Sikhism: the ten Gurus, the Guru Granth Sahib, the five Ks and the langar kitchen

IA quick read in five sentences

One. The religion holds that there is one single supreme reality, without form, never born, never incarnated. The character that opens the scripture is ੴ, read Ik Onkar.

Two. The religion has ten Gurus in succession, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh. In 1708 the tenth Guru passed the office of Guru to the scripture, so from then on the scripture has borne the name Guru Granth Sahib and is called the eternal Guru.

Three. The way of life is summed up in three phrases: Naam Japna, keeping the divine Name in remembrance, Kirat Karni, living by honest work, and Vand Chakna, sharing what one has with others. No renunciation of the world, no asceticism.

Four. In 1699 Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ, the body of those who have received the rite of initiation and keep five articles known as the five Ks. The turban and long beard of many Sikhs come from here.

Five. The side of the religion the whole world knows best is found in the kitchen. Every gurdwara has a langar ਲੰਗਰ, a communal kitchen that serves free meals to anyone who walks in, where everyone sits together in one row on the floor and eats the same food.

This page follows fifteen sections, written in a descriptive voice. The library reports what Sikhism holds about itself, reports what historians can verify, and keeps the two apart. Where two sources disagree, both are given, and where no reliable source could be found, the page says so plainly.

IIThe Punjab in the fifteenth century

Punjab is a name formed from two Persian words, panj meaning five and ab meaning water, that is, the land of five rivers. It is a band of alluvial plain between the Himalayas and the desert, fertile and densely populated, and it lies on the route that every army entering the subcontinent from the northwest had to cross.

That position shaped the fate of the region. For many centuries the Punjab was where the native tradition, with its Brahmin priesthood, met the Muslim dynasties from Central Asia that ruled Delhi from the thirteenth century. In 1526 the Mughals replaced the earlier dynasties, and Guru Nanak lived his whole life in that period of transition.

Beneath the political layer lay the caste system, which weighed far more heavily on ordinary people: society was divided into hereditary ranks that decided what work a person could do, whom they could marry, whom they could eat with and which temples they could enter. This is what Sikhism spoke about most, right from the start.

Two earlier currents

IIIGuru Nanak, the first Guru

Everything in Sikhism goes back to one man, but there are two different ways of speaking about him, so the library sets them out in two boxes side by side.

The long journeys

Tradition within the religion tells that Guru Nanak made four great journeys, called udasi, lasting about twenty years. With him went Mardana, a musician who played the rebab, a Muslim and his companion since childhood. The lifelong companion of the first Guru was a man of another faith, and the two preached together, the Guru reciting verse while Mardana played. Music has been bound up with Sikhism from its first day.

Kartarpur, where the foundations were laid

At the end of his life Guru Nanak founded a farming community at Kartarpur, meaning city of the Creator, and he ploughed the fields with his own hands. This is where the three practices that shaped the religion's later life were first established, all at once: the communal singing of scripture every morning and evening, the shared meal that anyone who came could eat, and everyone working and eating together regardless of lineage. Sikhism had a concrete form while the first Guru was still alive.

In 1539, before he died, he chose his successor without regard to blood. He had two sons, but the one he chose was Bhai Lehna, a disciple, to whom he gave the new name Angad, meaning a part of my own body. The first four Gurus all followed the practice of passing the office to the worthy, not to their descendants.

IVThe ten Gurus

The word guru ਗੁਰੂ means teacher, one who leads from darkness into light. In Sikhism the word is reserved for the ten in the line of succession, and after them for the scripture. The two hundred and thirty-nine years from 1469 to 1708 are the span in which ten Gurus followed one another, each adding one more piece of work, which together made a religion complete with its own script, scripture, places of worship, rites and organisation. Sikhs believe that all ten share one and the same light, so in the scripture the verses of the Gurus are all signed with the single pen name Nanak, together with their number in the line of succession.

VA timeline of five hundred years

Three kinds of event recur: the milestones of the line of Gurus, the building of places of worship, and the times the community was thrown into upheaval and then rebuilt. A few of the oldest dates are only approximate.

