ਨਿਤਨੇਮਨਿਤਨੇਮ

A Sikh day is built around a book small enough to hold in two hands. Before dawn the gutka opens at Japji Sahib; at sunset it opens again at Rehras; in bed, at the end, it opens at Kirtan Sohila. The set of prayers inside it, recited at those three points without fail, is called Nitnem, the daily routine, and for an Amritdhari Sikh it is not optional devotion but the frame the rest of life hangs on.

What is Nitnem?

Nitnem means daily routine: nit, daily or always, and nem, practice, rule or regimen. It is the name given to the set prayers which every Sikh is commanded to say daily, alone or in company, as the Sikh Encyclopedia puts it. The prayers are hymns, banis, drawn from the two Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib Ji and the Dasam Granth. They are recited at a minimum of three different times of day, and the Sikh Rehat Maryada, the code of conduct for Amritdhari Sikhs, makes them mandatory for the initiated. Many Sikhs who are not initiated keep the same routine by choice, and additional prayers may always be added to it.

What are the five morning banis?

In most Sikh homes the morning Nitnem is the Panj Bania, the five banis, recited in the early hours of Amrit Vela, between about 2 and 6 in the morning. Japji Sahib, by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, opens the Guru Granth Sahib Ji and the day with it: a meditation on the nature of God, creation and the path of listening and acceptance. Jaap Sahib, by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, is a rhythmic litany of praise naming God by 199 attributes and negations, and it opens the Dasam Granth. Tav-Prasad Savaiye, also by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, is the set of ten prescribed quatrains drawn from his Akal Ustati, praising the Timeless One and dismissing empty ritual and the worship of anything lesser.

Chaupai Sahib, the Benti Chaupai, is Guru Gobind Singh Ji's prayer for protection, asking the Divine to hold the devotee's hand wherever they stand. Anand Sahib, by Guru Amar Das Ji, is the song of bliss, forty stanzas on the joy that comes through the Word, of which the first five and the fortieth are also sung on many other occasions. Together the five take under an hour, and they end, as the morning prayers should, with Ardas. One honest complication is worth stating plainly, because Sikhs themselves discuss it: the Rehat Maryada's required morning minimum is three, Japji Sahib, Jaap Sahib and the ten Savaiye, and Chaupai and Anand are added by most Sikhs out of devotion rather than obligation, which is why the phrase five banis is heard in more than one sense.

Evening and night: Rehras and Kirtan Sohila

At sunset the day turns to Rehras Sahib, also called Sodaru Rehras after the first word of its first hymn. Its opening nine hymns stand together in the Guru Granth Sahib Ji immediately after Japji Sahib, and compositions of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, including the Benti Chaupai, are woven into the order most Sikhs read, along with stanzas of Anand Sahib. It takes about eight to twelve minutes, is recited after the day's work, and is followed by Ardas. Its mood is gratitude and shelter: the day is handed back, with thanks, before dark.

The last prayer is Kirtan Sohila, read in bed before sleep, taking about five to twelve minutes. It is five hymns only: three by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, one by Guru Ram Das Ji and one by Guru Arjan Dev Ji, and among them is Guru Nanak Dev Ji's great aarti, in which the sky is the platter, the sun and moon the lamps, and the whole of nature already performing the worship that temples perform with trays of lights. Sohila is also recited at a Sikh cremation, which gives its nightly use its depth: a Sikh rehearses the end of the day, and of life, in the same words, and sleeps without fear of either. Unlike the morning and evening prayers, it is not required to be followed by Ardas.

How did Nitnem develop?

The routine is as old as the community's settled life. At Kartarpur, where Guru Nanak Dev Ji spent his final years, Bhai Gurdas Ji records that it was a daily practice to recite Japu, Japji Sahib, early in the morning and Rehras and Sohila in the evening. When Guru Arjan Dev Ji compiled the Guru Granth Sahib Ji in 1604, these three stood in that order at the very beginning of the volume, morning, evening and night, which suggests the threefold practice was already established. The compositions of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Jaap Sahib and the Savaiye among them, were added to the regimen later, and the Sikh Rehat Maryada published by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee eventually fixed the directions in the form now followed: rise early, bathe, meditate on the Timeless One repeating the name Vahiguru, and recite the banis, with ardas following.

The gutka: how Nitnem is read

Nitnem is typically read from a gutka, the small Sikh prayer book found in most Sikh households, or from a larger pothi. The main forms are the Panj Granthi, five principal compositions from the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, and the Das Granthi, principal compositions from the Dasam Granth, while the Sundar Gutka, a larger collection mixing many compositions, is the book on many family shelves. At the ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਸੰਚਾਰ ceremony the Panj Pyare instruct the new initiate to recite the banis daily, so the gutka and the promise arrive together. Phones and apps now carry the same texts, and gurdwaras recite communally, but the shape has not changed: the same words, at the same three hinges of the day.

Can more be added to Nitnem?

Yes, and it commonly is. Beyond the required banis, many Sikhs add Sukhmani Sahib, Guru Arjan Dev Ji's long composition on peace, Asa di Var, sung in the early morning in gurdwaras, the Aarti, Sidh Gosti or other compositions, according to family practice and the time a person can give. The rule of the routine is a floor, not a ceiling: the Rehat Maryada sets the minimum an Amritdhari must keep, and everything beyond it is welcomed. What the tradition asks is not length but regularity. A short Nitnem kept every day does the work the name promises; one kept only on holy days is not, in the plain sense of the word, a routine at all.