The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (189 page)

 
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Anatta
:

see
AN
TMAN
.

 
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Anbhav Prakash
.

Experience of
enlightenment
among Sikhs. It is the perception of reality which means that a person has become centred on God (
gurmukh
).

 
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Ancestors
.

The maintaining of ancestors in memory is a fundamental part of religious life and practice. Even during the millennia in which belief in personal life after death was extremely rare, this remembering—and often veneration—of ancestors was extensive. Yet the term ‘ancestor-worship’ is usually misleading (see
AFRICAN RELIGION
): it is not so much that ancestors were worshipped as that they continued in relation to the living family, both sustaining it (provided they were in fact appropriately remembered) and being sustained by it. If they were forgotten or neglected, they might well turn into restless or hungry or avenging figures. Rituals therefore developed to ensure proper respect to these continuing members of the family, as well as to provide means of consulting them.

 
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Anchorite
,
Anchoress
.

(Gk.,
anach
re
, ‘withdraw’). One who withdraws from the world in order to offer prayer and mortification, frequently understood in sacrificial terms. Anchorites are precursors of the development of
monasticism
, and are related to the hermits who are attached to monastic orders (e.g. among
Camaldolese
or
Carthusians
). The term became more strictly applied to those who live in a cell (restricted dwelling-place). In the later M. Ages, such cells were sometimes attached to parish churches.
Julian of Norwich
is (thought to be) a notable example.

 
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