Initiation into the Khalsa

Amrit Sanchar is the Sikh rite of initiation by which a person enters the Khalsa, the community of committed, initiated Sikhs. It re-enacts the founding event that Sikh tradition places at Anandpur in 1699, when Guru Gobind Singh is said to have called for volunteers willing to give their heads, initiated the first five (the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved), and then received initiation from them in turn. In the rite five initiated Sikhs prepare amrit, water sweetened with sugar crystals and stirred with a double-edged sword while the daily prayers are recited, which the candidate drinks and which is sprinkled on the eyes and hair.

The initiate undertakes the discipline of the Khalsa, including the five articles of faith worn on the body (the uncut hair, comb, steel bracelet, cotton undergarment and sword or dagger) and the code of conduct set out in the Rahit Maryada. The rite is taken by choice at an age when the candidate can understand the commitment, and it is open to women and men on the same terms, a deliberate feature of a tradition that made the equality of the initiated central to its self-understanding.