A modern Akhand Paath normally runs for about forty-eight hours. Readers take turns, and listeners are meant to take turns too. That keeps the reading unbroken. It does not mean that anyone has heard and understood the whole reading. Gurbani asks us to notice that difference.
I had almost finished this article when I realised that one sentence was shielding me from the harder question.
I had written:
“Akhand Paath itself is not the problem.”
It sounded careful. It allowed me to criticise the way Akhand Paath is sometimes arranged without examining whether the form itself may also create a difficulty.
Then one word in Japji Sahib stopped me:
ਗਾਵੀਐ ਸੁਣੀਐ ਮਨਿ ਰਖੀਐ ਭਾਉ ॥
gaaveeai suneeai man rakheeai bhaau.
Sing, listen, and hold love within the mind.
Japji Sahib, Pauri 5, Ang 2, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji. This is one line from the pauri; the pauri continues.
The word was:
ਸੁਣੀਐ
suneeai.
Listen.
Guru Nanak Sahib Ji does not stop when the sound is made. The line moves from singing to listening, and from listening to something being held within the mind in love.
That made me ask a simple question.
Who listens?
I do not mean who attends when the Paath begins, who makes the donation, who provides the langar or who returns for the bhog at the end.
I mean who listens to the reading itself.
What is continuous?
The official English Sikh Rehat Maryada currently hosted by the SGPC says that an Akhand Paath takes approximately forty-eight hours. That is the recognised modern form: about two days and two nights of uninterrupted reading, carried by several readers taking turns.
The Maryada does not prescribe a fixed number of readers. It does insist that the reading must be clear and correct. Reading so quickly that a listener cannot follow is described as irreverence. Proper attention must be given to pronunciation, even when that causes the reading to take a little longer.
The forty-eight hours are therefore a normal working period. They are not a sacred deadline which must be met by rushing.
No one person is expected to remain awake for the entire reading. Readers change because human beings need sleep. If the Paath is to be heard throughout, listeners must also take turns.
A relative may sit for an hour during the day. Someone else may come during the night. Another family member may listen the following morning.
Even when this is done honestly, each person hears only part of the reading.
The Paath is continuous.
No one person’s listening is.
This does not make the Paath worthless. Gurbani is not ordinary information which becomes valuable only after an English explanation has been attached to it. Its Gurmukhi form, sound, rhythm and recitation matter. A single line may steady someone in grief before that person can explain what has happened within.
But the Guru has not spoken merely so that sacred sound may continue.
The Sikh Rehat Maryada expects the family or congregation undertaking an Akhand Paath to carry it out through its own members, relatives and friends. A person who cannot read is told to listen to a competent reader. The Maryada then says that the reader must not be left carrying on alone while no member of the family or congregation is listening.
That instruction is far removed from a Paath purchased from others and collected at the end.
Neither a donation, food for the readers nor attendance at the bhog can substitute for listening. Returning at the end cannot turn the parts we missed into something we heard.
The same Maryada makes a related point when explaining Hukam. Merely lifting the covering, looking at the exposed page and leaving without taking Hukam is contrary to Gurmat. Physical nearness and a respectful glance do not replace receiving the Guru’s command.
The principle is the same. Being near the reading is not necessarily the same as coming under what is read.
An Akhand Paath can be a continuous communal act of recitation, supported by a relay of listeners. It is not one person hearing and understanding the complete reading of Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji from beginning to end.
Uninterrupted completion and complete reception are not the same thing.
What the history allows us to say
I had also assumed that the history of Akhand Paath would give a simple answer. I expected to find that one of the Gurus had established the modern forty-eight-hour form.
I did not find secure evidence for that claim.
Before Guru Arjan Sahib Ji compiled and installed the Adi Granth at Sri Harmandir Sahib in 1604, there could not have been a reading of that complete compiled volume. The installation placed the compiled Bani at the centre of Sikh life, with Baba Buddha Ji serving as its first granthi. It does not, by itself, establish the later forty-eight-hour relay.
Bhai Gurdas Ji gives us a revealing picture of Kartarpur in Vaar 1, Pauri 38. Bani is uttered. So Dar and Aarti are sung. Jap is recited at Amrit Vela. Alongside this, there is giaan gosat and charcha: discussion and vichaar.
Bhai Gurdas Ji does not carry the authority of Gurbani, and the pauri is not a full daily timetable. Yet the picture matters. Recitation, singing, listening and discussion have not been pulled apart.
