297 x 205 mm. View looking across the tank towards the Golden Temple. The city and temple were founded by Ram Das in 1574 on a site granted by the Emperor Akbar. The two storey temple, surmounted by a dome, stands in the centre of the tank on a 67 foot square platform connected to the bank by a 200 foot causeway faced with marble. Much of the town and temple were destroyed by Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1761 but the Golden Temple itself was rebuilt, probably to the same pattern as previously in 1766. It gains its name from the copper gilt with which the dome was covered in 1802. As the most sacred shrine of the Sikh religion, it became in the 1980s a centre and stronghold for militant factions fighting for an independent Sikh state (named Khalistan) in the Punjab under the religious leader Sant Jarnail Bhindranwale, and was severely damaged in 1984 when the buildings were stormed and Bhindranwale killed by the Indian army.