From the Guru's Court to the Gurdwara Gate

Sikh tradition places the nagara's ceremonial adoption in the time of Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru, who is remembered for articulating the principle of miri and piri, the union of temporal and spiritual authority, and for adopting the visible trappings of a royal court, including a standard, a throne-like seat, and the nagara itself, alongside the specifically devotional life the Sikh Gurus had built before him. Raising a royal drum at a place of worship was a pointed statement in that context, asserting that the Sikh community's spiritual authority did not require it to abstain from the marks of worldly power, a position that shaped how later Sikh institutions understood their relationship to political life.

The instrument has continued in that dual register since, heard today outside major gurdwaras such as the Golden Temple at set times of day and at life cycle events including weddings, where its function remains closer to a public proclamation than to musical accompaniment for the scripture being read or sung inside. The same reasoning is sometimes extended to explain why gurdwara complexes historically maintained a nagara alongside other insignia of authority such as a flagpole and an armory, treating the temporal and the devotional as a single continuous institution rather than two separate domains housed under one roof.