In the northern Indian state of Punjab, official celebrations have been launched to mark the tercentenary of the Sikh faith, also known as the Khalsa Panth.

A grand ceremony was held in the historic town of Anandpur Sahib where the tenth guru (religious leader) of the Sikhs, Gobind Singh, is said to have founded the Khalsa Panth.

Accompanied by trumpets and military drums, five Sikh priests, symbolising the first five men baptised by Guru Gobind Singh, unveiled a five metre high white marble foundation stone for the Punjab Government's ambitious Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex in Anandpur Sahib.

The multi-billion rupee complex will include a museum, a state-of-the-art auditorium and a 50m high steel memorial called the Nishan-e Khalsa.

Seconds later, tens of thousands of people who had gathered to witness the ceremony, joined in a deafening chant of the traditional Sikh slogan, Bole so Nihal, Sat Sri Akal, while a saffron-painted aircraft showered confetti on the teeming crowds below.

One of many praying for Sikhism

Earlier in the morning, special prayers were offered at the historic Keshgarh Sahib Gurudwara, from where a huge procession started for the venue of the foundation stone-laying ceremony.

The procession was led by two pure albino horses, said to be direct descendants of the Guru Gobind Singh's steed, Dilbagh, and it included two gold-bedecked elephants carrying the Sikh high priests.

These were followed by vehicles carrying religious relics, and a cavalcade of jeeps with prominent political and religious leaders of Punjab, and representatives of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.

Behind them were the star attraction of the show - 500 horse-riders dressed in the traditional battle gear of Guru Gobind Singh's Sikh army.

'Tens of thousands of people ... joined in a deafening chant.'

Thousands of devotees followed the procession to the end.

Government officials said the ceremony marked the beginning of two years of celebrations to commemmorate the birth of modern Sikhism.

Grand though it was, the ceremony was somewhat marred by the absence of the chief Sikh cleric, Bhai Ranjit Singh, who heads the Akal Takht, the highest religious and temporal seat of Sikhism.

Bhai Ranjit Singh stayed away from the festivities in protest since he was not consulted on the design of the Heritage Complex.