KHUSHĀL CHAND, RĀJĀ, or Khushāl Rāi (d. 1752), an official under the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shāh (1719-48) and a writer and poet of some merit, described himself as a Nānakpanthī, i.e. a follower of Gurū Nānak, his father Jīvan Rām, and grandfather, Anand Rām Kāyastha, had also served in the Mughal court. Khushāl Chand's Tarīkh-i-Muhammadshāhī, 1748, in Persian prose, gives an account of the successors of Auraṅgzīb from Bahādur Shāh I to the death of Rafī ud-Daulā Shāh Jahāṅ II. It contains a detailed account of the massacre at Delhi of Bandā Siṅgh Bahādur and of the Sikhs captured with him, including the story of a young boy who chose to die along with his brothers in faith declaring himself to be a Sikh although his mother had obtained a royal decree for his release on the plea that he was not. Besides, Khushāl Chand composed many songs and hymns in Hindi, Punjabi and Rekhtā, a manuscript of which is preserved in the Central Public Library, Paṭiālā (MS. 568). In his compositions, he has used sixty odd different metres specifying the rāga or musical measure and even the rhythm in each case, which fact testifies to his knowledge of music as well as of prosody. He was a devotee of the Gurūs and there are references in his verse to their teachings and to the events of their lives. The word Khālsā occurs at several places in his poetry, in its prevalent Sikh usage as a collective name for the Sikh commonwealth.

Piārā Siṅgh Padam