Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Denominations

Khalsa

Also Known As Panth The path, and by extension the community that walks it. · The Khalsa Panth
Sikhism

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Origin 1699

The disciplined community of initiated Sikhs, the mainstream body of the faith, established by the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, at Baisakhi in 1699 when he initiated the first five, the Panj Piare, with sweetened water stirred by a double-edged sword. Its members take the amrit initiation and vow to keep a strict code of conduct, the rehat, wearing the five articles of faith, the Five Ks: kes, uncut hair; kangha, a comb; kara, a steel bracelet; kachhera, a cotton undergarment; and kirpan, a sword, with men taking the name Singh and women Kaur. The Khalsa upholds devotion to the one God and the teachings of the Gurus gathered in the Guru Granth Sahib, honest work, sharing with others, and readiness to defend the faith and the oppressed. It is the disciplined saint-soldier order at the heart of Sikhism, distinct from the ascetic Udasi and scholarly Nirmala.

Facts
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Initiation into the Khalsa and its rahit as normative 1Tradition: Sikhism
Position on Sexuality
Same-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation 2
The Akal Takht, the seat of central temporal authority for the Khalsa Panth, issued an edict in 2005 holding that any Sikh should always refrain from establishing gay relationships, describing such relationships as anti-religious, a blanket direction addressed to Sikhs generally rather than to clergy alone, with no passage read carving out an exception for ordinary membership. The Akal Takht disqualified four officiants at a Bathinda gurdwara for five years in October 2023 after they performed a same-sex wedding there, the Jathedar stating there is no room for same-sex marriage under Sikh tenets.
Sexuality Position Detail
In 2005, as Canada debated legalizing same-sex partnerships, the Akal Takht, the seat of central temporal authority for the Khalsa Panth, issued an edict holding that any Sikh, baptised or not, should always refrain from establishing gay relationships, describing such relationships as anti-religious and unnatural. The edict addressed Sikhs generally rather than clergy alone, and no passage found carves out an exception for ordinary membership. The Akal Takht has enforced it since: in October 2023 it disqualified four officiants, a head granthi, a priest, a ragi and a tabla player, at Gurdwara Kalgidhar Sahib in Bathinda for five years after they performed a same-sex wedding there that September, the Jathedar stating there is no room for same-sex marriage under Sikh tenets. 3
Origins
Origin Period
1699 1
Place of Origin
Anandpur Sahib, in the Punjab 1
Founder
Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708). 1
Organisation
Governance
Delegated representation from congregations up to a general conference 1
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, elected under the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925, administers the historic gurdwaras
Governance
A single central governing body over the whole movement 1
The Akal Takht issues edicts binding on the Panth
Ordination
Open to women and men 1
Amrit initiation is open to women and men on the same terms, and the Rahit Maryada permits women to perform any service. Their exclusion from kirtan and palki service at the Darbar Sahib is contested and has been litigated
Ordination
No ordination; authority rests on learning or on the whole body 1
History
Separation or Divergence
Its relation to Sikhs who are not initiated has nevertheless been contested, in the Singh Sabha reforms and in the Gurdwara reform movement 1
Separation or Divergence
No separation 1
Separation or Divergence
The Khalsa is an order of initiated Sikhs instituted by the tenth Guru, not a body that left the Panth 1
Practice
Liturgical Language
Punjabi in Gurmukhi script 1
Practice Status
The Khalsa's Amrit initiation ceremony and code of conduct are documented and published, and the tradition explicitly rejects secrecy as a matter of Sikh principle; observers are able to describe the ceremony's structure even though only initiates undergo it. 4
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
Learn More
The Order Made in 1699

The Khalsa is not a denomination within Sikhism. It is the initiated body at the centre of it, and the distinction it draws is between initiated and uninitiated Sikhs rather than between churches.

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru, instituted it at Anandpur at Vaisakhi in 1699. The traditional account has him ask the assembly for a head, and five men come forward in turn; these are the Panj Piare, the five beloved, and he initiated them with sweetened water stirred with a double-edged sword, then asked them to initiate him in turn. That reversal is the point of the story. The Guru placed himself under the discipline he had just created.

Initiation, amrit sanchar, commits a Sikh to the rahit, the code of conduct, and to the five articles of faith: kes, uncut hair; kangha, a comb; kara, a steel bracelet; kachhera, a cotton undergarment; and kirpan, a blade. Initiated men take the name Singh and women Kaur, replacing surnames that carried caste.

