Anand Karajਅਨੰਦ ਕਾਰਜ

Two people walk slowly around the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, joined by a single cloth, while a hymn is sung over them. There is no priest between them and the Guru, no fire, no horoscope. That walk, taken four times to four verses, is the Anand Karaj, and it is how Sikhs marry.

What is Anand Karaj?

Anand Karaj is the Sikh wedding ceremony. The name means blissful event, or act towards happiness. Sikhs regard marriage not as a contract but as a sacred bond: a partnership of equals between two people who the scripture describes as one light in two bodies. The ceremony was introduced by Guru Amar Das Ji, and its core, the four laavaan or wedding hymns, was composed by his successor Guru Ram Das Ji. It takes place in a gurdwara, in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji and the sadhsangat, the congregation, and it is governed by the Sikh Rehat Maryada, the code of conduct issued by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. Any Amritdhari, baptised, Sikh may perform the ceremony.

The teaching behind it is that the married state, the householder's path, is the norm and the ideal in Sikh life, not a distraction from it. A couple who marry under the Guru's word take on a shared life of honest work, worship and service, and the two families are joined into one enlarged family with them. The wedding is joyous and festive, and Punjabi celebrations around it, such as the kurmai engagement and the baraat procession, sit around a religious core that is deliberately simple.

The Laavaan: what do the four rounds mean?

The heart of the ceremony is the laavaan, the four stanzas Guru Ram Das Ji composed, in the Suhi measure. Each stanza is first read from the Guru Granth Sahib Ji and then sung, and as it is sung the couple, joined by the palla, a cloth held between them, walk once around the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Circling the Guru is itself the statement: the Guru, not either partner, is the centre of the life being begun, and each round is a commitment made with the Guru as witness.

The four rounds trace a journey. In the first, the Guru asks the partners to commit to righteousness, renounce sinful actions, and remember the Naam, promising that peace comes by that path. In the second, they advance towards meeting the True Guru: ego falls away in reverence, God's praises are sung, and God is felt everywhere, within and outside. In the third, the mind is filled with divine love, found among the sadhsangat and in singing the Lord's praises, until the Naam resounds in the heart. In the fourth, the mind becomes peaceful, the Lord is found, God's will seems sweet, and all desires are fulfilled. Read this way, the laavaan are a map of a whole spiritual life, applied by Guru Ram Das Ji to the first day of a marriage.

How is the ceremony performed?

Most Sikh weddings take place in the morning, and the religious ceremony lasts about one to three hours. It opens with kirtan, devotional singing. The groom, and then the bride, come and sit before the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. After the shabad Keeta loree-ai kam su har peh aakhee-ai, an Ardas is offered and the officiant speaks, explaining the ideal of Sikh marriage and asking whether the couple accept it. The groom's father or representative places one end of the palla in the groom's hands and the other in the bride's, while the shabad Pallai Taiddai Laagee is sung. Then come the laavaan themselves, read and sung in turn, the couple rising to circle the Guru Granth Sahib Ji for each one.

After the four rounds, the shabads Veeahu Hoa Mere Babula and Pooree Asa Jee Mansaa Mere Raam are sung, a final Ardas is offered by the whole congregation, a hukam is taken from the opened scripture, and Karah Prasad is served. The congregation blesses the couple in the sagaan, and the ceremony is followed by langar, the shared meal. The engagement, kurmai, with its Ardas, kirtan, exchange of gifts and langar, is often held just before the wedding, though it can also be a separate event on another day.

What does the Rehat Maryada require?

The rules are plain and egalitarian. Both partners must be Sikhs. Marriage is a partnership of equals, with no consideration of caste, social status, race or lineage, and no dowry. No day is holier than any other, and no astrological calculations are to be made: the date is set by mutual consultation to suit both families. Child marriage is prohibited and widow remarriage is permitted. The ceremony belongs in a gurdwara, and a recent ruling of the Akal Takht, restated since by Sikh authorities, holds that Anand Karaj should take place only in a gurdwara, not at destination or resort venues.

Where one partner is not of Sikh origin, practice is debated. Guidelines developed by the Sikh Council UK in 2014, after a two year consultation, encourage gurdwaras to ensure both parties to an Anand Karaj are Sikhs, and to offer couples who marry civilly the opportunity to mark the occasion with an Ardas, a Sukhmani Sahib path, an Akhand Path or another service with family and friends. Some gurdwaras do permit such weddings, which has led to controversy.

Where did Anand Karaj come from?

The ceremony's roots reach back to Guru Amar Das Ji, who composed the long forty stanza hymn Anand, in the Ramkali measure, sung on occasions of religious importance, and to Guru Ram Das Ji, who composed the Lavan for solemnising marriages. But the form Sikhs know today is largely a nineteenth century recovery. During the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his successors the ceremony fell into partial disuse as Brahmanical customs regained influence, and most Sikhs married in the vedi tradition, circling a sacred fire as their neighbours did.

The Nirankari reform movement of the mid nineteenth century made the Anand ceremony central to its programme, as did the later Singh Sabha movement. The Nirankari founder Dayal Das is said to have married by Sikh rites in 1808, and his son Darbara Singh is credited with the first marriage performed by circumambulating the Guru Granth Sahib Ji during the laavaan, on 13 March 1855. The Tat Khalsa pressed the change in manuals written between 1884 and 1915, rejecting Brahmin and astrologer involvement and putting the scripture, not the fire, at the centre. Historians such as W. H. McLeod note honestly that there is no evidence the Gurus themselves married couples by circling the Granth: the recitation of the hymns is an old tradition, while the circumambulation of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji is the reformers' early twentieth century form. One Sikh tradition, the Namdharis, still marry by circling a sacred fire.

Is an Anand Karaj marriage legally recognised?

In India, yes. The Anand Marriage Act of 1909 gave legal recognition to marriages solemnised by the Anand ceremony. The Anand Marriage (Amendment) Act, which received the President's assent on 7 June 2012, amended the 1909 Act so Sikh marriages are registered under it, with compulsory registration, rather than under the Hindu Marriage Act. In Pakistan, Sikhs in Punjab province have been able to register Anand Karaj marriages under the Punjab Sikh Anand Karaj Marriage Act since 2024. In the United Kingdom the Anand Karaj is not recognised in law, and a civil marriage is required as well.