AJĀT SĀGAR, by Surjan Dās Ajāt, is the religious book of the Ajātpanthī sect of the Udāsīs. Written in AD 1851, the only known manuscript of the work was available in the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar, until it perished during the Blue Star action in the holy premises in 1984. The author Surjan Dās (father: Bāgh Siṅgh, mother: Gulāb Devī), a disciple of Sant Ṭahil Dās who was in the Bhagat Bhagvānīe sect of the Udāsīs, established his gaddīat Ajnevāl, in Gujrāṅwālā district, now in Pakistan. Surjan Dās preached the ideal of a casteless (a = without; jāt = caste) society and thus came to be called Ajāt and his followers Ajātpanthī. Another of his works was Surjan Bodh which is held in the Pañjāb University Library, Chaṇḍīgaṛh, under MS. No. 111. The poetry of Surjan Dās is uneven, though he tries to keep close to the gurbāṇī idiom. Transience of the world, man's forgetfulness of God and the importance of nām are the principal themes of Ajāt Sāgar. Gurū Nānak has been depicted in this work as "the destroyer of evil. "