ਅਰਦਾਸਅਰਦਾਸ

Ardas is the set prayer that frames Sikh worship. When a service ends, when the Guru Granth Sahib Ji is opened or put to rest, when a child is named, a couple married or a family bereaved, the congregation rises, folds its hands and stands for Ardas. One voice leads, everyone stands together, and the petition to Waheguru carries five centuries of Sikh memory inside it.

What is Ardas?

Ardas is a supplication: a formal request made in humility. The word comes from the Persian arzdasht, a written petition presented by an inferior to a superior, and that sense of a humble request before a higher authority still shapes the prayer. Ardas is not found in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. It is one of the few well known Sikh prayers not written in full by the Gurus, because it grew with the community: its fixed core was set by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, and its middle section has been revised across the centuries as new chapters of Sikh history were added to the remembrance. Any Sikh, man or woman, may lead it.

The three parts of Ardas

The first part is fixed and may not be altered or omitted. It opens with lines from Chandi di Var, the ballad in the Dasam Granth that begins Pritham Bhagauti Simar Kai: remember first the divine power, then Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and then each Guru in turn, Angad, Amar Das, Ram Das, Arjan, Hargobind, Har Rai, Har Krishan and Tegh Bahadur Ji, closing with the tenth Guru and with the light of all ten Gurus present in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, at which the congregation calls out Waheguru.

The second part is the memory of the Panth. It recalls the ਪੰਜ ਪਿਆਰੇ, the Chaar Sahibzade, the Forty Mukte and the generations of Sikhs who, in the words of the prayer, gave their heads but not their faith, and it turns the mind to the five takhts and to all gurdwaras. It prays for the Khalsa: for protection wherever Sikhs live, and for deg and tegh, the cauldron and the sword, charity and courage, never to fail. This is the flexible part of Ardas: here the leader adds the petition of the day, for a family, a journey, a recovery, a beginning, before the prayer moves to its close.

The third part is again fixed. It asks forgiveness for errors and omissions, asks that the purposes of all be fulfilled and that the Sikhs be granted the company of those who keep the Name in mind, and it ends with the best known lines of the prayer: Nanak Naam Chardikala, Tere Bhane Sarbat Da Bhala. In Your will, may the Name of Nanak rise ever higher, and may the good of all prevail. The prayer asks for everyone, and it names no enemy.

Where does Ardas come from?

Sikh tradition attributes Ardas to Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who fixed its opening lines and its closing section; those parts are treated as unalterable. The remembrance in the middle kept growing as the community lived through the persecutions and struggles of the eighteenth century and after, which is why an early manuscript fragment of the prayer, dating to about the 1730s, already differs in detail from the text used today. In the twentieth century the Tat Khalsa reformers revised the middle section extensively, and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee published an approved version of the whole Ardas in the Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh code of conduct. In the gurdwara, Ardas is usually preceded by the singing of Tu Thakur Tum Peh Ardas, the eighth stanza of the fourth ashtapadi of Sukhmani Sahib: You are our Master, to You we offer this prayer.

When is Ardas performed?

Ardas is performed more often than any other Sikh prayer. It is offered at prakash, when the Guru Granth Sahib Ji is opened in the morning, and at sukhasan, when it is put to rest at night. It closes the diwan after kirtan, it opens and closes an Akhand Path, and it is repeated several times during Amrit Sanchar, when the Panj Pyare prepare and administer amrit. It is read at the naming of a child, at engagements, at the start of the Anand Karaj wedding, and through the funeral rites; the final Ardas at the bhog that ends the mourning period is known to every Sikh family as the Antim Ardas. Sikhs also say Ardas before a journey, an examination, a new business or any significant task, and a devout Sikh may say it morning and evening at home. If there is no time for the full text, a short Ardas is made: the prayer allows a brief form.

How do you stand for Ardas?

Everyone stands. The leader, who may be any Sikh, stands facing the Guru Granth Sahib Ji while the sangat stands behind with feet together, head covered, shoes removed and palms pressed together at the chest in an attitude of humility. At the points where the prayer says Bolo Ji Waheguru, utter Waheguru, the congregation responds aloud with the Name. When the prayer ends, the sangat bows together and proclaims the greeting of the Khalsa: Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh. The Khalsa belongs to Waheguru; victory belongs to Waheguru.

Why does Ardas end with the good of all?

The close of Ardas explains the whole prayer. A Sikh does not ask only for himself or even only for Sikhs: the final petition is sarbat da bhala, the welfare of all, prayed in a spirit of chardikala, the ever rising optimism that refuses despair. Commentators on Ardas point to the values it is meant to plant in the person praying: nimrata, humility; daya, compassion; and surrender to the divine will, the acceptance that what comes in hukam is finally for the good. Because the prayer is said standing together, rich and poor, elder and child in one row, it is also a weekly lesson in equality: the community remembers its martyrs, and then asks for the good of the very world those martyrs lived in.