The Sikh people, mostly of Jat descent, are roughly divided into two great classes, named from the districts they inhabit, the Manjha and the Malwa, and the origin and history of these are altogether different. The Manjha is the name of the southern portion of the Bari Doab (the word doab signifying a tract of country between two rivers, here the Beas and the Ravi), in the neighbourhood of the cities of Lahore and Amritsar; and the Manjha Sikhs, by a convenient enlargement of the terms, may be held to include all those who at the time of the final dissolution of the Muhammadan power, were resident to the north of the river Sutlej.

Malwa is the country immediately to the south of the same river 1^[1] stretching towards Delhi and Bikaner, and the Sikhs who inhabit this district, being the original settlers and not mere invaders or immigrants from the Manjha, are known as the Malwa Sikhs. Their acknowledged head is the great PhuJkian house, of