Amritsar

Amritsar (əmrĭt`sər), city (1991 pop. 709,456), Punjab state, NW India. It is a district administrative center, as well as a trade and industrial city where carpets, fabrics of goat hair, and handicrafts are made. The center of the Sikh religion (see Sikhism), Amritsar was founded in 1577 by Ram Das, the fourth guru [Hindustani,=teacher], on land given by Akbar. The Golden Temple (refurbished 1802), set in the center of a lake, is especially sacred to Sikhs. The city was the center of a Sikh empire in the early 19th cent., and modern Sikh nationalism was founded there. Khalsa College, a branch of Punjab Univ., is in Amritsar. The first Amritsar massacre took place in the Jalianwala Bagh, an enclosed park, in Apr., 1919; hundreds of Indian nationalists were killed and thousands wounded when troops under British control fired upon them. The second massacre occurred June, 1984, when Indian troops, opposing a militant Sikh separatist movement, shot their way into the Golden Temple, killing more than 400 people inside.

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Amritsar

a city in India, in NW Punjab: centre of the Sikh religion; site of a massacre in 1919 of unarmed supporters of Indian self-government by British troops; in 1984 the Golden Temple, fortified by Sikhs, was attacked by Indian troops with the loss of many Sikh lives. Pop.: 975 695 (2001)

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Amritsar 

city in northern India in the state of Punjab. Population in 1965, 398,200. Railroad junction; trade center; important textile center. Famous for the manufacture of wool, cotton, and silk fabric; rugs; and metal, bone, and leather articles.

Amritsar was founded around the sacred Pool of Immortality (in Sanskrit, Amrita Saras) in the late 16th century by Ram Das, the fourth Sikh guru. It became the Sikh holy city and religious and cultural center. The Golden Temple, the sanctuary of the Sikhs, is in Amritsar. In the 19th century it was part of the state of Ranjit Singh. In 1849, as a result of the second Anglo-Sikh War, it was seized by the British East India Company. From 1918 to 1922, Amritsar was a center of the rising national liberation struggle. On April 13, 1919, a protest meeting against the policy of the colonial government was held there, and the colonial authorities opened fire at the meeting, killing and wounding more than 1,000 people. The Amritsar massacre, as it came to be known, caused an explosion of indignation in India and other countries. During the partition of India in 1947, Amritsar suffered great destruction as a result of battles between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.