An initiated Sikh is Amritdhari. A Sikh who keeps uncut hair without having taken initiation is Keshdhari. One who follows the teaching without either is Sahajdhari. All three are Sikhs. There is no reliable figure for what proportion of Sikhs are initiated, and estimates offered for it should be treated as guesses.

The Khalsa was created in a particular situation. Sikhs were under armed pressure from the Mughal state, two Gurus had been executed, and what Gobind Singh instituted was a community recognisable on sight and unable to conceal itself. The visibility of the discipline is part of what the discipline is.

Who Governs, and the Argument About Who Counts

Sikhism has no clergy and no priesthood; any competent Sikh may read the scripture in public worship. Authority attaches instead to institutions and to the scripture itself.

The Guru Granth Sahib is not a book about the Guru but the Guru: Gobind Singh ended the line of human Gurus by conferring that status on the scripture, and it is treated accordingly: installed, attended, and put to rest each night. The Akal Takht at Amritsar is the seat of temporal authority, and its jathedar issues edicts that bind the community, though the extent of that authority is itself argued over.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, formed in 1920 and given statutory footing by an act of 1925, is the elected body that administers the historic gurdwaras of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, including the Golden Temple. It controls very substantial funds and property, and it is a political institution as much as a religious one. Its writ is territorial, and there is no world Sikh authority, which is the root of most disputes in the diaspora, where gurdwara management is settled locally and frequently in court.

The standard code of conduct, the Sikh Rehat Maryada, was drafted from 1927, approved in stages through the 1930s, and finalised in 1945. It has had only minor clarification since.

Who counts as a Sikh for the purpose of electing that committee is a live question, and it is decided by legislation rather than by the community: an amendment in 2016 excluded some millions of Sahajdhari Sikhs from the franchise.

Where It Is Now

India recorded 20,833,116 Sikhs at the 2011 census, about 1.72 per cent of the population, the great majority in Punjab. World figures are usually given as twenty-five to thirty million, which is a range rather than a count. The diaspora is large and well enumerated where censuses ask: Canada recorded 771,790 in 2021, England 520,100 in the same year, and Australia 210,400.

The events of 1984 remain the defining modern wound. The Indian army assaulted the Golden Temple complex in June, in an operation directed at an armed movement that had occupied it; the Akal Takht was heavily damaged, and the community rejected the government's reconstruction and rebuilt it itself. Casualty figures are disputed, the official account and independent estimates differing by an order of magnitude. The assassination of the prime minister in October was followed by organised killings of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere, for which prosecutions have been few and slow.

The committee that administers the shrines faces standing criticism from within the community: over corruption, over caste practice that Sikh teaching rejects outright, over the exclusion of women from performing devotional music at the Golden Temple, and over the handling of historic buildings.

What travels best is the langar: the free kitchen attached to every gurdwara, which feeds anyone who comes, seated on the floor without distinction of rank or religion. It is the most visible institution the tradition has, and it was designed in the sixteenth century precisely to make a point about caste that the community is still arguing about.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Amritsar, Cities

The sarbat khalsa, the assembly of the whole Khalsa, has been convened at the Akal Takht since the eighteenth century.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)

This source names Khalsa directly: "criticism from Singh Sabha and Tat Khalsa reformers who argued it imported a Hindu philosophical framework foreign to the Guru Granth Sahib's own teaching, a criticism the tradition's scholarship..."

Source Faridkot Tika (Adi Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji Satik)Giani Badan Singh of Sekhvari (first draft), completed by a revision synod of Sikh scholars chaired by Mahant Sumer Singh of Patna Sahib

This source names Khalsa directly: "Committee involved in the 1986 Sarbat Khalsa, presenting their own accounts of religious motivation and political violence during the Punjab insurgency."

This source names Khalsa directly: "Wikipedia's article on the Khalsa, community-edited."

Source Khalsa (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Khalsa directly: "The English Wikipedia article on Khalsa Aid, the Sikh humanitarian relief charity founded by Ravinder (Ravi) Singh in 1999."

Source Khalsa Aid (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Khalsa directly: "of religion, caste or background. Khalsa Aid has responded to natural disasters, conflict and refugee crises across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, operating without regard to the faith or..."

This source names Khalsa directly: "Khalsa Aid International's trustees' annual report and accounts, filed with the UK Charity Commission for England and Wales (registered charity 1163294) for the year ended 31 March 2025, recording..."

