died on 27th June 1839. He procured from an Afghan prince, as the price of his assistance in war, the famous Koh-i-nur diamond (see DIAMOND). See Sir L. Griffin, Ranjit Singh (Oxford, 1892).