I See no Stranger

I SEE NO STRANGER EARLY SIKH ART AND DEVOTION

B. N. Goswamy Caron Smith

I SEE NO STRANGER EARLY SIKH ART AND DEVOTION No one is a Hindu; no one a Muslim.

With these radical words Guru Nanak (1469–1539) founded the Sikh religion, calling for the recognition of one God, by whatever name devotees chose to call him, and the rejection of superstition, avarice, meaningless ritual, and social oppression.

In his embrace of all religions, Guru Nanak envisioned a loving God that was outside the bounds of any one religion. He upheld the truth of equality among all beings and practiced the quiet heroics of holding up a mirror to foolishness. Meditation and devotion were identified as the work of the private domain and charity, honest work, and service to humanity as the obligation to the social domain.

The goal of this catalogue and the exhibition it documents is to bring together and illuminate works of art that identify these core Sikh beliefs in the period of their early development by the ten historical Gurus (16th–17th century). Through them, we are taken behind the external signs that identify Sikhs, who constitute the world’s fifth largest organized religion, to its founding principles.

The works of art, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, include paintings, drawings, textiles, and metalwork.

They are drawn from museum collections in India and the United States and private collections in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The essay and object texts by B.N. Goswamy and Caron Smith provide keen insight into early Sikh devotion and examine the works of art in the context of the North Indian cultural mix in which they were created.

With 124 color illustrations

Front cover/jacket: Guru Har Gobind (?) with an attendant, detail of 3.11 Back cover/jacket: Guru Nanak at the carpenter Lalo’s home, 1.6 Frontispiece: Woman’s phulkari chadar (headcover), detail of 5.17

I SEE NO STRANGER E ARLY S IKH A RT

AND

D EVOTION

I SEE NO STRANGER E ARLY S IKH A RT

AND

D EVOTION

B. N. Goswamy and Caron Smith

Rubin Museum of Art, New York in association with

Mapin Publishing Supported in part by The Sikh Foundation & Sikh Art and Film Foundation

This catalogue is published in conjunction with an exhibition organized and presented by the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, September 18, 2006, through January 29, 2007.

The exhibition was curated by B. N. Goswamy and Caron Smith.

Copyright © Rubin Museum of Art 150 West 17th Street, New York, New York 10011 All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in any part, in any form (beyond the copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without permission from the Rubin Museum of Art. First published in India in 2006 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Simultaneously published in the United States of America in 2006 by Grantha Corporation 77 Daniele Drive, Hidden Meadows, Ocean Township, NJ 07712 E: mapinpub@aol.com Distributed in North America by Antique Collectors’ Club East Works, 116 Pleasant Street, Suite 60B Easthampton, MA 01027 T: 1 800 252 5231 • F: 413 529 0862 E: info@antiquecc.com • www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Distributed in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East by Art Books International Ltd Unit 200 (a), The Blackfriars Foundry, 156 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8EN UK T: 44 207 953 7271 • F: 207 953 8547 E: sales@art-bks.com • www.art-bks.com Distributed in Southeast Asia by Paragon Asia Co. Ltd. 687 Taksin Road, Bukkalo, Thonburi, Bangkok 10600 Thailand T: 66 2877 7755 • F: 2468 9636 E: rapeepan@paragonasia.com Distributed in the rest of the world by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Usmanpura, Ahmedabad 380014 INDIA T: 91 79 2754 5390 / 2754 5391 • F: 2754 5392 E: mapin@mapinpub.com • www.mapinpub.com ISBN: 1-890206-04-0 (Grantha hc) ISBN: 1-890206-05-9 (Grantha pb) ISBN: 81-88204-77-3 Mapin hc LC: 2006932449 (hc) LC: 2006932450 (pb) Project Director, Helen Abbott Designed by Paulomi Shah / Mapin Design Studio Separations by Reproscan, Mumbai Printed and bound in India by Pragati, Hyderabad

The Sikh Art and Film Foundation and The Sikh Foundation are pleased to announce the exhibition I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion, to be held for the first time in the greater New York area at the prestigious Rubin Museum of Art. The past twenty-five years have seen a steady rise of interest in Sikh art around the world. Sikh exhibitions have been held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Asian Arts Museum in San Francisco, Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the National Museum in Delhi, India.

Dr. Caron Smith, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of The Rubin Museum, in collaboration with Dr. B.N. Goswamy, Chief Curator of Chandigarh Museum, India, have put together a thought-provoking exhibition presenting the origins of Sikh beliefs, philosophy, and culture through art. Many of these pieces of early Sikh art have never been exhibited outside of India prior to this event.

It is interesting to note that there were no portraits of the Sikh Gurus during their lifetime. Thus, Sikh art in the early eighteenth century was in the Pahari and Mughal styles. Hindu and Muslim artists represented the Sikh Gurus and their teachings through the eyes of their respective religious beliefs. This is evident in the portrayal of the Gurus with Hindu gods and deities. In contrast, Mughal artists portrayed the Gurus as Muslim “Pirs.”

We thank Mr. and Mrs. Rubin for their vision and providing a forum for exploring world religions and art, and Dr. Caron Smith and her colleagues and Dr. B.N. Goswamy for all their efforts and expertise in bringing this exhibition together.

We are grateful to all the sponsors, patron, directors, committee members, and volunteers of the Sikh Art and Film Foundation, as well as the trustees of The Sikh Foundation for their generous support of this worthwhile endeavor.

