Jaimal Singh (1839–1903) was popularly called by the honorific 'Baba Ji' by disciples and devotees. He was the son of a Punjabi farmer who as a young teenager set out on a spiritual quest. He became an initiate and later a spiritual successor of Shiv Dayal Singh, the Sant of Āgrā. After his initiation Jaimal Singh served in the British Indian Army as a sepoy (private) from the age of seventeen and attained the rank of havildar (sergeant). After retirement, he settled in a desolate and isolated spot outside the town of Beas (in undivided Punjab, now East Punjab) and began to spread the teaching of his guru Shiv Dayal Singh. The place grew into a colony which came to be called the "Dera Baba Jaimal Singh" ("the camp of Baba Jaimal Singh"), and which is now the world centre of the Radha Soami