IB World Religions 7.2.2. Worship and Daily Discipline: Isnan, Prescribed Prayers and Holy Company Notes

7.2.2. Worship and Daily Discipline: Isnan, Prescribed Prayers and Holy Company

The daily rule

1. Sikh worship is organised around a rule for the whole day rather than around a single weekly gathering. Sikhs call the discipline a disciple keeps rahit, and it fixes what is done on waking, at sunset and before sleep.
2. The rule rests on the Guru Granth Sahib and on the rahit namas, manuals of conduct that circulated from the eighteenth century and were attributed to companions of Guru Gobind Singh.
3. Those manuals were uneven and sometimes disagreed with one another. A committee of Sikh scholars worked for roughly twenty years to produce one agreed code, the Sikh Rahit Maryada, published in the middle of the twentieth century.
4. The code defines a Sikh as one who believes in the one God, the ten Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib, and then turns immediately to the daily routine before treating anything else.
5. The obligation is not felt equally across the Panth. Amritdhari Sikhs, initiated into the Khalsa, treat the daily prayers as binding, while sahajdhari Sikhs, who have not taken initiation, treat them as an aim they are growing towards.
6. What the rule prescribes falls into three parts: washing and prayer at fixed hours, remembrance of God through the working day, and the company of other Sikhs.

Isnan and amrit vela

1. The rule begins before dawn. Sikhs are directed to rise at amrit vela, the ambrosial hours of the last watch of the night, roughly between three and six in the morning.
2. Guru Nanak fixes the hour in the Japji Sahib, where he directs that at amrit vela a person should dwell on the true Name and on God's greatness.
3. Rising is followed by isnan, a full wash of the body. The Rahit Maryada names it plainly and treats it as ordinary preparation for prayer.
4. The distinction matters to Sikhs. The washing is for physical cleanliness, and Sikh teaching holds that no bath at any holy place can clean a mind that is still full of itself.
5. Sikhs who keep kesh, uncut hair, comb it with the kangha and retie the turban or head covering in the same sequence, so grooming and prayer belong together.
6. The morning wash also carries an idea of readiness. A person about to speak the Gurus' words presents themselves washed, dressed and awake rather than half asleep.

The prescribed prayers

1. The fixed prayers are called nitnem, the daily practice, and they fall at three points: after the morning wash, at sunset, and last thing at night.
2. The morning set opens with the Japji Sahib of Guru Nanak, followed by the Jaap Sahib and the Tav-Prasad Savaiye of Guru Gobind Singh.
3. At sunset Sikhs recite Rehras Sahib, a collection drawn from several Gurus, and before sleep they recite Kirtan Sohila, a short set of five hymns.
4. Each sitting closes with Ardas, the petition that calls the ten Gurus to mind and then asks for the welfare of all people, not only of Sikhs.
5. The words are the Gurus' own. A Sikh at nitnem is reciting scripture rather than composing a prayer, which is why the texts are learned by heart and said in Gurmukhi even by Sikhs who speak English or Swahili at home.
6. The prayers are not tied to a building. They may be said at home, at work or on a train, and many Sikhs carry a gutka, a small volume of the daily prayers, or use a recording.
7. Practice varies widely. Some Sikhs recite the whole set aloud, some silently, some add Chaupai Sahib and Anand Sahib, and some manage only the Japji Sahib on a working morning.

Nam japna through the day

1. Between the fixed prayers stands the practice the Gurus press hardest: nam japna, the continual repetition of God's Name through ordinary hours.
2. The word most Sikhs repeat is Waheguru, wonderful Lord, which initiated Sikhs receive as the gurmantar and use as the thread running through the day.
3. The wider term is nam simran, remembrance of the Name. It covers both the spoken repetition and the settled attention to God that repetition is meant to produce.
4. The practice is built to be portable. Sikhs repeat the Name while driving, cooking or working, on the ground that God's presence is not confined to a set hour.
5. Its purpose is stated in terms of haumai, ego-centredness. Sikhs hold that the Name gradually displaces the self-centred chatter that keeps a person manmukh, turned towards the ego, and makes them gurmukh, turned towards the Guru.
6. Some Sikhs also sit for a formal session early in the morning, often in a group, and those who follow particular sants may keep long daily disciplines of it.

Kirat karna and vand chakna

1. The other two parts of the daily triad concern money. Kirat karna is earning a living by honest work, and vand chakna is sharing what is earned with those in need.
2. The three together, nam japna, kirat karna and vand chakna, are the summary Sikhs most often give when asked how a disciple is meant to live.
3. Honest work is treated as religious practice rather than as a background necessity. Guru Nanak spent his last years farming at Kartarpur rather than travelling as a teacher.
4. Sikhs tell of Nanak refusing a wealthy official's feast and eating with Bhai Lalo, a carpenter, to make the point that food bought with exploited labour is not clean.
5. Certain kinds of income are ruled out on the same principle. The rahit namas forbid begging, and gambling, theft and fraud are excluded because none of them is kirat, labour.
6. Sharing takes definite forms. Many Sikhs give dasvandh, a tenth of their income, to the Guru's work, and the free kitchen at the gurdwara is fed from the same obligation.
7. Sewa, service given without payment or expectation, is the labour form of the same duty, and the Rahit Maryada expects it of any Sikh whatever their birth or gender.

Sangat and holy company

1. The last element of the rule is company. Sikhs are directed to keep the company of other Sikhs, the sangat, and the Rahit Maryada treats attendance at the gurdwara as part of the daily discipline.
2. The term for the congregation gathered around the scripture is sadh sangat, the company of the holy, and the Guru Granth Sahib repeatedly makes it the setting in which the Name takes root.
3. The reasoning given is practical. Sikhs hold that haumai is hard to notice in oneself and easier to wear down among others who are doing the same work.
4. Guru Amar Das built the principle into daily life at Goindwal, requiring everyone who came to see him to eat in the free kitchen first, seated in the same row.
5. Holy company needs no building. A group of Sikhs singing the Gurus' hymns in a front room counts as sangat, and many diaspora congregations began exactly that way before they bought a hall.
6. The company also carries the discipline. Gurdwaras run early morning sessions so that the nitnem is said together, and members notice when someone stops coming.