• 1469Birth of Guru Nanak
  In the village of Talwandi in the Punjab, now Nankana Sahib in Pakistan.
• around 1499The awakening at the Bein river
  Guru Nanak vanished for three days, then returned and spoke the words there is no Hindu, there is no Musalman. From then on he began to preach.
• around 1520Founding of Kartarpur
  The religion's first community, on the Ravi river, where communal singing of scripture and the communal kitchen were first established.
• 1539Succession passes to Guru Angad
  Guru Nanak died, passing the office to a disciple rather than to a son. Guru Angad later standardised the Gurmukhi script.
• 1574 to 1577Founding of Ramdaspur and digging of the pool
  Guru Ram Das founded the town later named Amritsar, meaning pool of nectar.
• 1581 to 1589Building of Harmandir Sahib
  Guru Arjan began the temple in the middle of the pool, and the masonry was completed in 1589. The temple opens four doors to the four directions and its floor is set lower than the surrounding ground.
• 1604The Adi Granth installed in the temple
  Guru Arjan completed the first compilation of the scripture and installed it in Harmandir Sahib.
• 1606Death of Guru Arjan and building of the Akal Takht
  Guru Arjan died in Lahore. His son Guru Hargobind built the Akal Takht directly facing the temple.
• 1675Execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur in Delhi
  The gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib was later built on the spot, and this is the immediate background to the founding of the Khalsa.
• 1699Founding of the Khalsa
  On the day of Vaisakhi at Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh initiated the first five, then received initiation from their hands himself, instituting the five Ks and the two shared names Singh and Kaur.
• 1708The office of Guru passes to the scripture
  At Nanded, Guru Gobind Singh declared that the line of human Gurus ended with him, and from then on the scripture is the Guru.
• 1799 to 1849The era of Ranjit Singh
  The Punjab under the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1830 he had the exterior of Harmandir Sahib covered in gold, which is where the name Golden Temple comes from.
• 1925 and 1945Reform of organisation and rites
  In 1925 the management of the historic gurdwaras in the Punjab passed to a committee elected by the faithful, ending a situation in which many places of worship were held by hereditary families. In 1945 the Rehat Maryada was issued, a unified code of conduct and rites for the whole religion.
• 1947The Punjab divided in two
  The new border cut across the Punjab. The places where Guru Nanak was born and where he died both remained on the western side, while Amritsar lay on the eastern side.
• 1984The temple complex at Amritsar damaged
  The temple complex was damaged during a period of conflict and was afterwards restored by the community.
• 2019Opening of the Kartarpur pilgrim corridor
  A dedicated route for pilgrims was opened to the gurdwara at Kartarpur, where Guru Nanak spent his last years.

VICore teachings

Sikhism has no separate catechism in question and answer form. What the religion believes lies in the poetry of the scripture, and the shortest summary lies in its very first lines.

Ik Onkar and the Mul Mantar

The character ੴ opens the scripture and is the sign seen most often in Sikh life. It is read Ik Onkar, combining the numeral one with the word for the one reality. The numeral one comes first on purpose: the first thing to know is not a name but a number. Immediately after it comes the Mul Mantar, meaning the root formula.

Ajooni, never entering a womb, is where Sikhism parts decisively from the idea of divine incarnation, which is very strong in the native tradition. Nirvair, hating no one, is where the religion rejects the picture of a wrathful being who must be appeased. Put the two words together and it becomes clear why a gurdwara has no statues and no devotional images.

Three principles of life

Haumai, the ego

Sikhism calls the root illness of the human being haumai, formed from two words meaning I and me, that is, the swollen self that puts itself at the centre. A person ruled by haumai is called manmukh, one who turns to face the Guru is called gurmukh, and the whole of the spiritual life is the passage from one to the other. The five things that drag a person into haumai are called the five thieves: lust, anger, greed, attachment and pride. The religion teaches that they are to be mastered in the midst of ordinary life, with a spouse, children and an occupation.

The religion also accepts karma and rebirth, but karma here is not a closed machine into which the grace of the supreme reality cannot enter. Liberation is called mukti, and the religion stresses jivanmukt, liberation while still alive: one who has seen still ploughs the field and still raises children, the only difference being that the ego is no longer at the wheel.

Rejection of caste

This is what Sikhism spoke about earliest and most concretely. The scripture states plainly that caste has no standing before the supreme reality, and the first thing the religion achieved was not a declaration but a kitchen: whoever wished to see the Guru first sat down and ate with everyone else. Placing in the scripture itself the verses of saints who came from weaving and leatherworking families was an act in the same direction.

As for men and women, women may read the scripture before the congregation, serve as custodians of the scripture and receive initiation with exactly the same rite as men. Guru Amar Das opposed the practice of veiling the face and the practice of burning a widow alongside her husband.