Mr. Tejinder Singh Bindra President The Sikh Art & Film Foundation

Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany, Ph.D. Chairman The Sikh Foundation

Contents

Preface

7

Acknowledgments

10

Map

13

I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion

15

The Catalogue ONE: Searching for Answers TWO: All Is One THREE: A Light Moving across Time FOUR: Meditations on the True Name FIVE: Faith in Labor

42 44 102 118 152 166

Warrior Chiefs Everyday Occupations Women and Their Work

Timeline

210

Glossary

212

Selected Bibliography

214

•6•

PREFACE This catalogue and the exhibition it supports are overdue. Between 1999 and 2004, San Francisco, Toronto, London, and New Delhi hosted important exhibitions of art reflecting the history and beliefs of Sikhism. An on-going installation at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History documents the five hundred years of Sikh culture since the founding of the religion in the late sixteenth century. For many, these exhibitions remain a first glimpse of the values, practices, and artistic heritage of Sikhs, who comprise the world’s fifth-largest organized religion and number more than 24 million individuals worldwide. But, until this undertaking, no such presentation had been made to an audience in New York, the most polyglot of America’s cities, in a region where the largest population of the 500,000 Sikhs in the United States make their home.

The exhibition and catalogue are also timely. Earlier exhibitions have provided a broad and comprehensive view of Sikh art and culture; we have chosen to focus on visual reflections of fundamental beliefs. The outward markers of Sikh identity, such as turbans, uncut facial hair, and the surnames Singh and Kaur, are familiar in the West, but the beliefs they represent are little known. In this time of global tensions, the cost of ignorance is too great, as witnessed by many senseless assaults in the United States, more than three hundred on Sikhs alone, in the wake of the attack on America on September 11, 2001.

THE CONDUCT OF TRUTH Sikhism, though rooted in the matrix of Indian thought and history, developed a profile distinct from Hinduism and Islam, the religions dominant in North India during the period of its inception. The fundamental tenet of Sikhism is “GOD IS ONE.” This pervasive single God is to be found everywhere, in everything and everyone; hence, the second fundamental tenet: equality among all beings, man or woman, rich or poor, low or high born, of any complexion. Guru Nanak emerged from a transforming period of meditation with the words “No one is a Hindu, no one a Muslim,” a radical and even heretical statement in medieval Indian society, rigidly ordered by caste, creed, gender, and entitlements as prerequisites for the experience of God. It remains radical today, negating any bases for religion to divide mankind. Nanak was a learned man, a philosopher and poet, yet his message was clear and plain and meant for everyone: God is found through humility, service, and an affirmation of beauty and joy in everyday life. The path to God is dwelling on his name in communal hymns, searching within for truth, earning an honest living, sharing meals with those in need, and caring for one’s family—not withdrawal from society, priestly intervention, or self-abnegation. The messages are of tolerance, equality,

•7•

social responsibility, and devotion to simple truths. We have assembled works of art, primarily paintings, that were made to convey these messages.

THE BEGINNINGS OF SIKHISM Sikhism is young as major world religions go. Its origins coincide with Columbus’s search for India and discovery of the Americas, Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, and Martin Luther’s proposals for reformation posted on the door of the Wittenberg Church. It was founded by Nanak (1469–1539), the son of a revenue accountant to the local governor of a small town, Talwandi, about forty miles south of Lahore in the Punjab, the “Land of Five Rivers,” which descend from the Himalayas onto the plain of North India. Much of the character of Sikhism is rooted in the Punjab, the gateway from West and Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. The region was long contested by Afghans, Arabs, Central Asians, and Rajput kings. The western Punjab enjoyed an unusual period of stability during Nanak’s youth, but, by the time of his death, Babur, the TurkoMongolian descendant of Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), had plundered the fertile plain to reach the capital of the Lodhi Sultans at Delhi, defeated Ibrahim Lodhi at the battle of Panipat in 1525, and secured North India for the Mughal dynasty. The Mughals made Persian the language of the court and Islam the state religion; they infused architecture and the arts of the book with new energy, introduced common use of paper and the art of portraiture, and imposed an imperial structure of government with power at the center. They transformed the subcontinent indelibly.

Although Guru Nanak’s lifetime witnessed political instability, oppression, and massive cruelty, it was also a time of liberating thought. Mystical Sufism had taken root in the Punjab and challenged orthodox Islam with ecstasy in the direct experience of God. Within Hinduism, the Bhakti movement, which began in South India, had spread to the north, offering an emotional approach to the Absolute through devotion and surrender. For both Sufis and Bhaktas, the metaphor for the relationship of an individual with God was the passionate longing of a lover for the beloved. Common beliefs between Muslims and Hindus were recognized, where only differences had prevailed, and religion took a turn to social responsibility. Akbar (1555–1604), the visionary Mughal emperor, was inspired to create a new religion that brought elements of Hinduism and Islam together and celebrated the brotherhood of man, but it failed to take root.

Nine Gurus followed Nanak in succession, and with each generation, new towns were established as centers for Sikh worship, expanding the domain of influence of the new faith. This growth did not go unnoticed by the Mughal rulers, who took steps to contain the developing political power of Sikhs in the Punjab. Guru Arjan Dev (d. 1606), the fifth Guru, was imprisoned by the Mughals and tortured for a refusal to pay a fine. He became Sikhism’s first martyred Guru. In the seventeenth century, confrontations, martyrdoms, sacrifices, and persecutions led the followers of Nanak’s simple rules to adopt a code of militant self-preservation and to claim

•8•

temporal as well as spiritual power. Conflicts also arose around the choice of successors in the line of Gurus, those not chosen often creating splinter groups. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, at the time of his death in 1708, decreed that henceforth the living Guru was to be found in the writings collected by the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev, and known to Sikhs as the Guru Granth Sahib— “The Revered Book That Is My Master.” And so it has remained.

WORKS OF ART IN THE EXHIBITION Art selected for this exhibition, which presents early Sikh beliefs, is of three kinds: a popular genre of paintings depicting reconstructed events in the life of Guru Nanak; images of the Gurus who followed him through the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, who died in 1708; and manuscripts of the text named by Gobind Singh as his successor and the Eternal Living Guru.

