Harmandir Sahib

The building

The Harmandir stands on a platform in the centre of the amrit sarovar, reached by a causeway. It has entrances on all four sides, which the tradition reads as openness to every caste and direction, and it is set lower than the surrounding walkway so that visitors descend to it — a deliberate inversion of the usual elevation of a shrine.

Guru Arjan completed it in the early seventeenth century and installed the Adi Granth in it in 1604. The gold leaf and marble that give it its English name were added in the early nineteenth century under Ranjit Singh.

Function

The scripture is installed at dawn and carried to the Akal Takht at night in procession. Kirtan is sung almost continuously through the day, broadcast now to a very large audience. The langar operates without interruption and serves tens of thousands daily.

Facing the Harmandir across the tank is the Akal Takht, built by Guru Hargobind as the seat of temporal authority — the two buildings together expressing miri-piri.

Destruction and rebuilding

The site has been attacked and rebuilt repeatedly. Ahmad Shah Abdali's forces destroyed it in the eighteenth century and the tank was filled; it was restored by the Sikh misls. In June 1984 the Indian Army entered the complex in Operation Blue Star to remove armed occupants, causing heavy loss of life and damage including to the Akal Takht. The operation, and the assassination of Indira Gandhi that followed, remain among the most contested events in modern Indian history and are central to Sikh memory.

Standing

The Harmandir receives more visitors than any other site in India by some counts, drawing Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike. It functions simultaneously as the tradition's spiritual centre, its most-visited public institution and, through the Akal Takht opposite, its seat of authority.