ਅਖੰਡ ਪਾਠਅਖੰਡ ਪਾਠ

For two days and two nights the reading does not stop. Reader follows reader through the whole Guru Granth Sahib Ji, page by page, while the household or the congregation sleeps in turns, serves food, and comes and goes around a sound that never breaks. That unbroken reading is an Akhand Path, and no Sikh celebration or sorrow of any size feels complete without one at its centre.

What is an Akhand Path?

Akhand Path means unbroken reading: akhand, uninterrupted or without break, and path, reading. It is the non stop, continuous recital of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji from beginning to end. The entire volume, 1,430 large pages, angs, is read through in one ceremony, normally completed within 48 hours. The practice is considered very holy, and is said to bring peace and solace to the participants and to those who simply listen. Where a single hymn is taken as a Hukamnama, a command for the day, an Akhand Path gives the listener the whole counsel of the Guru in sequence, which is a different and larger thing.

How is an Akhand Path performed?

The Guru Granth Sahib Ji is installed with ceremony, in a gurdwara or in a room at home specially cleaned for the occasion, under a canopy on a raised seat covered with rumalas. The start is preceded by a short service: hymns may be sung, ਅਰਦਾਸ is offered for the successful completion of the path, and Karah Prasad is distributed. In the order described by W. H. McLeod, Karah Prasad is brought into the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the six appointed stanzas of Anand Sahib are read, Ardas is recited and a hukam is taken before the reading begins. Ardas and Karah Prasad are also offered as the reading reaches its midway point.

Then the relay begins. A team of readers, pathis, reads in turns, day and night, without a moment's intermission. Each reader should bathe and wear clean clothes before beginning a turn. As readers change places at set intervals, the incoming reader picks up the line from the predecessor's lips and continues, so the sound never actually stops. The reading is meant to be loud, clear and correct, each word properly pronounced. Langar, the communal food, is traditionally available at all times through the two days, which itself requires a second, quieter relay of volunteers in the kitchen. Listeners come as they wish and leave as they wish, sitting for a while in front of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji and taking away whatever portion they hear.

The reading concludes with the Bhog ceremony, the formal completion, followed by a service much like the one that opened it, with kirtan, Ardas and Karah Prasad. If a hukam is taken at the end of a programme during a path, the reader simply reads the passage the reading has reached in its regular course, clearly and a little more slowly, and then continues.

How long does an Akhand Path take?

About 48 hours, when it is recited in Gurmukhi: two full days and nights of continuous reading by a relay. A reading in English translation takes much longer, around 72 hours, which is one reason translations are listened to rather than usually substituted for the Gurmukhi in this ceremony. The rare exception that proves the rule is the Ati Akhand Path, in which one person alone recites the entire scripture without breaking for any reason, usually completing it in about 27 hours. It is seldom undertaken, and only by a reader of uncommon stamina and skill.

When is an Akhand Path held?

On almost any occasion a Sikh family or community wants to place before the Guru. Important days on the Sikh calendar are marked by Akhand Paths in gurdwaras, and family celebrations and ceremonies centre on them: a birth, a birthday, a wedding, a graduation or an examination passed, recovery from an illness or an operation, an anniversary, a new home or a new business. In bereavement, families draw comfort from the path, and funeral obsequies conclude with a completed reading of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Some gurdwaras hold a weekly Akhand Path, which gives the congregation a standing opportunity for seva, voluntary service, and for an unhurried closeness to the Guru that ordinary weekly services cannot give.

Where did the Akhand Path come from?

Sikh tradition tells of a first Akhand Path at the very origin of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji's Guruship: it is said that when Guru Gobind Singh Ji had completed the Granth, five members of the congregation read it to him continuously while he stood and listened to the whole of it, and that a second such reading was held at Nanded, its readers including Baba Deep Singh Ji and Bhai Dharam Singh Ji of the Panj Pyare, before the Granth was proclaimed the perpetual Guru. A story from 1742 tells of Bibi Sundari, a Sikh warrior dying of battle wounds in the jungles of Punjab, who asked for an Akhand Path beside her and listened to the full recitation before she died, and tradition links the fixed 48 hour form to her.

Historians tell the story more cautiously, and the difference is worth keeping. The practice appears to have developed in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, in the turbulent decades when persecution had scattered the Sikhs, as a means of uniting and spiritually strengthening threatened groups who could gather around a complete reading. Its popularity increased in the nineteenth century, when printed copies of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji became widely available and a complete reading became possible in ordinary homes as well as great gurdwaras.

Akhand Path, Sehaj Path and Saptahik Path: what is the difference?

The three are the standard forms of a complete reading, and they differ only in pace. An Akhand Path is unbroken and finished in about 48 hours. A Saptahik Path spreads the same complete reading over a week, a portion each day. A Sadharan Path, better known as a Sehaj Path in most homes, takes the reading in slow parts with no time limit at all, over weeks or months, at the reader's own pace, allowing deep contemplation of each passage. The opening and closing order is much the same in all three. What the Akhand form adds is intensity and community: for two days a whole household, street or congregation organises itself around one continuous voice, and that shared effort, as much as the text itself, is what families remember.