Amrit Sanchar

The rite

The ceremony is conducted in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib by five initiated Sikhs standing for the Panj Pyare. Water and sugar crystals are placed in an iron bowl and stirred with a khanda, a double-edged sword, while five compositions are recited — the Japji, Jaap, Amrit Savaiye, Chaupai and Anand Sahib.

The amrit is then given to the candidate to drink, sprinkled on the eyes and poured on the hair, five times each, with the salutation repeated at each administration. The candidate afterwards receives the rehat, the code of conduct, and takes the name Singh or Kaur.

Undertakings

Initiates commit to wearing the five articles of faith at all times, to reciting the daily prayers, to abstaining from tobacco, from meat killed by ritual bleeding, from adultery, and from cutting the hair. They accept the authority of the Guru Granth Sahib and of the Khalsa, and renounce previous caste identity and rival religious allegiances.

Four transgressions are treated as breaking the initiation, requiring the candidate to appear before five initiated Sikhs and be reinitiated.

Practice and standing

There is no fixed age; initiation is taken when the candidate understands and accepts the discipline, by men and women on identical terms and with the same rite. Many Sikhs never take it, and the relation between the initiated and the wider community is a live question in Sikh life, since the rehat maryada defines a Sikh more broadly than initiation alone.

The iron bowl, the sword, and the absence of any priest — five ordinary initiated Sikhs suffice — are all deliberate. Nothing in the rite requires a specialist, which is consistent with a tradition that abolished intermediary religious office.