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Sikh people, mostly of Ját descent, are roughly divided into two great classes, named from the districts they inhabit, the Mánjha and the Málwá, and the origin and history of these are altogether different. The Mánjha is the name of the southern portion of the Bári Doáb (the word doáb signifying a tract of country between two rivers, here the Beas and the Rávi), in the neighbourhood of the cities of Lahore and Amritsar; and the Mánjha 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.

Málwá is the country immediately to the south of the same river, stretching towards Delhi and Bíkaner, and the Sikhs who inhabit this district, being the original settlers and not mere invaders or immigrants from the Mánjha, are known as the Málwá Sikhs. Their acknowledged head is the great Phúlkian house, of