The Golden Temple        Guru Arjan Saheb completed the unfinished work of excavation of tanks- Santokhsar and Amritsar. Baba Buddha was appointed to supervise the work of construction. Santokhsar was completed in 1587-89.       Then on October 3, 1588 the Guru laid down the foundation of Harmandar ("Place of the Lord") which is sometimes erroneously called Golden Temple ("Golden or Gold Place"), in the center of the tank. It is said that the Sikhs represented to the Guru that Harmandar should be the tallest building in the neighborhood. The Guru explained, "Harmandar should be the lowest because what is humble, shall be exalted. The more a tree is covered with fruit, the more its branches descend to the earth."         Mian Mir, a famous Muslim saint, was a friend and a devotee of the Guru. The Guru asked Mian Mir to lay the foundation stone of Harmandar. The head mason moved the brick to place it in order. Whereupon the Guru prophesied that since the brick was moved by the mason, the foundation of the temple would be laid again in the coming times. His words were subsequently fulfilled as Ahmad Shah Abdali destroyed the temple and desecrated the tank in 1763. However two years later, the great army of the Khalsa recovered possession of the temple, relaid its foundation and reconstructed it.   Back to Main Page