Amritsar is named for the Golden Temple’s nectar pool
Punjab’s second-largest city after Ludhiana counts about 1.13 million people in the 2011 census and draws nearly a hundred thousand visitors daily. Guru Ram Das is credited with founding it, once called Rāmdāspur. Sanskrit Amṛta Sarovara—Pool of Nectar—names the waters around Harmandir Sahib.
The city lies in the Majha region, 217 km northwest of Chandigarh, 455 km from New Delhi, just 28 km from the Pakistani border and 47 km from Lahore. The 2011 census counted 1,132,383 people, and the UN estimated the wider metropolitan region at roughly two million in 2018, the largest in Punjab. It is one of the state's ten municipal corporations and the headquarters of Amritsar district.
Sikh tradition credits the fourth guru, Ram Das, with founding it in 1574 as Ramdaspur. One account says the land was bought with Sikh donations for 700 rupees from the village of Tung; another says Guru Amar Das chose the site, called Guru Da Chakk, and told Ram Das to build a town around a man-made pool. Ram Das finished the pool first, set up home beside it and invited merchants and artisans to settle. Under Guru Arjan the town grew through donations and volunteer labour, and in 1604 the scripture was installed in the new Harmandir Sahib.
The Mahima Prakash Vartak, a semi-historical text probably written in 1741, is the earliest known account of all ten gurus and describes that building phase. In 1762 and again in 1766–1767 the Durrani ruler Ahmad Shah invaded, besieged Amritsar and destroyed it.
Hindu tradition places the ashram of Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, at Ramtirath, 12 km west, where Sita is said to have borne Lava and Kusha, legendary founders of Lahore and Kasur. The Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest and most-visited gurdwara, anchors a tourist trade of nearly a hundred thousand people a day, and the city is also known for its food and its wooden chess sets.
Source: Amritsar
