Amar Das

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Amar Das

(born 1479, Khadur?, India — died 1574, Goindwal) Third Sikh Guru. Much revered for his wisdom and piety, he became Guru at age 73. He was noted for his missionary efforts to spread Sikhism and for the division of the Punjab into 22 dioceses. To strengthen the faith, he ordered three great Sikh festivals each year, and he made the city of Goindwal a centre of Sikh learning. He extended the casteless langar ("free kitchen") and required that anyone wanting to see him must first eat there. Advocating a middle way between the extremes of asceticism and sensuous pleasure, he purified Sikhism of Hindu practices, encouraged intercaste marriages, allowed widows to remarry, and prohibited suttee (self-immolation of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre).

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