INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

underscore its identity as a command. The final line of the Hukam, which includes the
name of Nanak, is normally repeated twice with an extra long intonation on the last
word. As a closure of the first rendering the granthi will utter the Khalsa ovation
(Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fateh). Secondly, the granthi will the repeat the
entire Hukam or, if the command includes a summarizing refrain (shalok), read the
shalok with a high-pitched voice and clear enunciation to bring out the locutionary
meaning of the text. In the latter case, he will read until the word rahau or “pause”
appears in the text which marks the end of shalok. Repeating the Khalsa ovation concludes
the ceremony and the granthi covers the opened scripture with robes. For those
who do not have any opportunity to receive the oral performance of a day’s command
it will be communicated in writing on an in-glazed whiteboard outside the
gurdwara entrance. When the morning ceremony is over the granthi will write down
its first four lines, headed by information about the metrical form and author of the
hymn, as well as on which page number it is to be found in Guru Granth Sahib.
Throughout the day visitors will halt before the day’s command, view and read it,
and in acts of reverence touch the lower part of board frame before they enter the
gurdwara. Some will also look up the page number to read the day’s command directly
from the scripture by themselves. For devotees the Hukam is regarded as an
expression of a divine will communicated by the Guru who continues to act and
interact with the Sikhs in the present.
After the first enunciation of the Hukam, the granthi will continue to recite the
composition Sukhmani Sahib (See Chapter 3), which takes about one hour and ten
minutes to complete. During this morning-hour visitors will start to drop in, one by
one, for their daily worship and choose themselves how much time they will spend in
the gurdwara. Each day of the year the discrete acts of the morning liturgy follow a
similar pattern. The only exception occurs on sangrand ‒ the first day of the solar
month according to the Vikrami calendar. In the early morning of this day many local
Sikh families will prepare the sweetened pudding and other types of food at their
houses and then go to the gurdwara to present it to Guru Granth Sahib and hearken
the recitation of Barah Maha, or “the twelve months” ‒ a hymn of Guru Arjan that
mentions the twelve Punjabi months in a calendar year. Within the sequence of a
morning liturgy, the recitation of Barah Maha is usually inserted after the congregational
reading of Ardas close to 6 am. The granthi will first enact all the twelve verses
of Barah Maha once, and then repeat the particular stanza for the month that has just
begun. 346 Meanwhile the worshippers will receive karah prashad as a beneficial return
gift for the food they have surrendered in favor of the new month. Afterwards, during
the subsequent session of devotional music (kirtan), the ragi performers may sup-
346
In domestic gurdwaras the Barah Maha is performed according to a similar pattern in the
morning of sangrand, and some informants used to recite the verse for the current month everyday.
The methods for sharing a reading of Barah Maha amongst family members differ. For
example, one woman said she used to recite the month-specified verse, while her husband read
the whole composition.
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008