As part of Glasgow’s Open Doors Day 10 of our group visited the Central Gurdwara Sikh Temple for a guided tour. The foundation brick was laid on April 13 1999 with actual work commencing officially in November 2010. The Scottish Sikh community embarked upon a pioneering journey in completing phase one of the £8.5 million project in 2016 and it is now a fully functioning Gurdwara which proudly sits as Scotland’s largest purpose built Gurdwara, altering Glasgow’s skyline forever.
Once we had taken off our shoes and socks, covered our heads and washed our hands we were shown around by a young female student from Glasgow Caledonian University.
We felt very welcomed (See Welcome Poster above) but due to the acoustics and the almost constant whir of hand dryers in most areas of the building it was quite hard to concentrate much of the time. We visited the Temple Hall, sitting on the floor with other worshippers for a short time.
After our tour we were invited to enjoy a traditional vegetarian meal of Langar (a simple lunch of Dal and Rice with a chapati). This is in keeping with their faith that anyone who visits the Gurdwara (believers and non-believers alike) should feed both their soul and their body. We learned that most sit cross legs on the floor to eat (this represents that everyone is equal and no-one is above another in keeping with their faith)in the Langar Hall but the elderly are allowed to sit at tables. For once we were quite happy to count ourselves in that category. Some things we learned on our visit:
Sikhs believe in reincarnation and ghosts. They wear a Kara (an iron or steel bangle) which is 1 of their 5 Articles of Faith. They believe that it protects them from harm (and ghosts).
6% of the population of Glasgow are Sikhs.
The pattern of the beautiful blue carpets depicts flower petals.
On arrival a small group left the underground car park (adjacent to the Gurdwara) via the Fire Exit door which opened into a side street and (unintentionally) bypassed the payment booth. Following the visit on returning to their car they threw themselves on the mercy of an elderly Sikh Car Park Attendant who kindly declined offers to belatedly pay our dues. Our WhatsApp group was full of photos and decisions to research the Sikh faith and culture after our visit. So much so we will be adding a meeting for 2026 to look at different religions.