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Amritsar

Also Known As Ramdaspur The city of Ram Das, the name it carried from its foundation before the pool gave it the name it has now.
India

The central city of Sikhism, in Punjab, north west India. Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, began excavating its sacred pool in 1577, and his successor Guru Arjan built the Harmandir Sahib in the middle of it and installed the newly compiled Adi Granth there in 1604. The Akal Takht faces the temple across the causeway and is the seat of the tradition's temporal authority. The city carries two of the most contested memories in modern Indian religious history, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 and the storming of the Golden Temple complex in June 1984.

Facts
Site
Pilgrimage
Major pilgrimage destination today 1
The Harmandir Sahib draws visitors year round and its free kitchen serves tens of thousands of meals a day, though Sikhism imposes no obligation of pilgrimage.
Origins
Founded
Guru Ram Das acquired the site and began excavating the sacred pool in the 1570s; the settlement was known first as Ramdaspur, and Guru Arjan completed the temple in the pool and installed the Adi Granth there in 1604. 1
Attributions
Tradition
Sikhism, with the Harmandir Sahib as its central shrine and the Akal Takht facing it as the seat of temporal authority. 1
Traditions
Sacred and Liturgical Languages
Gurmukhi is the script of the Guru Granth Sahib, whose hymns are in Sant Bhasha, a devotional register drawing on Punjabi, Braj, Persian and Sanskrit vocabulary. 1
Learn More
The Pool and the Temple

The pool that gives Amritsar its name, amrit sarovar or pool of nectar, was excavated on land the fourth Guru, Ram Das, acquired in the 1570s, and the settlement that grew around it was known at first simply as Ramdaspur, the city of Ram Das. His successor Guru Arjan built a temple in the middle of the water and had a causeway laid to reach it. The building sits lower than the surrounding walkway, so a visitor descends to enter rather than climbing, and it opens on all four sides, a deliberate refusal of the single ceremonial entrance and the single permitted caste. In 1604 Guru Arjan installed there the volume he had compiled from the hymns of his predecessors and of Hindu and Muslim poets, the Adi Granth, which is carried into the temple each morning and taken to its resting place each night in a procession that has not stopped since.

The gold that gives the building its English name was applied in the early nineteenth century under Ranjit Singh, more than two hundred years after it was raised. Continuous singing of the scripture goes on inside from before dawn until late at night, and the free kitchen beside the complex serves anyone who sits down in line for it, without charge and without asking who they are. That combination, a building on low ground open at four sides, scripture rather than an image at the centre, and food given to strangers, is the argument the place makes in physical form.

The Akal Takht and the Two Swords

Facing the temple across the causeway stands the Akal Takht, the throne of the timeless one, raised by the sixth Guru, Hargobind, in the early seventeenth century after his father Arjan had died in Mughal custody. Hargobind is described as wearing two swords, one for spiritual and one for temporal authority, and that pairing, miri and piri, is why the tradition has never treated religious and political questions as belonging in separate rooms. The Akal Takht is the senior of the five seats of authority in Sikhism; edicts issued from it bind the community, and a summons to appear before it is a serious matter for any Sikh in public life. Assemblies of the whole community, the sarbat khalsa, have been convened there at intervals since the eighteenth century.

In June 1984 the Indian Army entered the complex to remove an armed group that had fortified it, in an operation that killed large numbers of pilgrims present for a martyrdom anniversary and destroyed the Akal Takht building. The government rebuilt it; the community then demolished what the government had built and raised it again through kar seva, voluntary labour, on the ground that a structure put up by the state was not theirs. The assassination of the prime minister by her Sikh bodyguards later that year, and the killings of Sikhs that followed in Delhi and elsewhere, belong to the same sequence. The atlas records the site as contested rather than settled.

Connections

Associated With

Ahmad Shah Durrani's Forces Massacre Sikhs at the Vadda Ghallughara, Spread Events

This source names Amritsar directly: "holiest shrine, the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar, and packing its sacred pool with debris."

Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal
Amrit Sarovar, Bodies of Water
Gurbani Broadcast from Sri Harmandir Sahib, Broadcast Work

This source names Amritsar directly: "Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab, India, is a broadcasting practice controlled by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the elected body that has governed Sikh..."

Source History of Gurbani Broadcast (The Tribune)
Guru Gobind Singh Hunting (Faiz Printing Press, Victoria and Albert Museum, IM.2:21-1917), Sacred Art & Iconography

This source names Amritsar directly: "Faiz Printing Press near Akal Bunga, Amritsar, part of an edition of 2000 copies, showing Guru Gobind Singh hunting in the jungle."

