On Sep. 1, Sikhs will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the day their holy book was first brought to their most sacred site. In 1604, Guru Arjan Dev carried the Guru Granth Sahib into the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab. The book is accorded such respect that a prayer is spoken before the book is closed, and it’s swaddled in fine cloth and carried on the head.
India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, the first Sikh to hold that post, will preside over the 4 million-strong celebration. In a nod to modernity, Amritsar will host a laser show, very apropos since the inventor of fiber optics is a Sikh.
Every celebration has its inevitable drama. Due to tensions dating back to Indira Gandhi’s reign, Gandhi’s daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi was not invited to the celebration. And a family which holds an even older copy of the holy book has yet to agree to put its copy on display:
The precious manuscript is kept in a 900-kg iron vault built by a German engineer. Though the family claims that the National Archives has preserved the pages, scholars are sceptic. Says Dhillon, “The preservation was done sometime in the 1960s by an outdated method. Nowadays the accepted practice to preserve such manuscripts is to get them microfilmed and as far as I know this has not been done.”
Nonetheless, Amritsar is being newly repainted, the temple walkways are getting new carpeting, and pilgrims are arriving by the trainload in anticipation of celebration.
vow this temple looks so spectacular. great photograph.This article is an education for me specially about the 400 yr old holy book. thank you. Manmohan singh richly deserves to be the PM of India, he is such a learned economist with so much experience ( father of free economy in india) and probably one of the few straight forward sincere politicians in india. Wish this historic holy day brings a lot of peace to people of punjab, probably punjab is the only state in india which suffered the most after partition with all the terrorism/repeated attacks and fights.
I love the Amritsar. i wish i could come there. Amritsar is a graet place. I will come in summer time.
Kelly
I was at Amritsar in January 2008 and there was a parade going on it was so good to be there and enjoy it, Amritsar is one of my best places to visit when i go to India and i go very often but i will not be there for the September celebrations i will be there after that but will for sure visit, they need to clean up the market outside the temple as it gets very messy and for tourists it does not look good and clean up the beggers to outside.