Amritsar

Amritsar ("pool of nectar") is the most sacred city for the Sikh religious community. Amritsar's holiest place is the Harmandir, also known as the Golden Temple, since the upper part of the building is covered with copper plates gilded with gold leaf. Amritsar was founded by Guru Ram Das (d. 1581), the fourth of the ten Sikh gurus, but the present temple was built by Ranjit Singh, who ruled the Sikh kingdom in the early nineteenth century. This example of Sikh poster art shows Guru Ram Das above a picture of the Golden Temple. It comes from Popular Sikh Art by W.H. McLeod (Oxford U. Press, 1991).
 

Sikhs take their history very seriously, and particularly the connection between places and their gurus.  According to tradition, this tree marks the spot were Guru Arjan sat to supervise construction of the Harmandir. 

This photo was taken in January 2003.

This photo shows one of the entrances to the Golden Temple complex, with the Ramgarhia minars (towers) in the background.  The Ramgarhias are a particular group of Sikhs, many of whom migrated to East Africa in the late 1800s, primarily to work on building the railroads there.  Through their money and labor these two towers were built, and they were heavily damaged during the 1984 assault, in which they were used as observation towers.

Despite the Sikh community's unconditional rejection of caste as giving religious status, the community remains well defined along group lines, and marriages most commonly occur within groups.  Some of the divisions between these groups reflect class differences, others the divide between rural farming groups and urban mercantile groups.  Sikhs recognize these differences as a social reality, but they are emphatic that no group is "better" than another.   

Every gurudwara has a meeting hall for hearing the sacred word, and a community kitchen (langar) at which anyone who shows up will be fed.  All of the labor at these is done by volunteers, as service for the community.  Guru Nanak instituted the Langar partly as a reflection of the necessity to serve others, but this common meal also consciously breaks Hindu taboos on eating with people of different status, and stresses the equality of all Sikhs. This picture shows the Langar at the Golden Temple; the man on the left is carrying a basket of rotis (unleavened bread), the man behind him is carrying buckets of dal (lentils).