Order of the Day: The Daily Hukam Namas

An important aspect of any Sikh religious service is the reading from the Guru Granth or taking Hukam Nama. The Guru Granth Sahib is a hefty tome of 1,430 pages. Sikh tradition is that from roughly the middle half of the Guru Granth, usually at the beginning of a randomly selected page (or the previous page if the hymn started there), one hymn is selected. This is read as the Hukam Nama or the Order of the Day. Clearly, many Sikhs living outside the Punjabi ambience would have great difficulty figuring out its meaning.