Five Thrones, and the Question of Who Speaks for the Panth

The five takhts are the standing answer to a specific question: who exercises temporal authority in a community whose Guru is now a scripture rather than a living person.

Two buildings facing each other

The Akal Takht at Amritsar, raised by Guru Hargobind in 1606 directly facing the Harmandir Sahib, is the first and the highest, and the arrangement is itself the doctrine. Miri and piri, temporal and spiritual authority, are held together and expressed by two buildings standing opposite each other, one in the water and one on the ground. From the Akal Takht are issued hukamnamas that bind the Panth, and before it Sikhs may be summoned to answer for conduct held to have harmed the community.

Not uniform, and contested

The five are not interchangeable. Hazur Sahib and Patna Sahib keep observances, including a jhatka meat offering at Hazur Sahib, that the Punjab reform tradition does not follow, and the two takhts outside Punjab are administered under their own statutes rather than by the committee at Amritsar. The recognition of Damdama Sahib as the fifth is itself a twentieth-century decision and was disputed when it was made. The institution locates authority in seats rather than in a single office deliberately, so that no one person can occupy it.