What is a Hukamnama?

A Hukamnama is the order of the day — a passage read from Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and received as guidance for the moment. The word joins hukam, meaning command or will, with nama, a written order. In a Gurdwara the Granthi opens the Granth at random after Ardaas, then reads the composition found there, beginning from the top of the left-hand page so that a complete thought is read rather than a fragment.

Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji opens with the Mool Mantar, the statement placed before everything else in the Granth:

ੴ ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ ਅਕਾਲ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਅਜੂਨੀ ਸੈਭੰ ਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ॥

How Gurbani Soul draws a Hukam

In the app, the Hukam control opens the Granth for you and shows a complete unit — a whole shabad or composition, not a single line lifted out of context. The text is the same verbatim Gurmukhi that is stored in the corpus, cited by its Ang, so what you read on the device matches what is printed in the source edition.

You can draw a Hukam at any time. Alongside the draw there is a Hukam of the day: one complete Hukam for the whole day, chosen on your device by the date, which the widget shows on your Home Screen and Siri opens when you ask for today’s Hukam. It is not the Hukamnama issued from Sri Harmandir Sahib. There is nothing to sign in to and nothing is sent anywhere: both happen entirely on your device.

If you would like to search for a line you remember, or read around the passage a Hukam gives you, the Knowledge Base search and the reader let you move through the Granth Ang by Ang. A Hukamnama is meant to be read slowly and reflected on; the app tries to stay quiet and simply put the words in front of you.