The Golden Temple

Still catching up on posts from last weekend - bear with me.

Aside from the Wagah border ceremony, we mostly spent our time in Amritsar viewing the main attraction of that town - the Golden Temple (also known as Harmandir Sahib).  This is a very holy temple in the Sikh religion - commonly accepted as being the center of Sikhism in the world. 

Hi, everyone...

The temple was built in the 16th century, originally in a forest surrounded by a lake.  Today it is nestled inside a fortress-like compound that seemed to have been built for the purpose of enshrining this temple and further removing it from the busy, dirty world outside.  The temple is surrounded today by a holy pool filled with "immortal nectar."  Some lucky koi-like fish get to reside in this pool (I'm not sure what makes them so special). 

The temple, surrounded by the holy pool in the middle of the fortress

 



Because this site is so holy, there are some required signs of respect that all visitors are asked to observe.  First, you have to remove your shoes and leave them with a shoe-check facility that is about 100m away from the entry to the fortress.  If you try to bring your shoes inside (not wearing them), they will send you back out and make you leave them behind.  It doesn't cost anything to check your shoes, but it's a pain to wait in line to do so.  Second, you have to cover your head.  Covering your head is considered a sign of respect, and both men and women are asked to do so.  Third, you have to wash your feet before entering.  After walking 100m barefoot on a path that's been travelled by nearly 100,000 people per day, I can understand why it's appropriate to wash your feet before entering a holy site.  In our particular case, the carpets that are laid down on this path had been soaked by the rains, so we walked that entire stretch through squishy, soggy, mouldy old carpet.  Ew.  Thankfully, the temple has a small pool of clean water at the threshold to the temple so that you can wash yourself.

People washing their feet in the pool before entering the temple

 

Passing through the white gates into the temple complex, we quickly left behind the noise and dirt of the city of Amritsar.  Inside there, we are walking on clean, white marble floors and walk slowly by all of the other visitors, speaking in hushed voices.  People's reactions inside the temple vary according to their purpose in visiting the site.  For the Sikhs who were there, some would kneel down and kiss the ground that serves as the threshold to the holy site.  Others would prostrate themselves on the ground and pray.

 

A common sight

 

 

Others still would strip down to their underwear and bathe themselves in the waters of the holy pool. 

 

A father and his son in the holy pool - the chains attached to the wall are there for people to pull themselves out of the pool when they're done

 

Of course, only the men would strip down in public, but there was a screened off area where women could do the same in privacy.

 

Ami and I entered the screened off area but didn't actually enter the holy pool ourselves...

 

The line to get into the temple was incredibly long - we actually didn't have the time or patience to wait around for hours in such an impressive queue.  Instead we walked around the temple complex and saw it from all angles.  The gilding and embellishments on the building are beautiful - both at night and during the day (we visited twice so that we could get the full effect).

 







The temple at night

 

The same view during the day

 





On Sunday, our other touristy outing was to a site commemorating a massacre that took place there in 1919.  The site - called Jallianwala Bagh - was the place where the massacre took place, and has now been converted into a garden and memorial space in honor of those who died.  At the time of the massacre, about 15,000 people had gathered in a public garden to peacefully protest a discriminatory law that had been passed by the British, which required all Indian men to crawl on their hands and knees down a certain stretch of road where a white British woman had been attacked by a mob.  The local commanding officer of the military decided that this amounted to gross insurrection, and he marched in a group of troops and opened fire on these people.  Estimates range from 400-1,000 dead and at least another 1,000 injured.  The general was relieved of his position and discharged from the army, but that doesn't change anything for the families who lost everything.  The garden today is a popular gathering site for families - we saw lots of people just lying in the grass, eating picnics and relaxing - the atmosphere is serene and quiet.  It's sad to think that it took such a tragedy to create a corner of peace in this loud city.

 

Walkway through the memorial gardens, leading up to a memorial statue

 

A marker on the spot from which the soldiers stood, shooting at the crowd

 

 

That's it for my Amritsar stories - I have a TON more photos of this trip.  Come to think of it, I should probably start a Picasa album or something...will keep you posted...