SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib- transl. temple of Hari/God) in Amritsar occupies an iconic position in the representation of Sikhs. The complex lies in the centre of the walled city of Amritsar in northwest India, a city whose foundation is symbiotically linked to the establishment of the sacred site. This article presents it as a site which embodies multiplicity through its history of evolution through the performance of rituals. It is here that we examine how official practice (orthodoxy) became specified and sanctioned through codification while heteropraxy became maligned as ‘non-Sikh’ and thus outside of the realm of acceptability. It is this process of institutionalisation, incorporation, and adaptation that this article wishes to explore. The popular dimensions of contemporary Sikh practices which cross the boundaries of what is determined to be ‘Sikh’, we argue, are represented in devotional rituals which have continued alongside and within formal Khalsa Sikh tradition highlighting a milieu of heteropraxy of Sikh devotional ritual.