Langar

What it is

Every gurdwara keeps a kitchen where food is given away. The room is called the langar, and the same word covers the meal itself. There is no charge and no guest list. A visitor of any religion, caste or income sits on the floor beside everyone else and eats what is offered. Volunteers called sevadars do the cooking, the serving and the washing up, and they take no payment for it. Sikhs call this work seva, meaning service given freely. Because everyone eats from the same pots in the same place, the meal carries a message: no one stands above another. Some Sikhs also use the word langarkhana for the kitchen itself.

Origins and history

Kitchens that fed travellers, ascetics and wandering yogis have deep roots in South Asia. The sources trace them back more than two thousand years, and note Hindu temple kitchens and rest houses of the Gupta period, called dharma-shala or dharma-sattra, along with similar places known as satram or choultry. Muslim Sufi missionaries in the Jammu hills ran feeding houses that locals also called langar. Sikh accounts link the spread of that practice to Shaikh Farid, a Sufi saint of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Sikhs credit Guru Nanak, born in Punjab, with giving it its Sikh form near 1500, and later Gurus shaped it further. No evidence survives, the sources add, of an earlier kitchen that ran continuously under a single community.

How it is kept

The Gurus gave langar its rules. Guru Angad is remembered for placing a kitchen in every gurdwara and for training the sevadars, telling them to treat visitors kindly and to make the place a refuge. Guru Amar Das made the meal central to Sikh life and asked all who came to eat alongside others before speaking with him, whatever their caste. That pattern holds today. Volunteers cook beforehand, diners wash their hands and sit in rows on the floor, food is carried round, and everyone begins together. Afterwards the volunteers clean the hall and the pots. Any visitor may join in the work.

Food and equality

What lands on the plate is plain and follows a fixed rule. No meat, fish or eggs are used, and dairy is allowed, so the same food can be offered to almost anyone who comes. The dishes are simple, filling and cheap enough to make in very large amounts, which is what lets a kitchen feed hundreds or thousands in a day. Because the menu is shared, a guest cannot be ranked by what they are handed. Sikhs read that as the heart of langar: the food itself, and the way it is served, carry the teaching of equality.

Today and change

Gurdwaras on every continent run langars, and many keep them open daily. Homeless people, students short of money and neighbours of any background eat there. When COVID-19 arrived, lockdowns stopped the shared meal almost everywhere. Rather than close, congregations changed how they worked: some set up drive-through pickups, some delivered hot food, water, sanitiser and medical supplies. In New York, one gurdwara handed out more than 145,000 meals over two months, and during protests in 2019 its cooks made 15,000 meals in a single day. In New Delhi volunteers ran an oxygen langar, giving free tanks to patients short of breath. Sikhs describe langar not as a soup kitchen but as religious duty, offered without conditions.

How Langar is kept

Volunteers called sevadars cook the meal, and the food is given away at no cost. Diners remove their shoes, wash their hands and sit in rows on the floor, side by side, with no seats set apart for rank or wealth. Food is carried round, and everyone begins eating together. The rule that all share the same menu, cooked in the same pots, keeps the meal equal. After eating, volunteers wash the dishes and clean the hall. Working in the kitchen counts as seva, service given freely, and any visitor may join in.

When and where

Langar is kept all year round. Most gurdwaras serve it daily, and a meal usually follows the main prayers and readings. There is no fixed date in the calendar, so the kitchen runs whenever worshippers gather. On festivals and anniversaries it may feed far larger numbers than on an ordinary day.

Langar belongs to Punjab, the Sikh homeland, and to the Punjabis who carried it abroad. Gurdwaras across India, Canada, the United States and much of the wider world keep a kitchen. Some are open to hundreds or thousands of visitors a day, and many draw in people who are homeless or short of money.

What Langar means

The shared meal is the clearest picture Sikhs have of equality. A person's caste, wealth or religion counts for nothing once they sit on the same floor and eat the same food. Cooking and serving becomes seva, work done for others and not for reward. Guru Amar Das is remembered for asking visitors to eat with everyone else before he would meet them, which put the kitchen at the centre of Sikh life. For those who keep it, feeding a stranger is itself an act of faith.

Questions people ask about Langar

See also

SamovarA heated urn that brews tea for a slow, sociable pour, from Russia to Iran and KashmirCaffè sospesoAn anonymous gift of a paid cup of coffee for a stranger in needTea cultureHow tea is prepared, shared and served, from Chinese tea houses to Tibetan butter teaAs-salamu alaykumA traditional Arabic greeting of peace exchanged in daily life and prayer

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• Why homeless Britons are turning to the Sikh community for foodBBC, Article
• Free oxygen at Sikh temples as India’s COVID crisis worsensAl Jazeera, Article
• Sanctuaries of times pastThe Hindu, Article
• Why homeless Britons are turning to the Sikh community for foodBBC, Article
• Free oxygen at Sikh temples as India’s COVID crisis worsensAl Jazeera, Article
• Sanctuaries of times pastThe Hindu, Article

• Langar (Sikhism) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.