AMRITSAR. The sacred town of the Sikhs in India and the metropolis of their religion. It was so called, according to tradition, from the " Pool of Immortality" (Amritsar) which was said to have existed there from a remote period, some of the nectar of immortality (Amrita) having been spilt on the spot. The sacredness of the spot, however, is associated by the Sikhs with an event which is supposed to have happened in the time of Guru Ram-das (A.D. 1574-1551), the fourth Guru of their sect. It is said that an angry father married his beauti ful and pious daughter to a cripple. She had to support herself and him by begging, and she carried her husband on her head in a basket. One day she left the basket for a little while near a pool. A lame crow came and went into the water, whereupon its lameness was cured. Observing this, the cripple followed its example, and he too was restored to health. Guru Ram-das therefore had a tank excavated, and laid here the foundations of the lake-temple, or Golden Temple, of the Sikhs. " To
form an idea of the unique spectacle presented by this sacred locality," says Monier-Williams, "one must picture to one's self a large square sheet of water, bordered by a marble pavement, in the centre of a picturesque Indian town. Around the margin of this artificial lake are clustered many fine mansions, most of them once the property of Sikh chiefs who assembled here every year, and spent vast sums on the endowment of the central shrine. . . . In the centre of the water rises the beautiful temple with its gilded dome and cupolas, approached by a marble causeway. It is quite unlike any other place of worship to be seen throughout India, and in structure and appearance may be regarded as a kind of compromise between a Hindu temple and a :Muhammadan mosque. . . ." See J. C. Oman, Brahmans; Monier-Williams, B.H.