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.

GURDIT SINGH, BABA (1861-1954), patriot of Komagata Maru fame, was born in 1861, into a Sandhu Sikh family of Sarhali, a village in Amritsar district. Gurdit Singh`s grandfather had served in the Sikh army as an officer but his father, Hukam Singh, was a small farmer of moderate means.

Lal Singh (pen-name Kamla Akali), was the founder of the travelogue genre in Punjabi literature and an essayist of renown. His travelogue Mera Valayati Safar Nama (My Travel to England) has been acclaimed by the reading public. Sailani Des Bhagat, another travelogue, describes the return from Japan of two

SWARAN SINGH (1907-1994). Tall and wiry, Sardar Swaran Singh, was born on 19 August 1907 in a farming family of the village of Shankar in Jalandhar district. He was married to Charan Kaur (1925). The family laid much store by education. One of the two sons was sent up to

THAKUR SINGH SANDHANVALIA (1837-1887), one of the founders of the Singh Sabha and a scion of the Sandharivalia family, who masterminded the campaign for the restoration of Maharaja Duleep Singh to the throne of the Punjab, was son of Lahina Singh, who in the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singhenjoyed

ASAVARI See ASA 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,

GURMAT SANGIT or sacred music of the Sikhs. The founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), composed his religious verse to settings of Indian ragas mostly from the classical tradition. Successive Gurus followed his example and considered divine worship through music the best means of attaining that state which

Baba Gurumukh Singh Laliton was a great revolutionary freedom fighter who accepted a life of sacrifice and suffering for the sake of his country. Baba Gurumukh Singsh Laliton was bom in 1888 in the village of Laliton Khurd in the Ludhiana district of the Punjab. He belongs to the

Sandhu, Gulzar Singh was born at Kotia Badia, district Ludhiana in 1933/5, his mother\'s native place. His family hails from the village of Soni in Hoshiarpur district. Both from the father\'s side and the mother\'s side, he draws upon a lineage of Jagirdars or fief-holders from the time of the

TRILOCHAN, one of the three Maharashtrian saint poets whose compositions are included in the Guru Granth Sahib, the other two being Namdev and Parmanand. Trilochan is said to have been born in AD 1267 of a Vaisya family. There is no unanimity among scholars regarding the place of his

AZAD HIND FAUJ, or Indian National Army (I.N.A.for short) as it was known to the English speaking world, was a force raised from Indian prisoners of war during World War II (1939-45) to fight against the British. The hostilities had started with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September

GURU NANAK BANS PRAKASH, by Sukhbasi Ram Bedi (c. 1758C.1848), an Udasi saint and a descendant of Guru Nanak, is a versified biography of Guru Nanak with considerable detail about his descendants as well. Two manuscript copies of the work are extant one at the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar,