The Daily Discipline

Nitnem, literally the daily practice or daily rule, is the set of prescribed prayers that a Sikh is enjoined to recite each day, the backbone of individual devotion that frames the day from before dawn to bedtime. The prayers are drawn from the Guru Granth Sahib and from the compositions of the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, and their recitation at fixed times gives the observant Sikh's day a devotional shape comparable in function to the fixed hours of prayer in other traditions, though grounded in the Sikh theology of the Name.

The morning prayers, recited in the ambrosial hours before dawn, centre on the Japji Sahib of Guru Nanak, the great opening composition of the Sikh scripture, together with further hymns. The evening brings the Rehras Sahib, and the night the Kirtan Sohila recited before sleep. The number and exact selection of the daily prayers is fixed by tradition and by the Sikh code of conduct, and their faithful recitation is regarded as a minimum discipline of Sikh life.