Since the presence of a Guru Granth Sahib is the living presence of the Guru, it was inappropriate to consider it for a museum installation. We are grateful to Bhai Sikander Singh of Bagrian for photography of the illuminated Adi Granth (the text as compiled by the fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Dev, in 1603–4) in use in his family for more than a century, and happy that a reproduction of this book (beed), clearly shown as such, was considered suitable for use in the gallery. We have constructed aspects of the context in which the Eternal Guru would be visited in a Sikh house of worship to demonstrate the signs of honor that it is given, but you will find no copy of the beed there. This abstraction also hints at the conditions of Sikh devotion that reject any form of idolatry.

CULTURE IN DIASPORA Shelley and Donald Rubin founded the Rubin Museum of Art with a particular awareness of cultures in diaspora and a recognition that to preserve the wisdom carried by these cultures in a new environment and across generations, they must be documented, celebrated, and shared. The tumultuous history of the Punjab and of followers of the Sikh faith has necessitated resistance and encouraged migrations. Some movement away from the Punjab has been forced, some voluntary. The Sikh diaspora was affected dramatically by the border dividing the Punjab to separate India and Pakistan in 1947. Although the overwhelming majority of the world’s 24 million Sikhs still lives in India (they are about 61 percent of the population of the Punjab), more than 2 million live abroad, largely in English-speaking countries and East Asia. The relationship between a culture in diaspora, its motherland, and its adopted home is a complex web, reactive to tension from any point and an instrument of change that can diminish or enrich all parts. This exhibition rests on a belief that art has a beneficial role to play in the lives of individuals and societies by stimulating pride, developing awareness, encouraging the sharing of values, and cultivating understanding.

B. N. Goswamy

Caron Smith

•9•

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When Dr. Narinder Kapany, Founding Chairman of the Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto, California, offered to lend objects from the collection that he and his wife, Satindar, had formed over many years, the material possibility for an exhibition of Sikh art at the Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) took shape. The offer included support for access to objects given by the Kapany’s, or on loan to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History. Mr. Tejinder Pal Singh Bindra, head of the Sikh Foundation for Art and Film, based on Long Island, offered the resources, both financial and cultural, of the Sikh community in the New York Metropolitan Area and also a local base for sustained exchange. With urgency typical of the business world, these gentlemen believed only a year was required to realize the exhibition. Donald Rubin, RMA co-founder, agreed. Our desire to integrate these works of art with objects from collections in India made this a nearly impossible goal.

Nevertheless, having worked together before and sharing a common vision for what this exhibition might achieve, we thought we had a chance. We also had the advantage that one of us had the perspective of many years of research and publication on the material and would work from India directly with the Indian museums, while the other of us was in New York and able to work with the local community of Sikh supporters and with works of art in American collections. Where the enterprise falls short of its ambition to select and present works of art that convey the warmth, simple elegance, and commitment to universal brotherhood of Sikh devotion, we accept responsibility. Where it succeeds, however, many can be credited, and to all these we are grateful.

Mrs. Neena Ranjan, Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, looked with kind favor on our request to organize loans from three museums in India in a very short period of time. At the National Museum in New Delhi, Dr. R.R.S. Chauhan, Director, led the effort to approve loans from his institution and to oversee the organization of all loans from India for shipment. Also of great help there was Mr. Sanjib Kumar Singh, Deputy Curator (Exhibitions), with the assistance of Mr. Sarovar Shende, Assistant Curator, and Mr. J.C. Grover, Assistant Curator. Curatorial support was ably given by Dr. Daljeet, Curator (Paintings); Dr. Rita Devi Sharma, Curator; and Smt. Anamika Pathak, Deputy Curator. The Sanskriti Museum of Everyday Art, also in New Delhi, under the direction of Mr. O.P. Jain willingly agreed to lend ritual objects used in religious ceremonies to complement the exhibition. Mr. T.K. Biswas of Bharat Kala Bhawan must also be thanked. The kind efforts of the Government of the Union Territory of

• 10 •

Chandigarh in the person of General S.F. Rodrigues, Administrator; Mr. Krishan Mohan, Home Secretary of the Chandigarh Administration; and Mr. V.N. Singh, Director of the Government Museum and Art Gallery, made a significant portion of the exhibition material available, along with photographs. Mrs. Poonam Khanna and Mr. Surinder Dhami of the museum also rendered valuable help. Mr. Al Mithal, StarWorldwide Group, New Delhi ably managed shipping.

Letters of support were forthcoming from the Honorable Ronen Sen, Ambassador from the Government of India to the United States of America, and the Honorable David C. Mulford, Ambassador from the United States of America to India, facilitating the channels of cultural exchange. The Consul General in New York from the Government of India, Mrs. Neelam Deo, was an early and energetic supporter of the exhibition as well as other projects at RMA. Lenders in the United States included importantly Dr. Narinder and Mrs. Satindar Kapany, Palo Alto, California, whose generosity was further extended by hospitality and advice on many matters large and small. They supported the focus of the exhibition and not only made available works of art still in their collection but also facilitated access to works already given or promised to other institutions. From the collection of Mr. Bicky Singh and Gurprect K. Singh, California, and Mr. Ajab Singh of the Samrai Collection, London, also came interesting additions to the exhibition. The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, was a ready lender and source of information.

We offer thanks to Dr. Emily Sano, Dr. Forrest McGill, and especially to Dr. Tushara Bindu Gude and Ms. Sharon Steckline for graciously opening their holdings and sharing their knowledge. Dr. Paul Taylor at the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History, was also forthcoming with objects as requested. We are especially grateful to Bhai Sikandar Singh of Bagrian for the loan of images as well as generous consultations on a variety of subjects, and to Giani Gurdit Singh for his astute reading of the catalogue essay.

