Status and Position of the Golden Temple
This position and this status of the Golden Temple is unique in the religious or political centers of world history. It is the Mecca of the Sikhs, because it is the religious centre of the Sikhs, but it is vastly more.
It is the St. Peter’s at Rome, for it is capital of Sikh theocracy, but it is very much more and also something less and different. Sikhism has no ordained priestly class and therefore, there can be no theocratic political state of the Sikhs in which the priests rule in the name of an invisible God. They have no corpus of civil law of divine origin and sanction and they therefore, must have a state based on secular nontheocratic laws, It is, more, because it remains the real capital of ultimate Sikh allegiance whatever the political set up for the time being.
It is the Varanasi or Banaras of Sikhism, because it is the holiest of the holies of the faith, but it is not precisely that because the true Sikh doctrine does not approve of any traditions or belief which seeks to tie up theophany with geography.
It is the Jerusalem of Sikhism because it is the historical centre of the epiphany of Sikhism, but it is not precisely that because Sikhism, as a religion, is not history grounded that is, its validity is not tied up with or dependent upon any historical event,
It is not precisely the political capital of the Sikhs, because political capital presupposes a state under the control of the Sikhs, and when the Sikhs do have such a state, it is not imperative that its administrative centre must be at Amritsar, and even when it is, the Golden Temple and its precincts shall still retain their peculiar independent character apart from this administrative centre. When the Sikhs do not have a sovereign state of their own the Golden Temple with its surrounding complex continuously retains its theopolitical status which may be suppressed by political power, compromised by individuals or questioned by politicians, but which Temains and never can be extinguished for, it is sui generis and inalienable and imprescriptible.
It is owing to this unique status, grounded in certain peculiar doctrines of Sikhism that, many understandings Continuously arise concerning the use of the Golden Temple with its surrounding complex for “political purposes” for allowing ingress into it and housing of those whom the political state may deem as “offenders” and for pursuing, “extra religious activities” from inside its precincts. The Sikhs, themselves have never viewed any of these activities, started or controlled from inside the precincts of the Golden Temple, as either improper, or repugnant to the Sikh doctrine, or contrary to the Sikh historical tradition. The reasons of this Sikh attitude are three, in the main, not singly but collectively.
One reason is that this geographical site itself is charged with theopathic influences such as no other known and still accepted site on earth, including the old site of the Soloman’s Temple, revered by three great religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, can claim to be.
Prehistoric Antiquity of Amritsar Ever since the man on this earth became civilized in any comprehensive sense, about four or five millennia ago, imagination seems to find some foothold to countenance the belief that the lake engirdling the Golden Temple has been closely related to the most basic activity of man, the religion. The most extensive preclassical civilization of the world, the Indus Valley civilization stretched in the third millennium B.C. from Rupar at the foot of the Simla hills to Sutkagendor near the shores of the Arabian Sea, a stretch of one thousand miles and the site of the Golden Temple lies in the heart of this great river system. The prominently situated “Bath” or sarovar in the newly dug up ancient mound of Mohenjodaro as readily suggests to mind the central significance of water reservoirs in the metaphysical thoug hidiom and religious practices of these ancient people as it springs before the mind’s eye, the Golden Temple, lake surrounded. Our proto historical records the Pauranas, and the preChristian era Buddhist traditions definitely assert that from ancient times there has existed a natural and holy lake of water, *where the Golden Temple is now situated and the geophysical layout of the site amply confirms the probability of these assertions. A bird’s eye view of the area, from an aeroplane even today would confirm the conclusion that this site must have been a natural water reservoir for thousands of years past. The Vedic and Buddhist traditions of holiness attached to this site and the lake suggest an earlier and more ancient origin of this attachment, extending back to the third and second millennia of the Indus Valley civilization on the basis of the historical trend that once a holy place, always so and that, a new holiness must be grounded in some
older one. he second reason, therefore, which fortifies the basic
Sikh attitude concerning the theopolitical status of the Golden Temple is grounded in the nimbus of the Sikh history that hangs over it and provides guiding precedents to the Sikh mind.
