Miri and Piri
Building the Akal Takht
Opposite the Harmandir Sahib, Guru Ji raises a platform for the community's worldly affairs.
According to the Gurbilas Chhevin Patshahi, as reported by the Encyclopaedia, Guru Ji laid the cornerstone himself. Only Baba Buddha and Bhai Gurdas were allowed to complete the work, and no third person could help. From here he dealt with the community's secular business and is said to have issued his first hukamnama, telling distant congregations to bring weapons and horses.
Bhai Gurdas was put in charge of the site. A building raised over the platform later came to be called the Akal Bunga.
How do we know?
Several traditional accounts tell this story, without close independent support.
The Encyclopaedia's two entries convert the same Bikrami date differently (3 June and 15 June), and Macauliffe's light half differs again. They also rest on the Gurbilas, whose claim to be old is doubted. A raised seat of this kind is plausible. Later sources may have projected the name Akal Takht and its later authority back onto 1606. The Dabistan does not mention it.
- ScholarshipGives Har vadi 5, 1663 Bk, as 15 June 1606, following the Gurbilas, and calls the Gurbilas the oldest account.[EoS]
- ScholarshipGives Har 5, 1663 Bk, as 3 June 1606 for the same event.[EoS]
- Later traditionDates it to the fifth of the light half of Har, 1663, and calls it the Takht Akal Bunga.[Macauliffe]
- ScholarshipPresents it as the institutional expression of Miri and Piri.[EoS]