Bani is not passing over a community which has organised itself not to hear.
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, published by Punjabi University, Patiala, says that when and how the custom of Akhand Paath began is not known. It offers a reasoned conjecture that the practice developed during the dangerous conditions of the eighteenth century, when persecution had scattered Sikhs and settled religious life could not be taken for granted. It also describes listeners coming and going, receiving different portions of Bani at different times.
Gurinder Singh Mann points to late eighteenth-century evidence of uninterrupted complete readings. The source he discusses, Guru Kian Sakhian, is dated by its editors to 1790. That gives us evidence that the practice was present by the late eighteenth century. It does not establish the precise moment when the first Akhand Paath took place.
The responsible historical conclusion is therefore modest.
Reading, singing, listening and discussing Bani belong to the Guru period. The compiled Adi Granth stood at the centre of Sikh life from 1604. The uninterrupted complete reading is securely visible later. Its exact beginning remains uncertain.
A later origin would not make the practice wrong. The Panth has developed disciplines in response to changing circumstances. If Akhand Paath grew during persecution, its history may carry courage, urgency and collective devotion. Sikhs living under threat may not have known how long they could remain safely in one place.
But that possibility opens a question rather than closing one.
Should a form shaped partly by danger and uncertainty automatically remain the normal or preferred way for settled families in London, Birmingham, Toronto, Vancouver or Amritsar to engage with the complete reading today?
History can help us ask the question, but Gurbani must govern the answer.
Amrit Vela is a beginning, not a boundary
While revising the article, another question came to me.
Is Amrit Vela only a period before dawn? Do not all twenty-four hours belong to remembrance? Are not all the hours, minutes and breaths available for Bani to enter the human mind?
The careful answer requires us to hold two things together.
Japji Sahib says:
ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਵੇਲਾ ਸਚੁ ਨਾਉ ਵਡਿਆਈ ਵੀਚਾਰੁ ॥
amrit velaa sach naau vadiaaee veechaar.
At Amrit Vela, remember the True Naam and reflect upon the Greatness.
Japji Sahib, Pauri 4, Ang 2, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji. This is one line from the pauri; the pauri continues.
Amrit Vela has a real early-morning meaning. Professor Sahib Singh Ji reads it as the dawn or pre-dawn period, when the mind may be less occupied by the noise and demands of the day.
But the value of the time does not lie in the clock alone.
Guru Nanak Sahib Ji joins the time to Sach Naam and vadiaaee veechaar: remembrance of the True Naam and reflection upon Divine greatness.
Getting up early is not the whole teaching. A person can rise before dawn and still spend the time distracted, proud, hurried or mechanically completing a duty.
The hour serves remembrance and vichaar. It does not possess spiritual force apart from them.
Gurbani then carries the direction beyond the early morning:
ਸਭੇ ਵੇਲਾ ਵਖਤ ਸਭਿ ਜੇ ਅਠੀ ਭਉ ਹੋਇ ॥
ਨਾਨਕ ਸਾਹਿਬੁ ਮਨਿ ਵਸੈ ਸਚਾ ਨਾਵਣੁ ਹੋਇ ॥੧॥
sabhe velaa vakhat sabh je athee bhau hoi.
naanak saahib man vasai sachaa naavan hoi.
When reverent awareness remains through all eight watches, every time and moment comes under it. O Nanak, when the Master dwells within the mind, the cleansing is true.
Majh Ki Vaar, Salok Mahalla 1, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji. The Salok begins on Ang 145; these closing two lines are on Ang 146.
The eight watches are the whole day and night. Amrit Vela therefore gives the Sikh a disciplined beginning. It is not meant to create one religious part of the day followed by hours of forgetfulness.
What begins before dawn must enter the morning journey, the workplace, the home, the difficult conversation, the handling of money, the exercise of power and the way another person is treated.
Guru Arjan Sahib Ji says:
ਸਾਸਿ ਸਾਸਿ ਸਿਮਰਹੁ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ॥
ਮਨ ਅੰਤਰ ਕੀ ਉਤਰੈ ਚਿੰਦ ॥
saas saas simrahu gobind.
man antar kee utrai chind.
With every breath, remember Gobind; the anxiety within the mind departs.
Gauri Sukhmani, Ashtapadi 24, Pauri 1, Mahalla 5, Ang 295, Guru Arjan Sahib Ji. These are two lines from the pauri; the pauri continues.
