Picto Diary - 02 December 2019 - Golden Temple

Above: Drums and Granny. Sikh Golden Temple. Amritsar, India. 02 December 2019.

SIKHISM...Throng; Devotion; Aspiration; Tabla; Chant (Kirtan); Faith; Service; Spirituality; Scale; Energy; Color; Scent; Trumpets; INDIA. Nothing like it in the world.
Add, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Christianity Zoroastrianism, and concomitant, ubiquitous venue and ritual and the head explodes in a kaleidoscopic cacophony of spiritual energy.

INDIA.
Its beyond comprehension.
It's why we come so often.

Above: Guru Granth Sahib ceremony. Golden Temple. Amritsar, India. 02 December 2019.

Drums and TIMDT observe end of day return of Guru Granth Sahib scripture from Golden Temple, original, three hundred year old holy scripture of Sikhism. The original, holy scripture was damaged by a bullet in 1984 during Indian Army assault on Sikh terrorists inside the Golden Temple.

Shortly after the Indian Government's assault on terrorists holing up in the Golden Temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her Delhi residence by her two Sikh bodyguards.

Indira Gandhi had been encouraged to shed her Sikh bodyguard detail. Her handlers feared retribution from Sikhs for the temple desecration. Gandhi kept her two Sikh bodyguards on, notwithstanding, declaring that the Sikh terrorists killed in the Golden Temple were not representative of the thinking of most Sikhs, who, she believed, probably accurately, identified more with the Indian national interest than with the terrorists. Still, there are exceptions to every rule. Indira Gandhi paid with her life for her stratagem to respect Sikhism by separating the national interest from a perceived government assault on religious liberty.

Our societal penchant to receive information at best curated by a narrow cultural data filter and at worst by venal, ideologically riven media institutions, leaves us ignorant of much of which is really significant.

Who knew that here in Amritsar there are up to ten thousand devoted adherents to the Sikh religion who visit their revered Golden Temple daily (!) to affirm their beliefs, first codified over three hundred years ago. This daily temple veneration alone, in scope, is an event of world significance, yet, because of media curation of religious themes, few "in the world" are aware of it occurring.