The Rehat Maryada's list of prohibitions is more specific than most codes and reads as a catalogue of what Punjab was doing in 1945: no idol worship, no fasting for merit, no belief in omens or auspicious days, no astrology, no ritual pollution around birth or death, no sacred threads, no wearing of caste marks, no reverence for graves or living gurus, no superstition of any kind. The Singh Sabha movement from 1873 onward had spent seventy years trying to strip these out of Sikh practice, and the code is the summary of that campaign. It has not worked. Punjab and the diaspora sustain an enormous dera culture with living gurus commanding mass followings, akhand paths are booked for outcomes, red threads and auspicious dates are ordinary, and photographs of the Gurus are garlanded in homes. Sikh missionary colleges pursue this relentlessly and are themselves accused of stripping the tradition of everything but argument. The gap between code and practice here is the single largest one on the page.