This source names Khalsa directly: "historically formed to defend the Khalsa and its shrines, recognizable by their distinctive blue robes, tall turbans wound around steel quoits and other weapons, and a martial bearing maintained..."

This source names Khalsa directly: "book is his scholarly history of the Khalsa Rahit, the Sikh code of conduct, tracing its development from the founding of the Khalsa through its various modern codifications."

Its dominant wing took its name and its programme from the Khalsa.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)

This source names Khalsa directly: "harvest festival, and founded the Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs bound by a distinct code of conduct and outward identity."

Source Khalsa (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Khalsa directly: "The Sarbat Khalsa held at Amritsar on Baisakhi, 29 March 1748, at which Nawab Kapur Singh brought together some sixty-five independent Sikh fighting bands, then contesting Mughal control of the..."

This source names Khalsa directly: "A Sarbat Khalsa convened at the Akal Takht in Amritsar in early 1986, in the aftermath of the Indian Army's June 1984 assault on the Golden Temple complex, Operation Blue Star, and the violence that..."

This source names Khalsa directly: "Its religious significance for Sikhs rests on the founding of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib in 1699, layered onto an older Punjabi harvest festival."

Source Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, 3rd editionLouis E. Fenech and W. H. McLeod

Belongs to Tradition

Sikhism, Religions

Branch Of

Sikhism, Religions

Holds Element

Ahankar (Ego), Vices

Ego is the fifth of the thieves and the one Sikh teaching treats as the ground of the other four.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

The sweetened water stirred with a double edged sword, by which a Sikh is initiated into the Khalsa.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The amritdhari has received initiation and belongs to the Khalsa, bound to the rahit in full.

Ends Sikh ceremonies of almost every kind, so a marriage, an initiation and the completion of a reading all close the same way.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The town is where the order was founded at the spring festival of 1699 and where the tenth Guru held his court.

Said standing with hands joined at the close of every ceremony and before every undertaking.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

A petition for protection, recited in the evening and part of the daily order.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The whisk is waved over the scripture as it would be over a sovereign, which is how the book's standing as the living guru is expressed.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The turban is required of a Khalsa Sikh man by the code of conduct, is worn by Sikh women who choose it, and covers the uncut hair that is itself one of the five articles of faith.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The giani is learned in the scripture and expounds it, and the title names knowledge rather than office.

The granthi is the custodian and reader of the Guru Granth Sahib, and the office is one of service rather than of priesthood; any initiated Sikh of good standing may hold it.

The place where Guru Nanak settled and farmed at the end of his life, reachable from India since 2019 by a corridor that requires no visa.

The gurdwara marks the battle of 1705 and the forty who had left the tenth Guru's service and returned to die in it.

The temple in the pool at Amritsar is the central shrine of the Panth, open on four sides, and the scripture is read in it from before dawn until late at night.

Ik Onkar, Mantras

Written with the numeral one, so that the assertion of oneness is made in a character that cannot be declined or translated away.

The numeral one followed by Onkar opens the Guru Granth Sahib and every major composition in it, so the sign is the first thing a reader meets rather than an ornament added to the book.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)

The second morning bani, and one of the compositions recited at the initiation of the Khalsa.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The first of the daily banis, recited every morning, and named in the code of conduct in the order of Nitnem.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The jathedar of the Akal Takht is the highest temporal authority the Khalsa recognises, and can summon a Sikh to answer before the community.

The cotton undergarment, one of the five, worn for readiness and for restraint.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account
Kam (Lust), Vices

Lust is the first of the five thieves the Sikh scripture names, held to rob a person of the awareness of the divine name.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

The wooden comb kept in the hair, one of the five, standing for order kept rather than hair left wild.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The steel bracelet on the right wrist, a circle without end, worn as one of the five.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The sanctified pudding is given to everyone present without distinction, which is itself a statement about the congregation.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account
Kartarpur Bir, Artifacts & Relics

The Kartarpur manuscript is held by descendants of the compiler and is treated as the earliest witness to the text, though the community's authority rests on the printed standard rather than on any one manuscript.

Kartarpur Bir, Textual Witnesses

The volume of 1604 held at Kartarpur is the earliest compilation of the Sikh scripture, while the text the Panth reads and prints descends from the later recension, and the relation between the two is argued over.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

Uncut hair is the first of the five and the one the turban exists to cover.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The keshdhari keeps the uncut hair without having taken initiation, and stands within the community without the full obligation.