No images, no clergy, no asceticism

All three of these noes stem from the Mul Mantar. Because the supreme reality has no form and never enters a womb, there is nothing to carve and nothing to paint. In a gurdwara, what is placed in the highest position is the book.

Nor does the religion have a clergy in the sense of an ordained class with authority to act on behalf of the faithful. The custodian of the scripture is called a granthi, which is a job rather than a rank, and any Sikh able to read the scripture can do it. No one has the power to absolve sins or to grant dispensations.

Finally, the religion rejects asceticism: there is no fasting to earn merit, and no leaving one's family to take up a religious life. Guru Nanak married, had children and farmed, and the religion takes that as its model.

Rejection of astrology and auspicious days

Sikhism rejects consulting the stars about one's destiny, rejects choosing auspicious days and months, and rejects charms and the use of rituals to court good luck. The scripture says outright that every day is good if the heart is turned toward the supreme reality. This is a very clear difference from traditional Vietnamese practice, and the library notes it without comment.

Sangat and pangat

Sangat is the congregation that sits together to hear and sing the scripture, pangat is the row of people seated on the floor to eat in the langar. The religion deliberately sets the two side by side: whoever comes in to hear the scripture also sits down to eat, in order of arrival and not in order of rank.

VIIThe Guru Granth Sahib, the book that is the Guru

This is the most distinctive feature of Sikhism. Many religions hold their scriptures in very high reverence, but in Sikhism the book is not a book about the Guru, it is the Guru, and that has consequences for every gesture of the day.

The path of the scripture

In 1604, Guru Arjan completed the first compilation, called the Adi Granth, written out by the scribe Bhai Gurdas, and installed it in Harmandir Sahib the same year. A hundred years later, Guru Gobind Singh had a complete version copied out with the addition of the verses of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and that version is the one used to this day.

In 1708 at Nanded, before he died, Guru Gobind Singh declared that after him there would be no further human Guru, and that the office of Guru passed to the scripture. From then on the scripture has borne the name Guru Granth Sahib, and Sikhs call it Guru in the literal sense.

Why it is called Guru and not a book

Outsiders often ask this, sometimes suspecting that it amounts to worshipping an object. The religion's own reasoning is different: what makes a Guru is not the body of an individual but the teaching, and the teaching of all ten Gurus has been recorded in full in the scripture. Once the teaching is fixed in writing, passing the office to an individual is no longer necessary, and could even open the way to rivalry. Sikhs therefore say that they revere the scripture for the words in it, not for the paper and ink.

How the scripture is treated

VIIIThe Khalsa and the five Ks

If 1469 is when the religion began, 1699 is when it took on the outward form the whole world recognises.

Vaisakhi 1699

At Anandpur, on the harvest festival of Vaisakhi in 1699, Guru Gobind Singh called the congregation together and asked who was ready to offer his head. Tradition tells that five men stepped forward one after another, and they are called the Panj Pyare, meaning the five beloved ones. They came from five different regions and five different social classes, and that detail is the point of the story.

The Guru mixed water with sugar in an iron bowl, stirred it with a double-edged sword called a khanda and recited scripture. That water is called amrit, meaning nectar, and the rite of initiation has since been called Amrit Sanchar. After initiating the five, the Guru knelt and asked them to initiate him, a way of saying that the Guru and the Khalsa as a body do not stand in a relationship of higher and lower.

On the same occasion, he gave initiated men the shared name Singh, meaning lion, and women the shared name Kaur, usually understood as princess. These are not family names passed down by lineage. On the contrary, the purpose was to do away with the family names that revealed the caste of those who bore them.

The five Ks

The initiated keep five articles on their person day and night, and the names of all five in Punjabi begin with the consonant k.

The turban, called dastar in Punjabi, is not one of the five Ks but goes hand in hand with the first. The initiated also keep four prohibitions called kurahit: no cutting of hair, no eating meat slaughtered according to the ritual of another religion, no adultery, and no tobacco or other intoxicants. All the rites and rules of conduct are gathered in the Rehat Maryada, issued in 1945, which is why a gurdwara in Canada and a gurdwara in the Punjab perform their rites almost identically.

Three levels of observance and the groups within the religion

IXLangar, the communal kitchen

Ask someone in Europe or North America who is not a Sikh what they know about this religion, and the most common answer is not a point of doctrine but a meal. Langar ਲੰਗਰ is the communal kitchen of the gurdwara, serving free meals to anyone who walks in, without asking their religion, their nationality or whether they are rich or poor. This is what has made the religion known throughout the world.

