Raja Dhian Singh was the longest serving wazir of the Sikh Empire, during the reign of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, and four of his successors. He held the office for twenty five years, from 1818 up till his death. Dhian Singh was a brother of Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, who later founded the Dogra dynasty when he became Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir under the British Raj. Another brother Suchet Singh also served the empire. The three brothers were collectively known as the "Dogra brothers" in the Sikh empire, based on their ethnicity.
Portrait of Raja Dhian Singh in opaque watercolor and gold on exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum. c. mid 19th century.
The emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh, seated with his prime minister Raja Dhian Singh standing beside him in 1838.
Portrait of Dhian Singh, Gulab Singh, Ranbir Sohan, and Udham Singh made early 19th century now at the Brooklyn Museum.
Raja Dhian Singh on a hawking expedition in watercolor on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum London. c. 1830
The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Sikh War. It was forged on the foundations of the Khalsa from a collection of autonomous misls. At its peak in the 19th century, the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east as far as Oudh. It was divided into four provinces: Lahore, which became the Sikh capital; Multan; Peshawar; and Kashmir from 1799 to 1849. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 12 million in 1831, it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.
The expanding Sikh Empire in 1809. The Cis-Sutlej states are visible south of the Sutlej River
Ranjit Singh holding court in 1838
The Indian subcontinent in 1805.
Detail from ‘Darbar (royal court) of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’, gouache, ca.1850