The double edged sword between two curved swords and a circle, used at the initiation and standing on the flag.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The sword is one of the five articles a Khalsa Sikh wears at all times, carried as the duty to defend the defenceless rather than as a weapon of choice.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

Said last thing at night and also over the dead, and that double use is the whole of its character.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account
Krodh (Anger), Vices

Anger is among the five thieves the Sikh scripture names.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)
Lobh (Greed), Vices

Greed is among the five thieves the Sikh scripture names.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

Attachment is among the five thieves, the pull of what is one's own that keeps a person turned away from the divine name.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)
Mul Mantar, Mantras

The opening lines of the scripture, and the compressed statement of the theology. Sikhism uses the word mantar itself, so the category is the tradition's own.

Remembrance of the divine name is the central discipline the Khalsa code binds an initiated Sikh to, prescribed at fixed hours of the day.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

The birthplace of Guru Nanak, in Pakistan, visited by pilgrims travelling on a restricted permit.

The saffron flag outside every gurdwara, lowered and re-clothed once a year.

The canopied palanquin under which the scripture rests and in which it is carried, again the treatment given to a sovereign.

The Five Beloved Ones administer initiation, and the office recalls the five who offered their heads at Anandpur in 1699.

The patit is an initiated Sikh who has broken one of the four grave prohibitions, and the category exists because the rahit provides a way back through penance.

The scripture is arranged internally by raga rather than by author or by date, so its ordering is musical before it is anything else.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)

The ragi sings the scripture in the measures it was composed in, and the singing of it is the central act of Sikh worship.

The evening office, assembled from the compositions of four Gurus rather than written as one piece.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The cloths in which the scripture is wrapped when it is not being read, changed and offered by the congregation.

Sahajdhari, Religious Roles & Titles

The sahajdhari follows Sikh teaching without keeping the uncut hair or taking initiation. The Khalsa recognises such a person as a Sikh while the rahit that defines the Khalsa does not bind them.

Sat (Truth), Virtues

Truth opens the Sikh scripture in the phrase naming the true name, and the Khalsa discipline binds the initiated Sikh to truthful living as the ground on which the rest of the code stands.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Sikh StudiesPashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.)

The singing of the scripture's hymns in the ragas the scripture itself assigns them, which is the central act of congregational worship.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The Sikh Rehat Maryada, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee's 1945 code of conduct, codifies this order's discipline, the Five Ks and the norms of the amrit-initiated Khalsa.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The seat where the tenth Guru dictated the final recension of the scripture, and a centre of Sikh learning called the Guru's Kashi for that reason.

The seat at Nanded marks the place where the tenth Guru died and where he conferred the succession on the scripture.

The seat at Anandpur stands where the order was founded, and it holds weapons attributed to the tenth Guru.

The seat at Patna marks the birthplace of the tenth Guru.

Ten stanzas given over almost entirely to a demolition of religious externals, recited in the morning discipline.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

The seat built facing the temple across the pool is the first and senior of the five, and from it are issued the edicts binding on the Panth.

The order of initiated Sikhs founded at Anandpur in 1699, whose members take amrit, wear the five articles of faith and keep the daily prayers.

The Sarbat Khalsa is the assembly of the whole Khalsa, at which resolutions are passed in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib, and the Khalsa holds its decisions to carry the authority of the community acting as one.

The five seats of temporal authority issue edicts binding on the Panth, and before them Sikhs may be summoned to answer for their conduct.

Waheguru, Mantras

The name most used in remembrance, repeated aloud in company and silently with the breath.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

Held Differently

Guru, Religious Roles & Titles

The Khalsa holds no living guru. Guru Gobind Singh ended the human succession in 1708 and vested the guruship in the scripture and in the community, so the guru is a book and a body of people rather than a person.

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Ardas Opening, Prayers
Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

Writings attributed to Guru Gobind Singh in the Dasam Granth are used in this order's Amrit Sanchar, the Khalsa initiation ceremony, though the text's authorship and scope remain debated among scholars.

Source Debating the Dasam GranthRobin Rinehart

The two directions a life can face, toward the Guru or toward one's own mind, is Sikh teaching held by this order.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod
Source SikhismW. H. McLeod

The Guru Granth Sahib, installed and revered as the eternal living Guru, is this order's central scripture and object of devotion.

