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THE SIKH RELIGION
ASA KI WAR
There is but one God whose name is true, the Creator, devoid of fear and enmity, immortal, unborn, self-existent, great and beneficent.
GURU HAR GOBIND
This War includes sloks. The sloks also were written by the first Guru, and should be sung to the air of 'Tunda As Raja'. [2]
SLOK I
Guru Nanak
I am a sacrifice to my Guru a hundred times a day,
Who without any delay made demigods out of men.
Guru Angad
Were a hundred moons to rise, and a thousand suns to mount the sky ;
Even with such light there would be appalling darkness without the Guru.
Guru Nanak
Nanak, they who very clever in their own estimation think not of the Guru,
Shall be left like spurious sesames in a reaped field.
- ↑ The word Wār originally meant a dirge for the brave slain in battle, then it meant any song of praise, and in this collection it means God s praises generally. Wars were composed in stanzas called pauris, literally ladders, which were sung or chanted by professional minstrels.
The Āsa ki Wār is repeated by religious Sikhs after the Japji as a morning divine service. - ↑ As, son of Chitrbīr, was a holy prince against whom a false charge had been preferred by his lascivious stepmother, which led to his hands and feet being cut off as punishment. One of the many Oriental versions of the story of Potiphar's wife.
