Akal Takht

The Harmandir Sahib, serene and set apart in a peaceful lake, represents the Sikh Gurus' spiritual authority. After the 1605 execution of Guru Arjan (the 5th Guru), his son Guru Hargobind put on two swords--one representing spiritual authority and the other temporal authority. He also built the Akal Takht ("Seat of the Timeless One") as a physical symbol of that temporal claim.

Since then the Sikh community has stressed its claims to sovereignty. During the civil unrest and demands for greater Sikh autonomy in the 1980s, the Akal Takht was converted into a fortress, and was nearly destroyed by the Indian army during Operation Blue Star in 1984.

The Sikh religious ideal is that of the "soldier-saint," a devotee who is receptive to the divine presence and its message in the Guru's teachings, but also ready to take up arms to defend the community and protect the helpless. This is graphically displayed every evening at the Akal Takht with a display of historic weapons, beginning with Guru Hargobind's two swords. For Sikhs, their history is not simply a catalog of past events, but a paradigm for understanding and explaining the present.