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Akal Takht

Akal Takht

pilgrimage site · Punjab

It is easy to read this as one more building inside the Golden Temple complex.

State
Punjab
Type
Pilgrimage Site

It is easy to read this as one more building inside the Golden Temple complex. Guru Hargobind established the Akal Takht, the Throne of the Timeless, in 1606 as the place where questions of justice and worldly matters would be settled, and it still works that way: the highest seat of earthly authority for the Khalsa and the official seat of the jathedar, who speaks for Sikhs worldwide. That office is contested between two factions at present, which is worth knowing before you ask anyone about it. Give the building more than a passing glance on your way round the pool.

Akal Takht is known for

Highest Sikh takhtSeat of the jathedarFounded in 1606

Akal Takht guide & itineraries

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Amritsar (Golden Temple)

Amritsar (Golden Temple)

The Golden Temple sits lower than the ground around it, and you walk down steps to reach the water. That is deliberate: nearly every other temple in India makes you climb up to it. It has four doors, one on each side, for the same reason — the building is meant to be entered from any direction, by anyone. Head covered, shoes off, feet through the water channel at the entrance, and nobody will ask you anything else. The langar behind the complex feeds on the order of a hundred thousand people a day, more at weekends, on donated food and volunteer labour. The dish hall takes anyone who turns up to help, and half an hour in it tells you more about the place than any guidebook. The Akal Takht faces the sanctum across the water. It is the seat of temporal authority in Sikhism, and those two buildings looking at each other across a pool is the whole argument of the faith in one view.

Wagah Border

Wagah Border

The Wagah Border is the crossing on the Radcliffe Line between India and Pakistan, roughly 28 km outside the historic city of Amritsar, and the best-known military post on that frontier. Stands have been built either side of the gates, and tens of thousands of people fill them every day. What they come for is the Beating Retreat ceremony, held every evening and performed jointly by the tall soldiers of India's Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers. It is all high stepping and hard stamping, arms thrown out in unison, the two national flags brought down together, and patriotic chanting from both sides of the gate.

Anandpur Sahib

Anandpur Sahib

Anandpur Sahib — the 'Holy City of Bliss' — matters as much as anywhere in the Sikh faith outside Amritsar. It sits in the foothills of the Shivalik range on a loop of the Sutlej in Punjab, and its skyline is a run of white-stone gurdwaras built like fortresses. The town is a centre of theological study and of Sikh martial tradition. Its heart is Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, one of the five Takhts, the supreme seats of temporal authority in Sikhism. Behind it stands the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum, designed by the Israeli architect Moshe Safdie, which lays out 500 years of Sikh history and the region's cultural traditions in careful detail.

Fatehgarh Sahib

Fatehgarh Sahib

Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib rises in white marble over the site of Sikhism's most heart-rending sacrifice — where in 1704 the two youngest sons of Guru Gobind Singh, aged just seven and nine, were bricked alive by the Sirhind governor for refusing to abandon their faith. The underground Bhora Sahib preserves the wall's site; nearby stand Mata Gujri's tower prison and the shrine of Todar Mal, who bought the cremation ground with gold coins laid edge to edge.

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