Adaptation and Incorporation in Ritual Practices at the Golden Temple, Amritsar

This article will focus upon the ways in which ritual practices at the Golden Temple in Amritsar Punjab have been transformed since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. The intermingling of popular ritual practices and institutional controls of the practices of worship within managed sites highlights the evolving nature of ritual practices in Sikh sacred sites. By focusing upon the management and sustenance of ritual practices at Harmandir Sahib, we highlight how the most iconic of all Sikh spiritual sites today also contains a history of contested and on- going heteropraxy despite attempts to discipline ritual devotional practice.