Till the demise of Guru Gobind Singh the Nanaks, the Sikh Gurus, were centres of the Sikh movement and afterwards Banda Singh Bahadur took over the command of their political affairs. It was after the execution of Banda Singh Bahadur and the collapse of the Sikh sovereignty which he had established on the political plane, that the Sikhs collectively assumed the rights and duties of their doctrine of Double Sovereignty, and in 1721, Bhai Mani Singh was installed as the head priest of the Golden Temple who immediately took steps to revive the true theopolitical status of this place. A free community kitchen for the visitors and the disabled was started and politico civic activities of the Sikh people were gathered afresh to be rooted around the Golden Temple. Khushwaqt Rai the author of the manuscript, Tarikhi Sikhan, 1811 says that at this period, the Sikhs “Jived in caves and thorny bushes, and subsisted on roots and blades of grass, and Zakariya Khan, the military governor of the Punjab, wondered that the grass eaters should be so bold as to lay claim to sovereignty.”
The creative imagination, therefore, is justified in discerning grounds for the belief, not altogether fanciful, that the holy lake and the site of Golden Temple was an ancient centre of theophanic human activity, at the dawn of human civilization, round about 5,000 years ago, peopled by the Mohendjodaro race, and further, that it was an equally well reserved spot for the theomantic ishis of the Vedas.
It is interesting to recall here that when Guru Ayan was having the ancient alluvium of this lake cleared a sealed masonry subterranean dome was sounded and exposed which on being opened up revealed a macerated yogi in lotusposture, immersed in seedless nirhija trance. When the guru reanimated him, he disclosed that he went into his trance, “thousands of years ago” with the object of experiencing the somatic touch of the Nanak before entering into the utter Void.
This spot was commemorated by the Guru by the subsidiary lake, Santokhsar which stands till today. Were some of the vedic hymns actually revealed to the Aryans at the banks of this ancient holy lake, just as the major portions of the Guru Granth in the 17th century were? Intuitive imagination guesses so and there is no good reason to think otherwise. In the early centuries of the Christian era when the oecumenical religion of the Mahayan took birth in the North West India in the form of the original prajnaparmitta and the Sadharma pundrika sutras the Golden Temple site and the holy lake were already an active centre of beehive Buddhist monk communities of which the great Nagarjuna and Aryadeva themselves might have been the abbots during the periods of their creative activity and if herein the intuitive imagination hovers near the truth, then it emerges that the site of the Golden Temple and the banks of its surrounding waters are the scenes of earlier spiritual activity of the civilized man, the highest watermark of the theomancy of the Vedic Aryans, the greatest achievement of the Buddhist mind and the most glorious effloresces of the genius lock of the Punjab.
Coming to near modern history and times the founder of the Lamaist Buddhism in Tibet, Padamsambhava a professor at Nalanda University who was invited to Tibet by the great king, KhrisronIdebtsan (745797), in 747 A.D. is the patron saint of Tibet and one of the greatest figures of Buddhism and he is called, “Lotusborn”, to signify his theomorphic status, while his biogtaphies unanimously agree that the “Lotus” out of which he took his nonhuman birth, floated on the limpid waters of a sacred lake which is identified as now surrounding the Golden Temple. To this day devout Tibetans make long and hazardous journeys to visit and pay homage to this sacred spot of the marvelous origination of the Guru Rimpoche the Precious Master.
If many of these surmises lack palpable root and material evidence the fact does not render the intangible pull of this picture on the racial subconscious mind, any the less potent and indeed, the circumstance multiples this potency manifold, as keen students of religious psychology well know.
Such a site, surcharged with such ancient and potent spiritual influences it was that the Sikh Gurus chose as the centre of the new world religion and world culture which they inaugurated, and instinctively sensing its high spiritual potency in relation to the future of mankind, the Sikhs (during the last 250 years that the secular state powers, in utter disregard and blind ignorance of the implications of the Sikh doctrines have tended to regard. this geographical spot as just another area subject to their political domain) have paid the highest price demanded of them, in vindication of the true theopolitical status of the Golden Temple.
TO BE CONTINUED
Article extracted from this publication >> June 9, 1989