Our preparations benefited greatly from the participation and friendship of the Sikh community in the New York area through the offices of Mr. Tejinder Bindra. Mrs. Inni Kaur, Nishaan USA, lent her wisdom, resources, and boundless energy and goodwill to many aspects of the project.

Dr. Inderjit Singh broadened our understanding of Sikhism in teaching sessions.

Mr. Roopinder Singh, Assistant Editor of the Tribune, Chandigarh, and Mrs. Vinati Sarkar, filmmaker and journalist, generously advised and assisted in bringing our project to the attention of a larger audience. Mr. Norman Hurst and Mrs. Amy Poster were helpful in locating works of art.

At the RMA, we must acknowledge the support of the Board of Trustees in extending the common conception of the Himalayan region. Ms. Helen Abbott was a fellow-traveler

• 11 •

throughout this project and both edited and oversaw the production of this catalogue, with the invaluable assistance of Mr. Jonathan Kuhr and Mr. Neil Liebman. Ms. Jessica Klein was also there at every stage to facilitate communications and keep order. Ms. Lisa Arcomano, Ms. Hannah Stephenson, Ms. Lauren Bourgeois, and Mr. David Etzion handled the organization of loans and the care of the objects with skill and grace. Mr. Patrick Sears, Mr. John Monaco, Mr. Brian Schneider, Ms. Ana Rosales, Ms. Kimberly Riback, and Ms. Evi Abeler brought intelligence and invention to the installation and exhibition graphics and texts. Ms. Lisa Schubert, Ms. Karen Kedmey, and Ms. Mei Sing Wong managed press relations and helped to develop sustained connections to a new community of visitors to RMA, as did Ms. Maura Moynihan. Mr. Brad Choyt and Ms. Asha Kaufman engaged earnestly with the material and enabled the public to do so as well through education programs. Mr. Tim McHenry and Ms. Mar Aige organized public programs for all ages, again with the help of Mrs. Inni Kaur. Mr. McHenry also oversaw presentation of the Third Annual Festival of Sikh Films held during the exhibition period at RMA. Mrs. Marilena Christodoulou, Mrs. Nadine Slowick, and Mr. Chris Phelan organized memorable events. Others whose contributions must be noted are Ms. Kerri Scholttman, Mr. Joshua Marshack, and, on the RMA Board of Trustees, Mr. William Luers. There are many others too numerous to name who have lent their support, and to them we are grateful.

The production of this catalogue was undertaken by Mr. Bipin Shah of Mapin Publishing. We are grateful for his attention and quick action that defied the odds. On his staff, we must especially acknowledge Ms. Diana Romany and Ms. Paulomi Shah.

Friendships are woven through this project—some new, some long-standing. They have enabled it to happen and will suffuse its recollection with pleasure. This includes, of course, the nourishing companionship of Karuna and Jeffrey.

B.N.G

C.S.

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I SEE NO STRANGER E ARLY S IKH A RT

AND

D EVOTION

Each morning, hours before the grind of ordinary life begins, countless devout Sikhs, men and women, make for the corner of their family home in which the Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib, is installed. Head covered, hands joined in reverence, they enter the room; the decorative cloth with which the Book was covered the night before is gently removed to reveal an open page so that the light (prakash) that emanates from it can illumine the world; kneeling in front of the Book, they touch the ground with the forehead in obeisance; a laudatory hymn is recited aloud; and then a sacred verse or word (vak) or command (hukam) is taken from the scripture— this word or command serves as a guide for action or thought for that day. Then, head bowed, face still turned toward the Book, they take steps backward to exit the room, for to turn one’s back toward the Book would be tantamount to great disrespect. This ritual complete, the devout Sikhs head to work, which could be anything: take the tractor into the fields, get the children ready for school, attend a board meeting, put on a surgeon’s mask, sit down to write or paint, open the store to customers, report for duty at the command post. The day will run its unyielding course, but the memory of that early moment of quiet and devotion will linger.

At the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest shrine and Guru Granth Sahib’s original home, each night, as the day-long singing and recitation from the sacred text ends, the Book is wrapped up by designated priests in ceremonial covers, carried first in a palanquin, then placed upon a thronelike low wooden stool, and taken out of the sanctum for its brief and rigorously followed nightly journey across the waters of the hallowed pool in the midst of which the shrine stands. A priest respecfully places the small portable structure on his head and starts walking, barefoot like everyone else, as a crowd of devotees mills around and a virtual procession is formed. Chanting of verses from the sacred text fills the air. People jostle to catch a glimpse of the Book, cover and all, or to wave the ordained fly-whisk over it; other devotees walk in front and sprinkle the path with water as if to cleanse it. Slowly, the procession reaches the imposing structure called the Throne of the Immortal One (Akal Takht), which will be home for the night for the Book, the same way that it has been for close to four hundred years. There the Book is ceremonially lowered and laid for its nightly repose; the next morning, before daybreak, it is to begin its journey back to the sanctum inside the Golden Temple for the routine of the day-long

• 15 •

recitation to begin all over again. Few who have witnessed or participated in this moving, celebratory event are able to wipe the memory of it from their minds.

This ritual is part of the way of life for Sikhs. The Holy Book has a central place in the mind and in the scheme of things. The name by which it is commonly referred to—Guru Granth Sahib— means for every Sikh, literally, “The Revered Book That Is My Master.” It is guide and mentor, embodies truth and wisdom, shows how to negotiate the tortuous course of life, and points toward the path that can lead to salvation.

A Sikh Guru seated in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, detail of 2.3.

