Akhand Path: MP3 Downloads

Every week in our local Gurdwara here in Espanola, New Mexico the sangat participates in an Akhand Path.  This is a continuous un-interrupted reading of the full 1430 pages of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib (The living Guru of the Sikhs). People generally read for an hour, before being replaced by another person. This is like a 3-4 day non stop relay of people reading the Siri Guru Granth Sahib. Akhand Paath’s are often done in people’s homes as well, to commemorate special occasions. The Akhand Path is like an “umbrella” of light and protection for the sangat/community and gives participants the opportunity to experience deeper insight, understanding, and experience of the Shabad Guru (The word as Guru).

 

One thing I am grateful for, working at SikhNet, is that we are always enveloped in the sound vibration of the Akhand paath. The SikhNet office is part of the Gurdwara building, and just a step through our inside door and you are in front of the Guru hearing the Akhand path. We often hear people ring the bell when someone is late, and get the opportunity to read from the Guru during our work day.

 

Akhand Path Audio Recordings

 

Over the years many people have asked me about getting audio mp3 recordings of the complete reading of Siri Guru Granth Sahib. I know many friends who have a small dedicated mp3 player with speakers, that they use to play an Akhand path reading in their home all the time.  This is a special way of having the Guru’s bani always vibrating in our homes.

A couple of years ago we started some new SikhNet radio channels, and one of them (Channel 5) was dedicated just to Akhand Path audio.  In fact there are about 115 people listening right now to the SikhNet Radio Channel 5 – Akhand path. Of course with this method you have to be connected to the internet in some way. However,  this is a very accessible way to “tune in” to the same virtual Akhand paath that many others are listening to.

I’m not aware of many complete audio recordings available of Akhand Path readings, and I don’t think any of them are available for purchase anymore. These recordings were made pre-MP3 digital player days, so the way they were stored (tapes, CDs) would not work for continuous playback in today’s digital players.

Many years ago I spent quite a bit of time on the task of joining the many individual audio recordings into complete single audio files that could be played non-stop. Until recently it wasn’t practical to make these large recordings available online due to the size and bandwidth required (+cost). Imagine downloading a 2GB file on a dialup modem!! That would have taken ages.  Also most audio editing software can’t handle these giant files that are 70 hours long and which take a lot of time to do anything (open/save/edits)! Saving and moving them is a major pain to say the least. In any case you won’t have to worry about any of that because the work is done.

In order to make these recordings more accessible, yesterday and today I worked on converting the files so that they are much smaller and under 800MB in size. Though this is still a large file to download, it will be easier for people to download and share (plus it will not be such a hit on SikhNet’s server hosting costs with thousands of people downloading multi GB files!)

I am personally grateful for those people that spent the time to make the actual original recordings available to us all! I am just doing my part to help make them more accessible in this digital age.

 

Akhand Path Gurbani MP3 Downloads

• Prof Satnam Singh Sethi  (Listen / Download – File Size: 732 MB – Audio length 71 hours)  This recording is fairly old and converted and joined together from many cassette tapes. This is one of my favorites because Prof. Satnam Singh has a great voice and makes it extra enjoyable to listen to.
• Bhai Balbir Singh Sidki  (Listen  / Download – File Size: 720 MB – Audio length 70 hours )  This recording is one of the newer recordings released on a large number of audio CD disks.
• Unknown Singh  (Listen / Download – File Size: 706 MB – Audio length 68.5 hours)   This is a recording that was produced by an unknown Sikh out of Canada and originally released as a data DVD many years ago.
• Bhai Sarvan Singh (El Sobrante) (Listen / Download – File Size: 797MB – Audio length 77 hours)
• Giani Bhupinder Singh (Damdami Taksal) (Listen / Download – File Size: 1.1GB – Audio length 68 hours )

The above recordings are a part of the Gurbani Media Center. You can also listen/download some of the smaller individual recordings of parts of the Akhand Path.

You can also download all of the above audios through BitTorrent which is best method for downloading. Use any BitTorrent program like uTorrent  and download the Akhand Path torrent file.

I hope that those of you who download and play these recordings experience the Guru’s vibration and sacredness.  I would also like to encourage you to support SikhNet with a donation to contribute back to this  free service which is provided only with YOUR support.