ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰ

Founding

Amritsar was founded in 1577 by Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh Guru, on land around a natural pool. The first settlement was known as Ramdaspur, or Guru ka Chakk, the Guru's village. The Guru had the pool dug out and lined with steps, and the town that grew around it took its name from the water: Amritsar, the pool of nectar. Traders, bankers and craftsmen were invited to settle beside the pool, and within a generation the town had become a centre of both faith and commerce.

That founding mix of pilgrimage and trade still defines the old walled city. The narrow bazaars around the temple sell everything from papad and warian to gold jewellery, and the same families have run many of the shops for generations. The city has been called Ambarsar and Ramdaspur in different eras, but the name Amritsar has held for four centuries.

ਸ੍ਰੀ ਹਰਿਮੰਦਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ

Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Guru, built Harmandir Sahib in the middle of the pool and installed the Adi Granth there in 1604. The temple stands lower than the surrounding land, so worshippers step down to reach it, a deliberate statement of humility. It has four entrances, one on each side, as a sign that it is open to everyone, whatever their caste, creed or station.

In 1606 Guru Hargobind raised the Akal Takht facing the temple, the seat of Sikh temporal authority, and the pair has been the spiritual and political heart of the Sikh world ever since. In the early nineteenth century Maharaja Ranjit Singh had the upper floors of Harmandir Sahib covered in gilded copper plates, which gave it the name by which the world knows it: the Golden Temple.

ਜਲ੍ਹਿਆਂਵਾਲਾ ਬਾਗ਼

On 13 April 1919, the day of Vaisakhi, British Indian Army troops under Brigadier General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed crowd gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden a short walk from Harmandir Sahib. The official British count was 379 dead; Indian estimates were far higher. The garden had only a few narrow exits, and the firing continued for about ten minutes.

The massacre turned large numbers of Indians decisively against British rule and became a turning point in the independence movement. The garden is now a national memorial, and the bullet marks are preserved in its walls. Every year on the anniversary, thousands gather there in silence.

Partition and the border

The Partition of 1947 drew the border between India and Pakistan about 28 kilometres west of Amritsar. Lahore, the city Amritsar had traded with for centuries, was suddenly in another country, and the city's economy took decades to recover. Hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived in the months that followed, and their descendants are a large part of the city today.

The Attari-Wagah crossing on the old road to Lahore is the main land border between the two countries. Its daily flag-lowering ceremony, performed by soldiers of both sides with high kicks and parade-ground theatre, draws huge crowds and has become one of India's best-known border rituals.

The city today

Amritsar is the administrative centre of Amritsar district and one of Punjab's largest cities, with a population of about 1.13 million at the 2011 census. Its economy rests on pilgrimage and tourism, textiles, food processing and cross-border trade. The city is served by Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport and is home to Guru Nanak Dev University, founded in 1969.

It is also famous across Punjab for its food: Amritsari kulcha, stuffed and crisped in the tandoor, and the fried fish of the old city's dhabas. Between the temple, the memorial and the border ceremony, Amritsar draws more visitors than any other city in Punjab, and it remains the emotional capital of the Sikh world.