It is difficult to think of a date on which Sikhism, as a religion, can be said formally to have been launched. But at least four dates stand out in every Sikh’s mind: 1469, when Guru Nanak, founder of the faith and first in the line of ten great Gurus, was born; 1604, when the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev, finished his compilation of the great Granth and installed it in the shrine— Harmandir Sahib—that would come popularly to be called the Golden Temple; 1699, when the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, founded the Khalsa, literally, “the pure ones,” in this case those who live life by a well-defined moral code of conduct; and 1708, when the same Guru, anticipating his death, decreed that, after him, the great Granth shall forever be the Guru of the Sikhs, their sole guide and spiritual master.

The last days of Guru Gobind Singh and the installation of the sacred Granth as the future Guru are recalled with great emotion by the Sikhs even today. Traditional accounts have come down of the very last day in 1708: the mortal wounds of the Guru going “past medicament,” the bewilderment of the body of Sikhs that he had led until then, the overwhelming sense of grief and desolation. In the midst of all that, the Guru kept his composure and spoke words filled with solace and wisdom to his followers. Then, as farewells were being taken, they inquired of him as to who was to succeed him. The Guru had his answer ready. The moment is captured well by Macauliffe1:

Page 14: The Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Dinodia Picture Agency

After this the Guru bathed and changed his dress. He read out the Japji—(Guru Nanak’s most celebrated composition)—and repeated a supplication to the Immortal One. He then put on a muslin waist-band, slung his bow on his shoulder and took his musket in his hand.

He opened the Granth Sahib and placing five paisa-coins and a coconut before it, solemnly bowed to it as his successor. Then uttering ‘Wahguru ji ka Khalsa! Wahguru ji ki fatah!’

(The Khalsa is the Guru’s! Victory is the Guru’s!), he circumambulated the sacred volume and said: ‘O beloved Khalsa, let him who desires to behold me, behold the Guru Granth.

• 16 •

Obey the Granth Sahib. It is the visible body of the Guru. And let him who desires to meet me diligently search its hymns.’

The humble ceremonial gesture of bowing before the Guru, while placing five paisa-coins and a coconut before him, was exactly the same that Guru Nanak had made when, before dying, he designated Angad his successor. Now in this moment, in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh was joining his spirit with that of Nanak, and centuries of time were being crossed. Today, as Sikh congregations all over the world offer their prayers, they end them by reciting aloud in one voice the words of Gobind Singh. “Obey the Granth Sahib: it is the visible body of the Guru.” In this manner, centuries of time are traversed again.

The Adi Granth—the “Primal Text”—as the Guru Granth Sahib was originally named, was compiled not by the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh—having been part of his great heritage, he only added to it by bringing into it some of the great compositions of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur.

It was compiled by Guru Arjan Dev, five generations of Gurus before Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Arjan Dev’s had been a massive enterprise, for the divinely inspired compositions of Guru Nanak, which were the initial core of the work, were by now scattered. With enormous patience and devotion, however, and with the help of a savant, Bhai Gurdas, who was also his disciple, the fifth Guru had gone about his task, recalling, assembling, sifting, arranging. Nearly 5,894 hymns form the body of the text, and they are drawn, significantly, from an astonishingly wide range of sources. The voices of the great Gurus, limpid and passionate, soaked in devotion, are to be heard in the work, of course—nearly 937 belong to them—but there are other voices: that of the thirteenth-century Sufi saint Shaikh Farid, for instance; those of saint-poets like Namdev, Ramanand, Ravidas, Sen, and, above all, Kabir, who were part of the great Bhakti movement— involving intense devotion to a personal God—which was then sweeping the Hindu north; and even those of some bards, or Bhats, who had engaged in composing and singing stirring verses lauding the great Gurus. Every Sikh knows this, but to him the Adi Granth is one integrated whole, worthy of being heard and recited with the same reverence regardless of the section at which it is opened.

The text of the Adi Granth consists of three parts. The opening section, comprising three widely read daily prayers, is essentially liturgical. The Japji—perhaps the most widely known and revered of Guru Nanak’s compositions—is deeply meditative in nature and is recited by devout Sikhs at sunrise; the second, called the Rahiras, in the nature of a supplication to God, authored by three different Gurus, including Guru Nanak, is recited at sunset; and the third, the Sohila— Joyous Praise or Celebration—belongs to the time when the day ends. At the head of them all stands the Mool Mantra, seed of so much sacred thought2:

• 17 •

let us meditate on the One the Eternal the True the Creator beyond fear or faction beyond Time and birth of His own Being meditated through the grace of the Guru.

True in the beginning True through the ages True in the present Nanak, True, He will ever be!

In the Janamsakhis, those perennially popular hagiographical accounts of the life of Guru Nanak, as recalled and put down by those who had been close to him, one comes repeatedly upon passages in which the Guru asks his companion, the Muslim rabab player Mardana, to strike up his stringed instrument, for bani (divine voice or utterance) was suddenly “descending.” The Mool Mantra, with its simplicity and its unalloyed ring of truth, has all the signs of being one of those utterances that seem to have “descended.”

The second, and main, body of the Adi Granth, consists of hymns that in their organization follow an uncommon scheme. They are arranged into thirty-one sections, each according to the musical mode (raga) in the classical North-Indian tradition of music, in which it is meant to be sung. In this are included chaupadas (i.e., chaupais) of four “feet,” or stanzas, each; ashtapadis, each of eight feet; chhants (from Sanskrit chhanda), and longer compositions called the vars.

Guru Nanak’s own compositions come before those of the other Gurus in each section and stand apart, and even when all the other Gurus also use, out of reverence, the pen name “Nanak,” the compositions can all be distinguished by the number of the sequence (mohalla) in the order of the Gurus that attaches to each. In this section are also included the compositions of the Hindu and Muslim men of God mentioned before, but the principle of organization into musical modes remains unchanged.

Page from Adi Granth, Guru Arjan Dev Ji. Courtesy of Bhai Sikander Singh.

