A Sikh Reading That Cannot Stop for 48 Hours
Akhand Path is the unbroken cover-to-cover recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib by relay readers, finished in about two days.
An Akhand Path is the cover-to-cover recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib without a single pause. The Guru Granth Sahib, the central scripture of Sikhism and treated by Sikhs as the eternal living Guru, runs 1,430 pages of poetry composed in several languages of the medieval Punjab and recorded in the Gurmukhi script.
A team of pathis — trained readers — relay in shifts of one to two hours so the chanting never stops. The full reading takes about 48 hours and ends with a bhog, a closing ceremony at which the final hymns are sung and karah parshad, a sweet flour-and-ghee preparation, is shared. The first known Akhand Path is traditionally attributed to the time of Guru Gobind Singh in the early 18th century, with widespread practice consolidating in the 19th and 20th.
Families commission Akhand Paths to mark births, weddings, anniversaries of relatives' deaths, the inauguration of a new home, and the major Sikh holidays — Vaisakhi in April, Guru Nanak's birthday in November, the martyrdom days of Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur. At the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, the gurdwara more commonly known as the Golden Temple, multiple Akhand Paths run continuously through the year.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the body that administers historic gurdwaras in Punjab, sets standards for how an Akhand Path is conducted: silence around the readers, the same volume and pace throughout, no skipping. The point is not just to read the words but to keep them present, audible, and uninterrupted.
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