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Morning, and the Compositions Set Aside for It

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Morning, and the Compositions Set Aside for It

A small number of compositions from across the Guru Granth Sahib are gathered, outside the rag arrangement, into fixed sequences for recitation at set times, and the morning sequence is the most substantial of them.

It opens the volume, before the rag sections begin: the foundational statement of the divine nature, followed by the long composition of Guru Nanak that is recited at dawn. Further sequences stand for the evening and for the close of the day, and further compositions used daily are drawn from the rag sections themselves.

The relation between the two arrangements is worth being exact about. The volume is not reorganised for use. The compositions stay where the rag arrangement puts them, and the daily order is a separate sequence that draws on them, so that a composition can exist in the volume once and be recited in a different position. Where the material stands at the front of the volume, it is gathered there and not filed under any measure.

For a reader, the practical effect is that the best known parts of the Guru Granth Sahib are not distributed evenly through it. A person raised in the tradition may know the opening pages and a handful of compositions from Asa, Ramkali and Suhi extremely well, and have far less familiarity with the long central sections, which is a fact about how the volume is used rather than about its contents.

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Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition
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