The final section of the Adi Granth consists of miscellaneous hymns, many of them couplets; however, these are not arranged according to musical modes. A reminder of the primacy of music comes in the form of the closing part of the Granth, which consists of a Ragamala (literally, Garland of Musical Modes) following the time-honored North-Indian system of

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arranging musical modes into families, headed by six principal ragas. Whether the Ragamala is to be considered an integral part of the Adi Granth is an issue that continues to be debated, but the facts that music dominates the system and that the hymns are arranged according to a musical scheme, remain. It is not easy to think of any other sacred scripture, something standing at the very heart of a religion, privileging music in this manner.

In any case, with or without music, the compositions that make up the Adi Granth have a remarkably uplifting quality. They rise in the air, take wing, and soar, and as one comprehends the full meaning of the words, the truths that are embedded within them begin to shed a warm, quiet glow upon all that is around. Guru Nanak, with whom it all began, was evidently a man of extraordinary learning, steeped in the lore and the texts of the past but intent upon seeing them in the light of his own understanding and belief. There is great poetic passion—simplicity combined with lyricism—in his utterances, and the seemingly artless manner in which he sometimes puts the most abstruse of thoughts tends to go straight to the heart of the listener.

Stemming as he originally did from the Hindu, principally Vaishnava, matrix of thought, he was filled with disturbing questions raised by the manner in which that ancient faith was now being practiced, or had been reduced to. Superstition, avarice, meaningless ritual that had become a substitute for substance, and social oppression seemed to prevail. This, it appeared to him, was eating away at the heart of Truth, and he began saying so even from his childhood days.

Others before him had raised their voices: the emphasis on ceremony and ritual, the importance attached to pilgrimages, faith in idols rather than in God, narrowness of outlook, discrimination between man and man on grounds of caste and birth, had all been called into question by many saint-poets who had gone before him, some of them of low-caste origin themselves: Namdev, Ravidas, and Kabir, for instance. In his inimitable manner, Kabir, the mystic weaver, had railed against caste and idolatry and hypocrisy, composed his nirguna hymns—addressed to the One without Attributes—and raised an ecstatic vision of a loving God that was outside of the bonds of any one given religion: “The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright./ The melody of love swells forth, and the rhythm of love’s detachment beats the time./ Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens; and Kabir says, ‘My Beloved One gleams like the lightning flash in the sky.’” 3 Others like Jaidev, author of the celebrated Gita Govinda, and as cited in the Adi Granth, had emphasized that it was surrender to God and the repetition of his name that leads to salvation, not ritual observances: “What was worthy of worship I have worshipped; what was worthy of trust I have trusted. And I have become blended with God, as water blends with water.” 4 Building upon approaches such as these, however, Guru Nanak went his own way, speaking in a voice through which utter conviction shone forth. There was deep, soulful thought in what he said. If he mocked the aberrant ways of the world, he mocked in a manner that went home, and

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A saintly figure playing upon a stringed instrument, detail of 4.9.

From Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh: the Ten Sovereigns, details of 3.1.

with other men of God, for instance, or teachings aimed at specific persons—but a clear context is not always established. In any case, nothing substantive can be learned about the mortal lives of the Gurus themselves from a reading of the Adi Granth. For that one has to go to a different genre of literature: accounts put together by those who knew, or claimed to know, the Gurus in person and stayed close to them, or contemporary histories, official or unofficial, in which references occur.

In this context, in a class by themselves, certainly as far as reconstructing the life of Guru Nanak goes, are texts collectively referred to as Janamsakhis. Sakhi, derived from Sanskrit or Hindi sakshi, roughly “seen with own eyes”—an eye-witness account, in other words—is a term that was applied to a category of the inspired utterances of several saint-poets, above all Kabir, evidently turning the literal meaning around to “that which was perceived with the inner eye.”

Here, the word was combined with janam (i.e., janma) meaning “birth, or lifetime” to arrive at Janamsakhi. But in the Sikh context in which it was widely used it came to mean accounts of the life of Guru Nanak as recalled or recorded by those who had been by his side or had heard from others while memories were still fresh. As a body of literature, Janamsakhis defy classification, for they are neither hagiographies nor biographies, as has been said. They consist, for the most part, of episodes and anecdotes through which the persona and the teachings of Guru Nanak come across in a simple, easily comprehensible manner. The reconstruction of the early years of Guru Nanak’s life apart, these texts go long and discursively into the travels of Guru Nanak—udasis, they are called, meaning, roughly, “journeys of disenchantment”—to far-flung parts of the world, in the course of which he meets, sometimes seeks out, men professing different faiths. This for

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the purpose of engaging them in debate, questioning them and thus himself about the truths that it was his historic destiny to seek. Woven into all these accounts of encounters and disputations are miraculous happenings and marvellous deeds. Myths and imagination and anachronisms and pious fiction all come together here, forming a circle around a core of historical facts.

The Janamsakhis have come in for a great deal of scholarly examination and analysis. The various versions have been studied, among them the one that bears the name of Bhai Bala, who figures as a constant companion of Guru Nanak in the story as he tells it; the Janamsakhi by Meherban, grandson of the fourth Guru; and the Puratan or “ancient and therefore authentic” Janamsakhi, the authorship of which remains uncertain. The historicity of these works, their credibility as a source of authentic information on the life and times of Guru Nanak, the sectarian motives— inevitably schisms had risen within the faith—behind the writing of them have all been subjected to close scrutiny. McLeod emphasizes the need to distinguish between the Guru Nanak of history and the Guru Nanak of faith.8 The popularity of the Janamsakhis, especially that of the Bhai Bala version, has endured, for the stories they contain, the folkish dialect in which they are couched, the directness with which they catch the essence of Guru Nanak has made them, for the common devotee, a repository of early Sikh traditions. They have, from the time they were written down in the sixteenth century, become a part of the popular imagination, a means not only of feeling a sense of closeness to the founder of the faith but also of gaining a broad understanding of Sikhism’s essential teachings.

