SUKHDEV, a Kānyakubja Brāhmaṇ from Uttar Pradesh, was one of the scholars and poets attached to Gurū Gobind Siṅgh. According to his own evidence, he was born at Kapilnagar and educated at Vārāṇasī. He had been at the courts of several chieftains and officials, Hindu and Muslim, before joining Gurū Gobind Siṅgh at Pāoṇṭā in 1687. He presented his Chhand Vichār Piṅgal, a treatise on prosody, to the Gurū who rewarded him handsomely for it. He completed Adhyātam Prakāsh, a work on Vedānta philosophy, much read and revered by Nirmalā scholars to this day, on Assū sudī 11,1755 Bk/6 September 1698 according to its colophon. A manuscript of Adhyātam Prakāsh is preserved in the Central Public Library at Paṭiālā, and that of Chhand Vichār Piṅgal in the Khālsā College Library at Amritsar. Sukhdev's three other extant works are panegyrics on three of his former patrons.