Where the kitchen came from

Guru Nanak established the practice of eating together at Kartarpur, and Guru Angad gave it regular form. But the Guru who turned it into an institution with social weight was Guru Amar Das, with a rule that was very simple and very uncomfortable for the order of his day: whoever wished to see him must first sit down and eat with everyone else.

To feel the weight of this rule one has to remember the context. In a caste society, eating together was one of the hardest boundaries: members of the upper groups did not accept food from the hands of the lower groups, did not share a table with them, and in some places did not even draw water from the same well. Making everyone sit in one row, eat the same food, served by the same hand, struck directly at that point.

The langar at the Amritsar temple complex is among the largest free kitchens in the world. Common descriptions give more than one hundred thousand vegetarian meals a day, while some sources give a range of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand depending on the day. The library gives both because this is the kind of figure for which there is no official count.

Beyond the gurdwara, Sikh langar teams appear in many places struck by natural disasters or receiving refugees, and in the large cities of the West they serve meals to the homeless. This is not a newly invented charity programme but a kitchen that has existed for five hundred years, simply set up out on the street.

XThe gurdwara and the Golden Temple of Amritsar

Gurdwara ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ combines the word guru with the word for door, meaning the door to the Guru. It is not a temple in the sense of a dwelling for a deity, since Sikhism has no images of worship, but the place where the Guru Granth Sahib is kept. The only thing that cannot be missing is the scripture: a room where the scripture is installed with the proper rite is a gurdwara, whether it is in an old building or a rented room. Beyond that there is the saffron flag Nishan Sahib on a tall pole in the courtyard, bearing the khanda emblem, and the langar.

What to do in a gurdwara

Visitors who are not Sikhs may still enter, and in practice they are invited in. Remove your shoes at the door, wash your hands and feet at the water provided, cover your head, men and women alike, with your own scarf or one borrowed at the door, and do not bring tobacco or alcohol inside. On reaching the main hall, walk straight up to the scripture, bow and touch your forehead to the floor, then withdraw and sit on the floor with everyone else. When leaving, you receive a handful of karah prasad, a sweet made of wheat flour, butter and sugar, given to everyone in the same way.

As for seating, the religion's principle is that no place is higher than another and no place is reserved by rank: everyone sits on the floor and everyone is lower than the scripture. In many gurdwaras men and women sit on two sides, but both sides are the same distance from the scripture.

Harmandir Sahib, the temple with four doors

The best-known gurdwara stands in Amritsar, in the state of Punjab, India. Its original name is Harmandir Sahib, meaning the temple of the Supreme Being, and it is also called Darbar Sahib. Outsiders usually call it the Golden Temple because of its gold exterior, but that gold covering dates only from 1830.

Its history begins with a pool rather than a building. Guru Ram Das founded the town in 1574 and had the pool dug, completed in 1577, and the name Amritsar combines amrit, nectar, with sar, pool. Guru Arjan began the temple in the middle of the pool in 1581, the masonry was completed in 1589, and in 1604 he installed the Adi Granth inside.

Two architectural features of the temple deserve a closer look, because both are statements rather than aesthetic choices.

The first feature is the four doors opening to the four directions. The temple is square, with a door on each side. The understanding handed down within the religion is that the temple welcomes people from every direction and every class, with no front side for the high-born and back side for the lowly. In a society where who could enter which temple was strictly determined by lineage, a temple that did away with the very idea of a main entrance was highly unusual.

The second feature is a floor lower than the surrounding ground. This is the most telling detail and the one most often overlooked. The way temples were built in that region usually placed the shrine on a high plinth, and pilgrims had to climb many steps to reach it: the sacred above, ordinary mortals below. Harmandir Sahib does the opposite. Visitors pass through the gate, then step down the stairs to the level of the pool, and only then cross the narrow causeway into the temple. The understanding handed down within the religion is that those who enter must lower themselves rather than rise up, leaving the ego behind on the bank. There is a further layer of meaning that fits the surrounding pool very well: water always flows to the low place, and the low place is the place that receives.

Put the two features together and it is simple: the four doors say that anyone may enter, the low floor says that everyone must bow to enter. It is the teaching on equality and on the ego, built in brick and stone.

