" SRI HARMANDAR SAHIB - THE GOLDEN TEMPLE "


Long time ago, the present city of Amritsar was a dense forest with a pool in it. The little villages of Tung, Gumtala and Gilwali fringed the forest. According to traditions, Lord Buddha is believed to have stopped here for a while and to have said, "The spot is the best to attain Nirvana and is far superior in that respect to other places so far visited, but it must have time for its celebrity". The place acquired some prominence in the earlier days of buddism, but it did not last long and when Guru Narak (1469-1539), the founder of sikhism, lived here for a time in 1532, the place was again a dense forest.

Amritsar, the name means "the tank of nectar", was founded by Bhai Jetha, the future Ram Das, the fourth Guru, (1574-1581). He was sent here by Amar Das, the third master Guru, (1552-1574) to found a common centre for commerce and worship. The digging of Amrit Sarowar was begun by Ram Das in 1574. The next year the work was abandoned and it was resumed two years later, in 1576. The small village founded by Ram Das had by this time grown into a township, known with the name of Chak Ram Das or Ramdaspur. The excavation of the tank was completed in 1589, during the time of Guru Arjan; he built the Har Mandar in the center of the tank, too. The Sri Harmandar Shib was completed in 1601, and the Adi Grantha, the Holy Scripture of sikhism, was installed therein on 1604. Baba Budha was appointed the first reader of the Holy Scripture(Granthi).

The Sri Harmandar Sahib, called later Golden temple, has a chequered history and changed hands a number of times. The Sikhs were turned out of their temple and Sri Harmandar Sahib itself was destroyed and desecrated again and again by Moghul rulers. Again and again did the Sikhs recovered it and avenged the sacrilege at a tremendous sacrifice. In 1739, the Sikhs took advantage of the confusion and anarchy which followed Moghul Nadir Shah's invasion of India. Jassa Singh Kalal, one of the important Sikh leaders of the time, openly declared that the Dal Khalsa, the Sikh parliament, would be the new rulers of the land. But Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion of Punjab in 1747, ushered a new era of persecution for the Sikhs. Abdali was determined to wipe out their existence and to pull down the temple. Sri Harmandar was occupied in 1757 but the Sikhs in 1758 occupied Lahore and Amritsar. Abdali invaded India in 1762 and inflicted a deadly blow in the battle of Kup Rahira, event remembered as great genocide. The victor raided Amritsar on his way back to Kabul; the temple was blown up with gunpowder and the holy tank was also desecrated. After the final departure of Abdali from India in 1767, the Sikhs re-conquered the Punjab and the temple, re-constructed. Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) beautified Sri Harmandar with gold work, gilding the upper half with golden sheets and the lower half with Indian marble, mosaics with semi-precious stones. The temple was managed in this period by a council of Sikhs of which the Maharaja was the had. The council functioned till the end of the Punjab as sovereign state, to pass during the British period, under the control of a Sarbrah, a member of the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar. The Sarbrah mismanaged the affairs of Sri Harmandar Sahib, the people's resentment grew till at last it took shape in Sikh Gurdwara Reform Movementof the early twenties of the last century.

The Sri Harmandar Sahib represents a happy blending of the Hindu and Muslim artistic traditions. It's a two storied marble structure built on a square platform in the centre of the sacred tank; the central dome and the upper half of the walls were covered with gold-leafed copper sheets by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Hence the name Golden Temple also came into being. The temple is 135 meters square and it has a door each on the east, west, north and south; the doors are symbolic, they manifest that the temple is open to all, the people can come here irrespective of religion, caste, creed or sex. A marble causeway, called Guru's bridge, leads the temple with Parikarma, the promenade around the tank. A fine arch called Darshni Darwaza, stands at the shore-end of the causeway; the door panes of the arch are decorated with artistic ivory work. On the ground floor of Sri Harmandar, lies, during the day, under a gorgeous studded canopy with jewels, the Adi Grantha Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the Holy Scriputure of sikhism. It's carried in a golden palanquin from the Akal Takhat (the Divine Throne) in the Harmandar precincts to the temple, every morning at 5 a.m. in winter and 4 p.m. in summer and it come back to Akal Takjat at 9 p.m. in winter and at 10 p.m. in summer. Hymns from the Holy Scripture are sung without a break throughout the day by the Ragis, the musicians of Harmandar Management Committee. The walls of the ground floor are laid with marble slabs inlaid with arabesques of conventional flower sprays, in semi-precious stones of various colours. The walls of the upper storey, the cornices, the roof columns, cupolas and every available space with the exception of the floor, are a glittering mass of gilded copper. The eastern loggia of the temple is covered with gilded copper plates presented by Rani Sada Kaur, mother-in-law of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the remaining sides were similarly beautified by the Maharaja himself, by his son Kharak and grandson Nau-Nihal Singh. The floor of the upper storey is paved with marble and the interior of the walls is ornamented with floral designs. In the same storey there is also a small hall of mirrors, called Shish Mahal, it was originally the pavilion where the Gurus used to sit. Beautified by Ranjit Singh, it's now used for Akhand Path, the non-stop recitation of the Holy Scripture. Hymns are inscribed on its walls in letters of gold. On the third storey stands the grogeous gold dome. Smaller domes decorate the parapet.

The pilgrimage to Sri Harmandar is incomplete without a visit to Akal Takhat. It's rightly faces the Sri Harmandar Sahib. Built in 1609 by the sixth guru Hargobind (1606-44) it has been the nerve centre of the sikhism ever since; all commandments affecting the community as a whole were and are issued from here. The ground floor of the present building was constructed in 1874. The Akal Takhat was pulled down several times by the Muslim invaders and it was badly damaged by the Indian Army during a military operation ordered by Indira Gandhi in 1984.

A Sikh temple without a community kitchen, the Guru Ka Langar, is inconceivable. Cooked food is serviced in the halls near the kitchen, 24 hours day to all visitors irrespective of religion, caste, creed and nationality. Thousands of visitors share the meals everyday and the number goes up much more on week-ends.