ZAFARNAMAH SAHIB - It is a Gurdwara, at village Dialpura Bhai Ka, built in the memory of the visit by Guru Gobind Singh Sahib. According to a local tradition, it is here that Guru Sahib wrote Zafarnamah (literally: letter of victory); hence the name of the Gurdwara.
ADI GRANTH. See SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB
ASCETICISM, derived from the Greek word askesis, connotes the `training` or `exercise` of the body and the mind. Asceticism or ascetic practices belong to the domain of religious culture, and fasts, pilgrimages, ablutions, purificatory rituals, vigils, abstinence from certain foods and drinks, primitive and strange dress, nudity, uncut hair, tonsure. shaving the head, circumcision, caved welling, silence, meditation, vegetarianism, celibacy, virginity, inflicting pain upon oneself by whips and chains, mutilation, begging alms, owning no wealth or possessions, forbearance and patience, equanimity or impartiality towards friends and foes, eradication of desires and passions, treating the body as something evil or treating human life as a means of achieving ultimate release or union with God all these are subsumed under ascetic practices.
ANI RAI, author of Jangnama Guru Gobind Singh Ji, was one of the numerous poets and scholars who enjoyed the patronage of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). The Jangnama is an account in verse of a battle on the banks of the River Sutlej in which an attack from the imperial troops was countered and repulsed by Sikhs under the personal command of Guru Gobind Singh. No date is given of the event, but a reference in the text to "Khalsa," inaugurated in 1699, and other details indicate that it was one of the last battles of Anandpur.