Order of the Day

About the Book

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.

About the Author

Daljit Singh Jawa has spent years mitigating this issue. In 1995 he translated eight hundred hymns from the middle of the Guru Granth Sahib that would most likely surface in a random opening of the Guru Granth Sahib in the middle. That little book found much use. Now in response to suggestions by many readers of the earlier abridged version, instead of giving only the italicized transliteration of the first couple of lines of the relevant shabad of the Hukam Nama, a full text is given both in Gurmukhi and italicized English. Also, instead of giving just the gist, a stanza wise explanation of each shabad has been provided, which is copied from the author’s earlier publication of the complete interpretation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib under the title “It Is the Same Light” in seven volumes. The author hopes the readers will find this book as a handy tool in understanding the daily message of the guru. Daljit Singh Jawa