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Sacred Correspondences
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The Daily Ceremony of Placing and Retiring the Scripture

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The Daily Ceremony of Placing and Retiring the Scripture

A Palki Sahib is substantial gurdwara furniture rather than a portable litter despite its name, built by specialist woodworkers and metalsmiths, a wood frame under a canopy plated in silver or gold according to the gurdwara's means, with cushions and bedding replaced on a regular schedule as they wear.

Who builds them

Workshops in Punjab specialize in producing this kind of gurdwara furnishing, and diaspora communities abroad increasingly commission custom built palkis matched to their own building rather than importing older ones, a modern extension of a craft historically concentrated in one region.

A ceremony repeated every day

Beyond its construction, the Palki Sahib is at the center of a scheduled daily ritual, sevadars place the Guru Granth Sahib into it each morning, Prakash, and return it to a resting place each night, Sukhasan, a routine performed daily rather than a one time act of installation. The frame and metalwork are built to last for years, while the fabric elements, the canopy lining and cushions, are the parts actually replaced as they show wear from that daily handling.

Scale varies with the size of the congregation

A small gurdwara may use a modest palki little larger than a canopied table, while a large one built for a substantial diaspora congregation commissions a correspondingly larger structure, so the object scales with the community it serves rather than following one fixed standard size the way some other regalia on this list does.

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