The Khalsa keeps the day with a continuous forty-eight-hour reading of the whole Guru Granth Sahib, a procession led by the flag and by the initiated, hymn singing, and langar served free to all comers.

That one light passed through the ten human Gurus and then into the Guru Granth Sahib is Khalsa doctrine, the reason the scripture is installed and treated as a living sovereign.

Haumai, Doctrines

The self that has made itself the centre, described as a chronic disease that carries its own cure, is Sikh teaching on the human condition held by this order.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod
Source Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, 3rd editionLouis E. Fenech and W. H. McLeod
Hukam, Doctrines

Living within the divine order rather than petitioning against it is Sikh teaching held by this order as the central religious disposition.

Ik Onkar, Doctrines

That reality is one, unborn and self-existent, opens the Guru Granth Sahib and is foundational Khalsa doctrine.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

That temporal and spiritual authority belong together, worn as two swords at once, is Khalsa doctrine, expressed in this order's readiness to defend the faith and the oppressed.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod

Liberation through remembrance of the divine name while living an ordinary working life is core Khalsa teaching, the householder path this order takes alongside its martial discipline.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod
Naam, Doctrines

The divine Name as God's own self-disclosure and the means of a person's transformation is central Sikh teaching held by this order.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Clergy or specialist role within Khalsa.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)

The petition for the good of all that closes Sikh prayer, universal by construction, is held by this order.

Source SikhismW. H. McLeod

Seva is obligation rather than option for the initiated: work in the langar, cleaning the gurdwara, washing dishes and minding shoes, done by everyone regardless of standing, since the dissolving of pride is as much the point as the service.

Source Guru Granth SahibCompiled by Guru Arjan, 1604; final recension attributed to Guru Gobind Singh, 1706the holders' own account
Shabad, Doctrines

The divine Word, treated as the Guru itself, is Sikh teaching held by this order, the doctrine that let a book succeed a line of human Gurus.

The Sikh Rehat Maryada, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee's 1945 code of conduct, codifies this order's discipline, the Five Ks and the norms of the amrit-initiated Khalsa.

Source Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of ConductShiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committeethe holders' own account

For the Khalsa this is its own founding day, when Guru Gobind Singh initiated the first five in 1699; it is the customary occasion for taking amrit initiation, and processions are led by the flag and by five initiated Sikhs.

The five are worn at all times by those who have taken amrit, so the obligation begins at initiation rather than at birth: kesh, kangha, kara, kachera and kirpan, with men taking the name Singh and women Kaur. Uninitiated Sikhs are not bound to them.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Zafarnama (Wikipedia and SikhiWiki)Wikipedia contributors; SikhiWiki editors

Position On

Miri and piri together: the Panth is a political body as well as a religious one, and the two swords are held to be equal in rank.

Related To

The Khalsa is the order of initiated Sikhs founded at this event.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)
Sources
1. Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, 3rd edition
Louis E. Fenech and W. H. McLeod, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014s.v. KhalsaView the Source
2. Akal Takht Says No to Gay Relationships (SikhNet)
SikhNetthe stated position on sexuality and its supporting detail, the 2005 edictView the Source
3. Priests at Bathinda Gurdwara Disqualified by Akal Takht for Performing Same-Sex Wedding (Onmanorama)
Onmanorama, 2023the stated position on sexuality and its supporting detail, the October 2023 enforcementView the Source
4. Sikhs of the Khalsa: A History of the Khalsa Rahit
W. H. McLeod, Oxford University Press, 2003View the Source
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism
Harbans Singh (editor-in-chief), Punjabi University, Patiala, 1998View the Source
The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies
Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2014View the Source
Canon Formation in the Sikh Tradition (Gurinder Singh Mann)
Gurinder Singh Mann, Global Institute for Sikh Studies, 2001View the Source
Sikh Rahit Maryada, the Sikh Code of Conduct
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, 1945The code of conduct and the five articles of faith
Quote, The code of conduct and the five articles of faith
Drafted from 1927 and settled in 1945; the standard statement of Khalsa discipline.
the holders' own accountView the Source
Census of India 2011
Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, 2011Religion tables
Quote, Religion tables
20,833,116 Sikhs recorded in India in 2011, about 1.72 per cent of the population.
View the Source
The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority
Pashaura Singh, Oxford University Press, 2000On the scripture as Guru
Quote, On the scripture as Guru
The line of human Gurus ended with the conferral of that status on the scripture itself.
View the Source
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