Two angels called Chitar and Gupat (who are also known as Chitra and Gupta) keep detailed records of the thoughts and behaviors of all human beings, Sikhs believe. They write that information in a mystical code of everything that has ever happened in the universe, which is known as the Akashic records. (“Akashic” is a Sanskrit word that means either “sky” or “space”.)

Chitar and Gupat's names are similar to the name of a Hindu deity called Chitragupta, whom Hindus believe keeps heavenly records of people's deeds on Earth.

Deeds Both Public and Private

Chitar and Gupat work as a team, with Chitar writing about people’s public deeds (their choices about which others know) and Gupat writing about people’s private deeds (their decisions that are known only to themselves and God). The Shri Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s main sacred text, refers to this angelic team as “the recording angels of the conscious and the subconscious” who “write the accounts of all mortal beings.”

Basis for Judgment

God consults the records that Chitar and Gupat have kept of a person’s life when he dies and makes decisions regarding each soul’s destiny on the basis of the two angel’s records. “Chitar and Gupat, the recording angels of the conscious and the subconscious, sing to You,” says the Shri Guru Granth Sahib on page 347. “They know, and they write, and on the basis of what they write, the Lord of Dharma passes judgment.”

The Shri Guru Granth Sahib later describes a guilty man’s lament about Chitar and Gupat being summoned by cosmic accountants to share their records of his life: “The accountants summoned Chitar and Gupat, the recording scribes of the conscious and the unconscious, to ask for an account of each and every moment.

When the Righteous Judge of Dharma calls for my account, there shall be a very heavy balance against me” (page 1104).

In Hinduism, a single angelic being called Chitragupta (a combination of both Chitar and Gupat's alternate names) records people's deeds and presents them to the god of death, who uses the information to make decisions about their destinies.

Thoughts Become Actions

Chitar and Gupat remind people about how important their thoughts are, since their thoughts determine which actions they decide to take. In his book The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh, Tara Singh Bains and Hugh Johnston write: “The angels who record your deeds are Chitra and Gupta. Chitra means picture: It is what you create. Gupta means within yourself: It is your inner essence. Chitragupta, as one word, means enacted thought. Every action has two phases: First the thought within, and then the thought put into practice and made physical. If you think about a crime, even if you don’t perform it, you have still committed yourself, and the recording angels will have it in their accounts.”

Suresh and Usha Sharma write in their book Cultural and Religious Heritage of India: Sikhism that not only is thinking about Chitar and Gupat an important way for people to pay attention to the thoughts in their minds, but Chitar and Gupat are actually metaphors for parts of people’s minds rather than literal angels: “The two angels, Chitra and Gupta, who are supposed to be writing out our deeds in an ‘account book’ are no others than the conscious (Chit) and unconscious (Gupta) part of our mind. The Dharmaraja, or the lord of our Law, to whom we have to render the account is the God-nature (or the soul) within us.”

They continue: “If therefore, occasionally we find references to the ‘inexorable writ of the Karma,’ it means only that the deeds (Kirat) that we have done in the past (Poorab) have become our Karma (destiny or lot) which cannot be erased and would lead to pleasure or pain, deliverance or transmigration, except when one turns away from one’s self with a conscious effort, led by the Guru’s Word, with faith in God’s Grace, when his old writ is washed off and one merges one’s will in God’s will. In their state, there is no pain but all joy; no strife, but all tranquility and equipoise; no coming and going but an eternal moveless state, and all that happens is good and true, for it is now He who moves and does, not I.”

Divine Harmony

A famous Sikh song or chant called the Japji Sahib (written by Guru Nanak Dev, who founded the Sikh religion) describes Chitar and Gupat at work somewhere in the universe, keeping their records in God’s presence, joined with him in the divine harmony of creation: “Where is the gate, where the mansion, from where You watch all creation? Where sounds of musical melodies, of instruments playing, minstrel singing, are joined in divine harmony? In various measures, celestial musicians sing of You. There the breezes blow, the waters run and the fires burn. There the Dharmaraja, like a kind of death, sits in state. There the recording angels, Chitra and Gupta, write for Dharmaraja to read and adjudicate.”