This reaches beyond hours and minutes to the breath itself.
The early-morning discipline is real. Its fulfilment is not confined to the morning. Gurbani carries remembrance through all eight watches and every breath.
In that sense, every hour belongs to the One. No minute is outside Naam. No part of life is meant to stand beyond the correction of the Shabad.
This matters for the question of Akhand Paath.
A twenty-four-hour Sikh life does not mean twenty-four-hour audible recitation. Human beings sleep, work, raise children, care for parents, earn a living and meet responsibilities. Gurbani does not ask us to keep our mouths moving every second.
It asks that remembrance should not end when recitation ends.
The aim is not unbroken sound.
It is continuing answerability to the Guru.
When the clock begins to rule
Forty-eight hours can serve a useful practical purpose. It can organise the relay. It can tell readers when their turns begin. It can help a family prepare for two days and two nights of continuous reading.
The difficulty begins when the clock stops serving the Shabad and the Shabad is made to serve the clock.
A reader begins to hurry because the bhog has been announced for a fixed time. A family attends when the Paath begins, disappears for most of the reading and returns at the end. Payment, food and attendance at the conclusion come to stand in for the listening that did not happen.
Several Akhand Paaths may be accepted because readers can be supplied. But every reading also requires a listening Sangat. If an institution can provide paathis more easily than it can identify listeners, it has multiplied recitation while multiplying the absence around it.
Repeated discipline, set times and Maryada are not the problem. Sikhi needs all three. Ritualism begins when completing the form allows us to avoid what the form was meant to serve.
The final Ang is reached, so we assume the Guru has been received. The bhog takes place, so we assume the family’s duty has been completed. The clock reaches the expected time, so we assume that something spiritual has been achieved.
None of those conclusions follows automatically.
A bhog can tell us that the reading ended. It cannot tell us whether the family listened, whether Rahao was noticed, whether one line remained in the mind, or whether anything in life came under correction.
If Guru Nanak Sahib Ji were teaching in the room, would I bow, sit for a few minutes, leave while the teaching continued, and return for the final words?
The Guru before us is Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji. That makes the question more serious, not less.
Why have we accepted a pattern in which the Guru may continue speaking to an almost empty room?
A slower way back
I do not believe one writer should abolish Akhand Paath by personal decree.
It stands within the Sikh Rehat Maryada and has become part of Panthic life. When a family or Sangat undertakes it honestly, remains present through a genuine rota, supports clear readers and listens with attention, it can be a serious collective discipline. Its continuity may express a shared act of devotion even though no individual hears the complete reading.
But I no longer think it should be treated as the automatic or spiritually superior choice for every birth, death, anniversary, new home or family difficulty.
For many families, Sadharan Paath may be the more truthful way to receive the complete reading.
The Sikh Rehat Maryada recommends that a Sikh carry on a full intermittent reading and complete it over one or two months, or over a longer period. That slower form allows a family to return. People can read, sleep, work and come back the following day. They can remember where the reading had reached. There is time to pause at Rahao, ask about an unfamiliar word and allow one Shabad to remain before the next one arrives.
A child may begin to recognise the movement of the reading rather than appearing only for its beginning and end. Someone whose Panjabi is limited can use a learning aid and ask what has been read. An older relative who knows the sound of Bani may share that inheritance with someone who needs the meaning explained in English.
A slower Paath may look less impressive. There may be no intensive weekend programme and no large gathering at the end. It asks the family to keep returning after the public occasion has passed.
That may be its strength.
When a family approaches a gurdwara, the first discussion should not be limited to the date, donation and time of bhog. Someone should ask who will read, who will listen, how the family will take part, and whether Sadharan Paath would allow more honest participation.
Where Akhand Paath is chosen, a real listening rota should exist before the reading begins. Clarity should take priority over the advertised finish. If correct reading takes longer than forty-eight hours, it should take longer. The Maryada already places clear reading above speed.
Those whose Panjabi is limited should be helped to follow where the reading has reached. The Hukam should be explained. Selected Shabads should be opened for the family. No claim should be made that payment or uninterrupted completion automatically removes suffering, guarantees success or transfers spiritual benefit to someone who has not listened.
Where a family intends to attend only the beginning and the end, the gurdwara should be willing to recommend a slower Paath instead.
This is not an argument for reducing Paath. It is an argument for restoring Paath to listening, vichaar and life under the Guru.
