the sikh's holy temple

Well, every religion has it's holiest place. Muslims have Mecca and Sikhs have the Golden Temple also known as the Harimandir Sahib. You can read about the Golden Temple here in this wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harimandir_Sahib

Originally posted by vespasian     Hi everyone. I just read the thread on the 1984 anti-sikh riots. I'm curious to know a little more about the Sikhs in general. What is this Golden Temple, and why do Sikhs consider it to be their holiest place? Just wondering.

Vespasian,

Sikhs are a brave race of India. Sikh religion was started by Guru Nanak and because of the indiscriminate violence of muslim rulers against Hindus and the common man in India the Sikhs took arms and were deterimental in the downfall of the Mughal empire.

Guru Gobind Singh, the last Sikh Guru, to inspire Sikhs into a fighting class had tales of bravery of rajputana (stories of Jaimal/Fatta, Alha/Udal, Prithviraj, Pratap, ....) sung at Akal Takth in the golden temple.
These stories inspired the sikhs and they became a martial race.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a Sikh King, conquered all of Aghanistan in the middle of 18th century and Aghans were mortally afraid of his general Hari Singh Nalua.

When Hari Singh Nalua, drove away Afghans from Kashmir, he also banned cow slaughter in kashmir and this ban continues till today. The Muslims in kashmir till today do not eat beef!

 Ignore hashim. He is mostly delusional. Golden temple was attacked in 1984 which was quite unnecessary but there were no revolts as Hashim would lead u to believe. Hashim calls eminent scholars idiots when he himself is the biggest one encountered so far. Look at the following exchange.

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim Yes, your Mr Hunter appears to be an idiot. W.W. Hunter describes in Chapter X of his book Chapter X? I'm not aware of people marking chapters in letters.

   



William Wilson Hunter was educated at Glasgow University (BA 1860), Paris and Bonn, acquiring a knowledge of Sanscrit, and passing first in the final examination for the Indian Civil Service in 1862. In 1886 he was elected vice-chancellor of the university of Calcutta. He published The Imperial Gazetteer of India which appeared in 9 volumes in 1881 (2nd ed., 14 vols, 1885-1887; 3rd ed., 26 vols, including atlas, 1908). A Brief History of the Indian Peoples, was published in 1880 and a revised form was issued in 1895, under the title of The Indian Empire: its People, History and Products.

Besides these he has numerous other books to his credit.

You have just proved my point by calling such a great historian an idiot. How can an Islamic fascist trained at a Madarsa appreciate modern scholarship? He cannot. And also Only a fool cannot decipher roman numerals.

-Digs


Edited by Digvijay - 19-Aug-2006 at 14:25

i have heard of another tradition, where one of the gurus was resting on the bank of the pool, he saw a sick bird take a dive in the pool and come out refreshed and visibly better. I dont have any proof for this though.

Originally posted by vespasian

So, here's another question... I've noticed that all male Sikhs seem to have the name "Singh". Does anyone know why this is?   Just curious.

In Indian caste system, Singh literally meaning a lion, denotes the warrior castes.
Guru Gobind Singh, created the Panch Khalsa system, turning them into a warrior caste, since he wanted them to take up arms against the tyranny of the Muslim rulers.

Thus the Singh name came to be applied to all the sikhs.

they do have different surnames which are written after Singh for e.g. Maninder Singh Bedi, an Indian cricketor. Now his surname Bedi implies that his ancestry in Bramhin (Bedi - expert of the vedas) & Singh in his name implies that he became a member of the warrior caste.

Singh is not only common in Sikhs but used in the whole of India for denoting the Warrior caste.

The meaning of sikh = disciple, and the sikhism was started by 10th guru who is also known as dashmesh-pita, Guru nanak dev ji never written or told any thing related to sikhism, 10 th guru gave community a lot lot to pride. The general rules in sikhism are to make a disciple Sant-sipahi(saint-soldier) and Khalsa(purest breed) but now a time only names are retained, very less sikhs follow guru's principles. Sikhism is all about spirituality and golden temple and other places associated with all 10 guru's are very pious as all 10 gurus were not associated with any particular sect, They showed the path to every community and panj=pyaare(5 most dear) sikhs were from varied communities.  Golden temple is very pious because Guru did a lot of effort while it was being constructed, as it is made of gold.

Point taken Sir. You are the lord of the Rings here. Will obey your majesty.