It is one and primary seat of Sikh Authority
out of all Takhts or thrones situated in various parts of India. Akal
Takht is situated in front of the famous Golden Temple at Amritsar
and it was established by the 6th Guru, Har Gobind (1595-1644) in
the year 1609 A. D. when the Sikh religion made a formal bid to proclaim
its basic commitment to politics and social problems. The other three
Takhts are situated at Anandpur Sahib in the Siwalik foothills of
Himalayas, at Patna Sahib in Eastern India and at Nanded in Southern
India. The building of Akal Takht Comprises of a high throne of an
altitude three times as high as was permitted to any authority by
the Mughal sovereigns of India and it is higher than the Mughal Throne
balcony in the Red Fort at Delhi. Thus, Guru Har Gobind, by establishing
the Akal Takht and building this high throne openly repudiated the
Mughal sovereignty over India and proclaimed the Sikh claim to a co-equal
sovereign status. During the 18th and 19th and even 20th centuries
the Sikh people have occasionally assembled at the Akal Takht to
make national political decisions through consensus which have been
deemed as binding on every Sikh. Many of these decisions have been
of the nature of an open revolt against the established political
authority in the country. The Akal Takht and the other seats of Sikh
Authority, are in theory, managed and controlled by a Jathedar or
Controller General and during the Sikh Raj even Maharaja Ranjit Singh
was obliged to submit himself to its decisions.