Japji Sahib gives extraordinary weight to one teaching truly heard:
ਮਤਿ ਵਿਚਿ ਰਤਨ ਜਵਾਹਰ ਮਾਣਿਕ ਜੇ ਇਕ ਗੁਰ ਕੀ ਸਿਖ ਸੁਣੀ ॥
mat vich ratan javaahar maanik je ik gur kee sikh sunee.
Within the understanding are jewels, gems and rubies, if even one teaching of the Guru is heard.
Japji Sahib, Pauri 6, Ang 2, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji. This is one line from the pauri; the pauri continues.
This line does not place one teaching against the wholeness of Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The whole is Guru.
It tells us how the Guru enters the person.
One teaching must be heard deeply enough for jewels to arise within the mat, the understanding.
That is what our practice should protect.
Akhand Paath may remain where a family and Sangat can carry it honestly. It should not hide the absence of the family or Sangat. Sadharan Paath should be restored as a normal and serious way of reading Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji in full. The forty-eight-hour period should remain a practical guide, not a spiritual achievement.
And Amrit Vela should not be reduced to another sacred clock.
It gives the Sikh a disciplined beginning. Gurbani then carries that beginning into all eight watches and every breath. What is heard before dawn should enter the whole day. What is read in the gurdwara should enter the home. What passes through the ears should be held within and become conduct.
I return to the line which changed this article:
ਗਾਵੀਐ ਸੁਣੀਐ ਮਨਿ ਰਖੀਐ ਭਾਉ ॥
gaaveeai suneeai man rakheeai bhaau.
Sing, listen, and hold love within the mind.
We have worked hard to keep the Paath going. That care deserves respect. Generations of readers have preserved pronunciation, continuity and reverence. Families have turned to Bani in grief and gratitude. Gurdwaras have kept Guru Sahib at the centre of Sikh community life.
The question is whether we have left enough room for the rest of Guru Nanak Sahib Ji’s line.
The clock can tell us when the final Ang was reached.
It cannot tell us whether the Guru was heard.
Verification and sources
The Gurmukhi text, Ang references, Bani headings, Mahalla attributions and textual boundaries in this article were checked against SearchGurbani and SriGranth. Professor Sahib Singh Ji’s Guru Granth Darpan was consulted additionally for context and the plain-English senses. The renderings are learning aids. They do not replace the Gurmukhi or the need to read each pauri and Salok in its full setting.
Cross-check: Every Gurmukhi line, Ang reference and attribution in this article can be checked at SearchGurbani.com and SriGranth.org.
Correction note: If a mismatch is found in the Gurmukhi, Ang reference, Bani heading, Mahalla attribution, transliteration, English sense or historical description, PanthSeva will correct it publicly, calmly and with a dated correction note.
Source note: The reading of Amrit Vela in this article keeps both parts of the Gurbani evidence together. Japji Sahib gives an early-morning discipline joined to Sach Naam and vichaar. The Majh Ki Vaar Salok carries remembrance through all eight watches, and Sukhmani Sahib speaks of remembrance with every breath. The article therefore does not redefine Amrit Vela as a literal twenty-four-hour clock period. It argues that the practice begun there is meant to shape the whole day.
The official English Sikh Rehat Maryada currently hosted by the SGPC is used for its provisions on Hukam, Sadharan Paath and Akhand Paath. The linked PDF omits the letter (d) and labels the Sadharan Paath paragraph (e); other standard English editions label the same provision Article VIII(d). Article IX says Akhand Paath takes approximately forty-eight hours, requires clear and correct reading, allows a little longer where care requires it, expects participation by the family or congregation, and requires a listener to be present.
The historical discussion draws upon the SGPC’s account of the 1604 compilation and installation of the Adi Granth; Bhai Gurdas Ji, Vaar 1, Pauri 38; Harbans Singh, editor-in-chief, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Volume I, entry “Akhand Path”, pp. 63-64; and Gurinder Singh Mann, “Sri Gur Panth Prakash: Its Text, Context, and Significance”, Journal of Sikh and Punjab Studies, volume 23, numbers 1 and 2, 2016, p. 35 and note 49.
Historical and source claims were checked to 20 August 2026.
The historical and Maryada sources identify the development and regulation of the practice. They do not govern the doctrinal judgement.
That judgement remains answerable to Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
Strong disagreement is welcome. Contempt is not.
Bhul chuk maaf karni Ji.
Gurjit Singh Sandhu
PanthSeva
London