The Golden Temple, Amritsar
Wednesday, 7th January 2009 by Ian Brown
In the Indian state of Punjab, Harmandir Sahib (The Temple of God) - commonly known as the Golden Temple - is the most sacred place of worship for the Sikh religion.
In the 1570s the fourth Sikh guru created a pool named Amrit Sarovar - Lake of Immortal Nectar. Over time the city which developed around this area took the shortened name Amritsar. The first temple was completed in 1604 to house the Sikh holy book known as Guru Granth Sahib which in 1708 was named as the perpetual guru of the Sikh faith, ending the human lineage of gurus.
The main temple in the centre of the pool is a blend of Hindu and Islamic architectural styles and is coated with pure gold (estimates vary from 100kg to 750kg!) It has a door on each side to signify that people of all faiths are welcome.
The temple is connected by a causeway to the Akal Takhat, or traditional Sikh Parliament, to which the book is returned every evening and retrieved the following morning, all with great ceremony.
Surrounding the pool are a marble walkway, shrines, museums and offices. There is also accommodation for pilgrims and, to the south-east, a volunteer-run community kitchen and dining hall which provides simple free meals to tens of thousands of visitors every day.
Wikimedia has some excellent pictures.
Thanks to D. Sambhi.
About the author
Ian Brown lives in Ottawa, Canada, and spends his spare time perusing maps to find new routes to ride on his orange bicycle.
India have long been very active to make Google blur things – look like there is a lot more going on – found this blog – if there is more – maybe it’s time to hunt those places that are blured.
http://www.curiousread.com/2008/12/blurred-out-51-things-you-arent-allowed.html
I wonder if anyone will be able to afford to build something like this in our era?
@Ohat: Unfortunately, that story has been mis-reported everywhere!
The efforts to persuade Google to blur the images of India are foolish and misguided, and where places have been blurred in Google Earth this was done before the images were provided to Google.
Ogle Earth did a great job of debunking that “51 things” article a couple of months ago: http://www.ogleearth.com/2008/09/google_and_cens.html
James, Thanks for the link — very interesting article.