It is of great interest to see the power that traditional accounts such as the Janamsakhis wield over the popular mind. Take the case of Bhai Bala, the narrator of what is perhaps the most widely known of Janamsakhis. Scholarly scepticism has been directed at the very historicity of Bhai Bala himself, he whom the Janamsakhi speaks of as having started dictating to a scribe the life story of Nanak at the behest of his successor, Guru Angad. The curious mixture of miracles and credible events, of myth and legend and reality, the anachronisms built into the narrative have all been pointed out. But when one juxtaposes a view such as this, grounded in historical methodology as it might be, against the manner in which Bhai Bala, together with the Muslim rabab player, Mardana, a constant companion, appears in all traditional images of Guru Nanak, the extent to which traditional accounts such as his have become embedded in popular belief comes across. We see him, this author of the Janamsakhi that carries his name, everywhere: in paintings inside manuscripts, on murals, on votive coins, and, naturally, in the illustrated versions of his work, which abound.

What makes the Janamsakhis riveting reading for the common believer are the parables, which they are so rich in. Woven skilfully into the didactic narratives are also some of the compositions

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Gold token with image of Guru Nanak, 4.1.

context within which works used to be made was that of a court, or a highly organized institution, which extended patronage to retained artists; and the simple, almost rural community that Guru Nanak founded in the town of Kartarpur, in the midst of which he spent the last years of his life, did not have either that status or that ambience. The fact of no contemporary likeness of Guru Nanak having come down, therefore, remains a matter of regret but no great surprise.

Much the same situation obtains even with regard to the period that followed, the period of the great Gurus who succeeded Guru Nanak. The second half of the sixteenth century saw the Mughal style firmly established under the great Akbar (1556–1605), and from then on, throughout the seventeenth century—the period that saw the apostolic succession pass from the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev (1581–1606), to the last, Guru Gobind Singh (1675–1708)—there was a great deal of painting activity, not only in the region of the Punjab but also in the neighboring hill states. And yet no portraits that we can truly call authentic likenesses of the Gurus appear to have been painted. What explains this is not easy to guess at. It is possible that a feeling that having such portraits made would amount to “idolatry” of the kind that Sikhism disapproved of prevailed among the followers. It is equally likely that the Sikh community, considerably grown as it was, still did not, except under Guru Gobind Singh, possess the air of a court to which artists naturally attach themselves. But nothing can be said with certainty. On the question of whether people at other courts where painters were active, or devotees who came to pay respectful visits to the Gurus might have had any likenesses of the Gurus made, there are indeed some scattered references to such portraits. A nineteenth-century text mentions that “Guru Har Gobind, the Sixth Guru, had his portrait drawn by an artist at village Sur Singh near Kiratpur on the request of his relations.”14 Again, when the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur (Guru 1664–1675), was in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, at Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh, he is said to have been received with great reverence by the populace, and especially by the mother of a deputy of that place, Bulaki. So devoted was she to the Guru that she asked him to stay there much longer than he planned to, but the Guru said he had other things to attend to. At this, we read, the old lady “sent for a painter, and had a picture of the Guru made. She hung it over the couch on which he had sat. Thus she was able to behold the Guru whenever her secular avocations admitted.”15 Nothing, however, is heard afterward of that portrait. Again, one comes upon a reference to a portrait of Guru Gobind Singh, having possibly been made by a Pahari painter, for it is said that the ruler of the hill state of Bilaspur, with whom the Guru had to deal on many occasions in the course of his tumultuous career, once dispatched a painter from his court to bring back a likeness of the Guru. Whether the painter did indeed make such a portrait is not recorded. All that one knows is that no such portrait has survived. A somewhat coarsely made portrait, in the style that obtained toward the end of the seventeenth century at the hill court of Mandi—a town that Guru Gobind Singh did certainly visit—is sometimes said to be that of the great Guru. But certainty eludes one even here.

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Interestingly, however, one is very close here to the period—the first half of the eighteenth century onward—from which sets of portraits of the ten Gurus start appearing. Most of these are in a style that draws heavily upon the Mughal, but does not have the quality that one associates with imperial work. One knows that the Mughal ateliers had started breaking up by this time; provincial styles were being formed; new centers of power or artistic activity like Lucknow, Patna, Murshidabad, and Farrukhabad were emerging; painters, many of them thrown upon their own resources, had begun to disperse, roaming the land perhaps in search of employment or commissions. It is to these artists possibly that one owes these sets of portraits. Much work remains to be done on this material, and until that is accomplished, nothing except broad generalizations can be made, especially when many of the sets are not intact. The work, it might be fair to say, is for the most part competent, though not inspired. The air in many of these paintings tends to be a little dry and formal; no great penetration of character is attempted; there is an emphasis on externals; and one misses the flair that great portraiture possesses. But clearly the sets of portraits fulfilled a need. For within the community and on the periphery of it, nearly everyone must have felt the urge to “see,” lay their eyes upon—in the sense of having a darshan—the great Masters who had fashioned so many lives and left so much to live by. There are no records yet of who commissioned these works; no inscriptions provide hard information, and no clear attributions can be made. All that one finds sometimes are numbers on the borders and the briefest of labels—in Persian, Gurmukhi, or Devanagari—that help identify each Guru in the sequence. It would appear as if the sets are made after one or two models or prototypes— those remain yet to be identified or located—that the painters must have added over time to their repertoires. Some variations would have been introduced from time to time, too, but there appear to be marked affinities between the sets whether they were made at places as far apart as Patna or Murshidabad and the Punjab plains.

