The Golden Temple

Becky and I had a few personal days to spend so we decided to take advantage of that time for an extended weekend trip to Amritsar.

Amritsar is the most holy place for Sikhs, one of the major world religions. So going to the Golden Temple is the equivalent of visiting Mecca, the Holy Land, or Lhasa. The city is in Punjab, a northern state in India on the Pakistan border, but that is another post. This is all about Harmandir Sahib, better known as The Golden Temple.

We arrived in Amritsar after a short little 6 hour train ride at 1am and headed to our awesome haveli hotel. A haveli is the term used to describe a really nice house in India and Pakistan. This dates back over 200 years ago. After a nice breakfast, our guide for the day, Jesi, met us at our hotel. Jesi was a genuinely sweet and interesting guy. He had recently moved back home after spending a couple of year in Delhi working for a multinational company as a computer engineer.

Our first stop was Jallianwall Bagh, the place of a terrible massacre by the British military in 1919. Over three hundred protesters were killed when British General Dyer order his troops to open fire. If you have seen the movie Gandhi, the massacre is shown.

This is supposed to represent a flame. The height of the momuent is said to be the height of the flame from the fire that burned the dead bodies that day.

After a quick stroll through the garden memorial, we walked towards the temple. Before entering, Jesi gave us a quick overview of the five K's. Baptized Sikhs must follow a very strict lifestyle and part of that is making sure they have the five K's on them at all times. The five K's are:

Kesh  - Sikhs must not cut their hair and it is tied and wrapped under a turban.
Kanga - A wooden comb.
Kanga - Special cotton underwear. Jesi asked a shop owner to pull out a pair so we could see what they looked like. Baptized Sikhs wear kanga without elastic, tied with a string.
Kara - An iron bracelet symbolizing eternity. Jesi also explained that this was so they would never be iron deficient - take that anemia! The kara was very cool to learn about because I have noticed so many more people wearing them since our trip. It is almost like seeing someone with a cross around their neck as a means of identifying with the religion.
Kirpan - This is easily the koolest K. The kirpan is a curved sword or dagger. Remember that the K's must keep these on them at all times, so beware before talking smack to a Sikh.

With our introduction complete we were ready to enter Harmandir Sahib. Jesi took our shoes to the shoe depository and we grabbed a couple of head scarfs.

Jesi helps Becky tie her head covering.

Cleanliness is very important to Sikhs and before entering, you must wash your feet. These shallow pools of running water are set up in a way that you must walk through them to enter the complex.

The Golden Temple sits in the middle of a small lake, The Pool of Nectar. The pilgrims bath in its waters as a means of rejuvenation and curing of ailments. We were offered a chance to drink from the pool but politely declined.

The man in the picture to the right is one of many pilgrims taking a dip in the pool. If you look closely, you can see that he still has the five K's; his kirpan (knife) and kesh (wooden comb) are in his turban.

Jesi took us down to the pool and we stood as he explain the importance of the temple. Jesi was very passionate about his job and wanted us to know everything about Punjab, Amritsar and Sikhism. When in the complex, you must walk in a direction that keeps the temple on your right side. We circled around until we reached the next of four gates. It was here that Jesi informed us that we would stop for lunch.

Free meals are provided for anyone at Sikh temples across the world. It is an incredible act of service and charity that they offer. Jesi told us that he eats at the temple every day and sometimes twice a day. Everyone sits on the floor in the dining hall and food is brought around in large buckets. 

We ate until we were full and then made our way outside to try and understand how such an incredible food service works.

Volunteers peeling garlic and prepping other food. 

Cooking the chapati, wheat flatbread.

Becky and I try to earn our meal by rolling some chapati.

Not sure we were too helpful, but we were greeted with smiles regardless.

It takes a lot of fuel to cook all that dal! Check out those cooking tubs.

Good think it only gets to 120°F in the summer.

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After lunch, it was time to go inside the actual temple. And this is where the fun stops. The line to go into the Golden Temple was quite long. It took us two hours to make it inside. This might have been OK, but this is India. India is home to 1.1 billion people, and when you grow up with 1.1 billion people to compete with, you do not leave any space between the person in front or behind you in a line, because if you do, someone will invariably cut you. 

What that mean for me in this particular line is that the nice fellow behind me played big spoon to my little spoon in the metaphorical silverware drawer of a line we were in. Keep in mind that they temperature was hovering around 100°F. Perhaps the best part was after the making to the last part of the line where things loosened up a bit. I felt a pair of hands on each of my hips. Curiously I turned expecting to find someone new only to be greeted with a smile from the same guy. I smiled back and made my way into the temple.

Sikhism has had eleven Gurus since its founding in 15th century. The last human guru died in 1708. The eleventh and final guru is the holy book, Guru Granth Sahib. The Guru is treated as a living guru, complete with clothes and a resting room each night. There are no pictures allowed inside the temple.

All around the complex there are priests reading the text. From inside the temple, priest sing the words of the text that is broadcast throughout the rest of the grounds. With our minds full and feet exhausted, we left the golden temple until later that night.

The reason for our return was to see the Guru Granth Sahib (the holy book) put in his resting place. This started with preparing the vehicle that the Guru is carried on from the temple to the resting place.

The Guru is then taken from the temple and put in the resting room. It was fascinating to be so close to such an important ritual to the Sikh people. One of the coolest things about the temple is that it is meant for everyone, regardless of religion, nationality or economic status. We are grateful for the opportunity for such a wonderful experience. 

A few more pictures from the Golden Temple at night.

I really like this picture even though...
Trying to explain to someone how to use a DSLR is sometimes more trouble than it should be.