The Akal Takht and the five seats

Directly facing the temple, across the causeway, stands the Akal Takht, meaning the throne of the Timeless One, built by Guru Hargobind in 1606: the temple is the side of spiritual practice, the Akal Takht is the place for deliberating on communal affairs. Sikhism has five such seats, collectively called the Panj Takht: the Akal Takht in Amritsar, Kesgarh Sahib in Anandpur, Damdama Sahib in Talwandi Sabo, Patna Sahib and Hazur Sahib. The two places associated with Guru Nanak, Nankana Sahib and Kartarpur, both lie on the Pakistani side.

Common descriptions state that the Amritsar temple complex receives more than one hundred and fifty thousand visitors a day, and it is a place that anyone, of any religion or none, may enter and be invited to share a meal.

XIRites and observances

Sikh rites are few and simple, most of them centred on reading and singing the scripture. There are no food offerings to deities, no burning of paper votive offerings, no consulting of auspicious days.

Kirtan, singing the scripture

Kirtan ਕੀਰਤਨ is the singing of the scripture's poems in the exact musical mode assigned to each, and it is the central activity of every gathering in a gurdwara. The singers are called ragi, usually seated in groups of three, and today they use the harmonium and the tabla drums.

The music is not an added ornament to please the ear: the scripture is arranged by thirty-one musical modes, not by subject. In a religion with no statues and no devotional images, what brings people into a religious state is sound rather than image.

Nitnem and Ardas

Sikhs have a set of daily prayers called nitnem: early in the morning the Japji Sahib composed by Guru Nanak, in the evening the Rehras, and before sleep the Kirtan Sohila.

The common prayer of the whole congregation is called Ardas, recited standing with palms joined at the end of every service. It recalls the names of the Gurus and of those who endured hardship for the faith before coming to its petition. At the close of the service, the custodian of the scripture opens it at random and reads the hymn at the top of the left-hand page, taking that as the teaching for the day, called the hukamnama.

Weddings, naming and funerals

The wedding is called Anand Karaj, meaning the act of bliss. The couple walk four rounds about the Guru Granth Sahib, each round corresponding to one stanza of the Lavan composed by Guru Ram Das. A point worth making clear to Vietnamese readers: they walk around the scripture, not around a fire as in the wedding rite of the native tradition. No auspicious date is chosen and no ages are matched.

Naming a child takes place at the gurdwara itself: the scripture is opened at random, the first letter of the hymn on that page is taken, and the parents choose a name beginning with that letter. After the given name, boys add Singh and girls add Kaur.

Funerals are usually cremations, during which the Kirtan Sohila and the Ardas are recited. The ashes are scattered on water or buried, and the religion does not build tombs for veneration, erect gravestones or set up altars with photographs.

Vaisakhi and the major days

Vaisakhi falls in mid April, usually on the 13th or 14th. Its origin is the harvest festival of the Punjab, and for Sikhs it carries an additional layer of meaning as the day the Khalsa was founded in 1699. It is the religion's greatest day of the year. The Nishan Sahib flag is carried in procession through the streets, called Nagar Kirtan, with singing of scripture along the way, and langar stalls are set up along the route to serve food to passers-by.

The other major days are collectively called Gurpurab, days of the Guru. Guru Nanak's birthday falls on the full moon of the month of Kartik, usually in November. The commemoration of Guru Arjan falls around June, and in the Punjab there are often stalls by the roadside handing out cool drinks free of charge. The Gregorian dates change from year to year because the religion uses its own calendar, called Nanakshahi, published in 1999.

XIINumber of followers

Figures about religion always call for a careful reading of the source and the year. With Sikhism there is a particular difficulty: the largest survey bodies often do not count Sikhs separately but group them with other religions. The 2025 report of the Pew Research Center places Sikhs in a combined group with the Bahá'í Faith, Jainism, Shinto, Taoism and Zoroastrianism, a group that makes up 2.2 percent of the world population, and gives no separate figure for each religion.

A frank word on the discrepancies.

First, the global figure does not come from a count. The figure of 25 million comes from the World Religion Database estimate, while the figure of 30 million seen in various compilations does not state how it was calculated. The two differ by as much as five million people, so the library gives both rather than choosing one.

Second, the figure for India is out of date. The census that should have followed 2011 has been postponed several times, so the latest authoritative figure is still the one from fifteen years ago. Any estimate of the present number is an extrapolation.

Third, the Sahajdhari group is very hard to count. Sikhs who do not keep the outward signs cannot be identified by observation, and censuses rely on self-declaration. In Britain there has also been a long debate over whether Sikh should be declared under religion or under ethnicity.

