Nitnem is the daily discipline of recitation. In the morning: Japji Sahib, Jaap Sahib, Tav Prasad Savaiye, Chaupai Sahib and Anand Sahib. In the evening: Rehras Sahib. At night before sleeping: Kirtan Sohila.
An initiated Sikh is required to do this daily. The morning banis take about forty-five minutes to an hour recited properly.
Rehras is recited at sunset and includes compositions of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Guru Amar Das Ji, Guru Ram Das Ji, Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Guru Gobind Singh Ji. It is the point in the day when a working household stops.
Kirtan Sohila is short, five hymns, and is also the composition recited at cremations.
The whole structure is fixed by the Sikh Rehat Maryada of 1945 and follows practice that was already general. What varies between traditions is which additional compositions are included, which is one of the practical differences between the mainstream, the Damdami Taksal, the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and the Nihang dals.
Ardas closes each of these and every service in a gurdwara. Its text runs through the persecutions in order, the ones who were cut apart on the wheel, boiled, sawn and scalped, and asks that they be remembered by name. A household saying it at sunset recites the eighteenth century every day of its life without treating it as history.
Amritdhari Sikhs are bound to it by the rehat. A great many others do part of it, and the evening Rehras in particular is kept in households that do nothing else.
The gutka, the pocket volume holding the banis, is the most printed Punjabi book by a very large margin and is in almost every Sikh house.