Many Sikhs affirm initiation into the Khalsa, the order founded by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, through the ceremony of Amrit Sanchar, in which initiates drink sweetened water (amrit) stirred with a double-edged sword to the recitation of sacred verses. The initiated Sikh takes on the discipline of the Rahit and the five articles of faith (the Five Ks): uncut hair (kesh), a comb (kangha), a steel bracelet (kara), a sword (kirpan), and a particular undergarment (kachera). Men take the name Singh and women Kaur.
The Khalsa was founded at Anandpur Sahib on Vaisakhi day, 1699, when Guru Gobind Singh, according to Sikh tradition, called for volunteers willing to give their heads; five men who stepped forward, the Panj Pyare ("Five Beloved Ones"), became the first initiates and administered amrit to one another. In a step Sikh tradition treats as spiritually significant, Guru Gobind Singh then asked the Panj Pyare to initiate him in turn, so that the Guru received amrit from the very disciples he had just initiated, an act read as symbolising the merging of Guru and Khalsa into a single collective spiritual authority that would, after the tenth Guru's death, pass to the scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) and the corporate community (Guru Panth) rather than to any further individual leader.