Fourth, this is a religion with a diaspora that is large relative to its size. Canada, Britain and the United States together already come to nearly one million eight hundred thousand people, not counting Australia, Malaysia and the Gulf states, so the world's image of Sikhism is shaped to a great extent by communities outside its homeland.

XIIISikhism in Vietnam

This section is short, and rightly so. Sikhism has only a very small presence in Vietnam, material in Vietnamese is still scarce, and many details that are often repeated are ones for which the library has not found a reliable source.

Administrative facts

According to official document No. 6955 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (Bộ Nội vụ) on 28 December 2020, the list of religions recognised in Vietnam comprises sixteen religions and thirty-six religious organisations. Sikhism does not appear on that list. The library records this as an administrative fact and makes no comment.

The Indian community in Sài Gòn before 1975

Indians were present in Nam Kỳ (Cochinchina) from the late nineteenth century, working as traders, moneylenders and brokers. According to a compiled account of the Indian community in Vietnam, in 1937 there were some two thousand Indians in the South and one thousand in the North, while in the 1950s and 1960s the estimate was three thousand to four thousand, concentrated in Sài Gòn. The same source records that this community included all three faiths, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. After 1975, most of the community left.

The traces still visible today are a few Hindu temples in the central district of Hồ Chí Minh City, the best known being the temple called đền Bà Ấn. It is a Hindu temple, not a gurdwara.

In practice, most Vietnamese come to know Sikhism when they work or study in Canada, Britain, Australia and the United States, where Sikh communities are large and gurdwaras usually open their doors to visitors for langar.

Material on Sikhism in Vietnamese consists mainly of a few research articles in university journals. The Vietnamese authors who write on the subject themselves note that understanding of Sikhism in Vietnam is still very limited, so you should check against the religion's own sources or against dictionaries of religious studies, especially on points concerning the relationship between Sikhism and Hinduism.

XIVThrough the eyes of feng shui

The religion's own position

The Sikh scripture has many passages that speak plainly on this: every day is auspicious if the heart is turned toward the supreme reality, and whoever keeps leafing through the calendar in search of a lucky day has not grasped what matters. The code of conduct likewise sets no procedure for choosing days, hours or matching ages. The consequences are very concrete: weddings are not dated according to the ages of bride and groom, funerals do not consult the hour for placing the body in the coffin, and building a new gurdwara does not involve a geomancer to choose the orientation. From the standpoint of the religion itself, feng shui is not part of the religion, and neither is astrology.

So by what rule does the religion orient its buildings

Each religion has its own rules for its places of worship, and those rules usually have nothing to do with energy fields. Catholic churches by ancient tradition face east, with a liturgical meaning. Mosques face the qibla toward Mecca, which is a geographical calculation. Japanese Shinto shrines have their own art of choosing a site.

Sikhism prescribes no orientation at all. What it prescribes is quite different: the Guru Granth Sahib is placed in the highest position with the congregation seated lower, there is a Nishan Sahib flag tall enough to be seen from afar, and there is a langar. Where possible a gurdwara opens four doors to the four directions, but the point of that is to welcome people from every side, not to choose a sitting and facing direction. This religion replaces the question of which direction is good with the question of who may enter.

Reading the site of Harmandir Sahib by the traditional measure

What follows is the library's own interpretation, reading the Amritsar temple complex through the eyes of traditional Vietnamese feng shui. It is not what the religion teaches.

First, the temple stands in the middle of a pool. In the traditional idiom, water governs gathering, and a building surrounded by water on all four sides is a configuration of complete gathering of water. Vietnamese are used to a half-moon pond in front of communal houses and pagodas, that is, water on one side, whereas here the water is on all four sides.

Second, the temple floor is lower than the surrounding ground. By the traditional measure, a hollow is where water gathers, and wherever water gathers is regarded as a place that receives. The traditional reading and the religion's own reason arrive at the same point by two different paths: one says the low place receives the water, the other says those who enter must humble themselves.

Third, there is no sitting and facing direction. The whole art of choosing orientation rests on a building having a front and a back. A temple with four equal doors has no front, so it has no sitting direction, no facing direction and nothing to calculate. The library points this out precisely because it is where the traditional method of reading runs out of use.

XVCommon misunderstandings

This last section gathers the questions the library hears most often when Vietnamese readers ask about Sikhism. The three most common slips are confusing the Sikh turban with the head covering of Muslims, confusing reverence with worship because Vietnamese uses the same word, thờ, for both, and confusing a distinct religion with a branch of another religion because both arose in the same land.

?Quick Questions

›Read Next