Source Guru Gobind Singh Hunting, museum number IM.2:21-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Guru Gobind Singh Hunting, museum number IM.2:21-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum), Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "Faiz Printing Press near Akal Bunga, Amritsar, part of a 2000-copy edition."

Source Guru Gobind Singh Hunting, museum number IM.2:21-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Homosexuality and Sikhism (Wikipedia), Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "(custodian) of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, Amritsar, Punjab, India, the highest seat of Sikh temporal-religious (miri-piri) authority for interpreting Sikh teachings, issued an edict denouncing same-sex..."

Source Homosexuality and Sikhism (Wikipedia)
Installation of the Guru Granth Sahib in the Harmandir Sahib (RE:ONLINE), Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "and installation of the Adi Granth at Amritsar, the scribe Bhai Gurdas, and Bhai Buddha's appointment as first custodian."

Source Installation of the Guru Granth Sahib in the Harmandir Sahib (RE:ONLINE)
Khalsa, Denominations

The sarbat khalsa, the assembly of the whole Khalsa, has been convened at the Akal Takht since the eighteenth century.

Source The Encyclopaedia of SikhismHarbans Singh (editor-in-chief)
Operation Blue Star (Wikipedia), Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "on the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar, 1 to 10 June 1984, with the heaviest fighting on 5 to 7 June; the casualty figures are sharply disputed and the article states this openly, the government's..."

Source Operation Blue Star (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Operation Blue Star Triggers Violence Against Sikhs, Spread Events

This source names Amritsar directly: "assaulted the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest site, between 1 and 10 June 1984, aiming to remove an armed militant group that had fortified itself inside."

Source Operation Blue Star (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sikh Woodcut of the Tughlaq Ruler Visiting Namdev, accession IM.2:146-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum), Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "visiting Namdev," made in Lahore or Amritsar around 1870."

Source Sikh Woodcut of the Tughlaq Ruler Visiting Namdev, accession IM.2:146-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum)
The 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, Religious Events

This source names Amritsar directly: "on the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar."

Source Report of the Justice G. T. Nanavati Commission of Inquiry (1984 anti-Sikh riots)Justice G. T. Nanavati
The Sarbat Khalsa of 1748, Councils and Synods

This source names Amritsar directly: "The Sarbat Khalsa held at Amritsar on Baisakhi, 29 March 1748, at which Nawab Kapur Singh brought together some sixty-five independent Sikh fighting bands, then contesting Mughal control of the..."

Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal
The Sarbat Khalsa of 1986, Councils and Synods

This source names Amritsar directly: "Khalsa convened at the Akal Takht in Amritsar in early 1986, in the aftermath of the Indian Army's June 1984 assault on the Golden Temple complex, Operation Blue Star, and the violence that followed..."

Source Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh MilitantsCynthia Keppley Mahmood
The Tughlaq Ruler of Hindustan Visiting Namdev (Victoria and Albert Museum, IM.2:146-1917), Sacred Art & Iconography

This source names Amritsar directly: "A Sikh woodcut made in Lahore or Amritsar around 1870, catalogued by the Victoria and Albert Museum as depicting the Tughlaq ruler of Hindustan visiting the Marathi bhakti poet-saint Namdev, a..."

Source Sikh Woodcut of the Tughlaq Ruler Visiting Namdev, accession IM.2:146-1917 (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Wikipedia: Guru Granth Sahib, Sources

This source names Amritsar directly: "inside the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar on 1 September 1604 with Baba Buddha appointed as first granthi."

Source Wikipedia: Guru Granth Sahib

Contained In

India, Countries

Amritsar is in the state of Punjab in north west India.

Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal

Sacred To

Sikhism, Religions

The Harmandir Sahib and the Akal Takht stand here, and the Adi Granth was first installed in the temple in 1604.

Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal

Spread Events Here

Guru Arjan Installs the Adi Granth at Harmandir Sahib, Spread Events
Source Wikipedia: Guru Granth Sahib
Guru Hargobind Establishes the Akal Takht and the Doctrine of Miri Piri, Spread Events
Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal
Guru Ram Das Founds the City of Amritsar, Spread Events
Source J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)J. S. Grewal
Sources
1. J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3)
J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press, 1998View the Source
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism
Harbans Singh (editor-in-chief), Punjabi University, Patiala, 1998View the Source
Historical Dictionary of Sikhism, 3rd edition
Louis E. Fenech and W. H. McLeod, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014View the Source
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