What is of great interest is the fact that the broad iconography—that may not be the right word to use here—or lakshanas (the term one encounters in ancient texts, meaning “cognizable signs”) of three of the Gurus that came after Guru Nanak seems to have been established with great clarity: the Gurus Har Gobind, the sixth; Har Krishan, the eighth; and Gobind Singh, the tenth.

Because he was the first one in the line to claim sovereignty—authority that was both temporal and spiritual as symbolized by the two swords of piri and miri that he started wearing—in most of his portraits Guru Har Gobind is shown sporting, on a gloved hand, a falcon, acknowledged symbol of sovereignty. Guru Har Krishan is always seen in these sets as a young boy, for he was eight years of age when he died. And Guru Gobind Singh, great martial hero, is often represented as riding a spirited charger, an aigrette adorning his turban and a falcon resting on one hand, the last two aimed at giving visual form to the twin epithets associated with him in popular memory still today: kalghidhar patshah (the sovereign wearing an aigrette) and baazanwala (the one with the falcons). The other great Gurus—Angad, the second in the

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Guru Har Rai, the seventh Guru, detail of 3.14.

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THE CATALOGUE

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1.1 Guru Nanak with a group of sadhus (Hindu holy men) Folio from a Janamsakhi series Opaque watercolor on paper Pahari; from the family workshop of Nainsukh of Guler; last quarter of the 18th century 8-7/8 x 6-3/8 in. (22.6 x 16.5 cm) Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Acc. no. 4072(5) Inscribed, on verso, in Devanagari characters, with the words: “Babaji set bandar gaye” [Babaji (i.e. Guru Nanak) went to the port town with the bridge (?) (setu-bandha?) Rameshwaram?); the same words also inscribed in Gurmukhi characters.

descriptions, the chief of them, ash-besmeared, extending his hand as if making a point in disputation. But, characteristically, Guru Nanak fixes the speaker with his gentle gaze, aware that it is his own words that will triumph in the end.

Earnest conversation seems to be in progress. While Guru Nanak, dressed in that recluse’s cap with upturned flaps and a simple robe, which one sees so often in this series, is seated facing left, a kamandalu (water pot) by his side, bairagan (armrest) under the left armpit, right hand holding a mala (string of prayer beads), Mardana and a devotee perch close to him on the ground, the rabab player beginning to move his fingers along the stringed instrument. Just across from these three is a superbly conceived group of shaved-headed sadhus of all ages and

The occasion or the episode is difficult to identify, but the inscription at the back seems to suggest that the place is meant to be seen as Rameshwaram—“set bandar,” it says, possibly meaning “the port with the bridge,” or setu bandha, “Adam’s Bridge”—on the southern-most tip of India, a place to which Guru Nanak did travel to, according to traditional accounts. But there is no town or architecture in sight. The scene is set on a grassy piece of land fronting which is a series of beautifully colored boulders, just at the edge of a quiet riverbank. At the upper edge of the space, a row of stylized trees rises tall and beyond them flows a river, equally quietly, as if suggesting that the group is seated on a river island. The light is somewhat dim as if dusk were approaching. An air of remarkable stillness pervades the painting, despite the streaks of rich color that run through it and some scattered monkeys, who hold their playfulness in check, as if aware of the moment.

Previous pages: Guru Nanak meets the Mughal emperor Babur, detail of 1.26.

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1.2 Young Nanak is taken to school Folio from a Janamsakhi series Opaque watercolor on paper India, probably Murshidabad, West Bengal; ca. 1755–1770 8 x 6-1/2 in. (20.3 x 16.5 cm) Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; gift of Satinder and Narinder Kapany Acc. no. 1998.58.2 The age at which young Nanak was taken to a school to be placed in the care of a teacher—a padha, as he was called, a variant of the Sanskrit word upadhyaya—is given differently in different Janamsakhis—five or seven is the question—but all versions agree that an auspicious day was carefully chosen. On that day, Nanak’s father, Mehta Kalu, asked his wife for “a coin, some betel-nut, and rice” for the teacher as an offering, following age-old custom. Nanak’s schooling began in earnest but the teacher was soon to become the taught, for Nanak had thoughts of his own to communicate to him. Having learned to write the alphabet very quickly—on the wooden tablet called patti on which students are still taught to write in rural schools—Nanak started composing and reciting verses. To the padha he is believed to have addressed these words: “What is needed is to turn into cinders all worldly love and pound it into ink and turn one’s intelligence into superior paper.” There is even mention of Nanak having composed an acrostic, using every letter of the alphabet, to start a new verse filled with mystical thoughts. This, the Janamsakhis say, was no ordinary child.

The scene at the school, as the painter of this folio renders it, is lively, with young pupils playing about in the courtyard, each still carrying a wooden tablet, which serves almost as part of the iconography of a learner. At the back, however, stands solemnly young Nanak’s father, with the boy in front, facing respectfully the teacher who is shown seated, framed by a door. The boy Nanak is shown with a nimbus surrounding his head, suggesting that already at this age divinity had come to reside in him. This feature does not appear consistently in all the paintings of this series, and its presence here, therefore, is carefully thought out, for divine thoughts were to be uttered by Nanak soon.

Closely attached to this episode of the schooling of Nanak in the Janamsakhis is another in which he is spoken of as having already recited and explained to his parents seven verses from the classic scripture, the Bhagavadgita.The black wooden tablets with little handles in the hands of the boys are again perhaps the painter’s way of reminding the viewer that on his own tablet, Nanak was going to write a lesson of a different kind.

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1.3 Early intimations of Guru Nanak’s divinity Folio from a Janamsakhi series Brush drawing on paper Pahari; from the family workshop of Nainsukh of Guler; last quarter of the 18th century 6 x 4-5/8 in. (15.2 x 11.8 cm) Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Acc. no. 2306 Inscribed, on verso, in Devanagari characters, with the words: “4. Sakhi babe di rae bular nal hoyi majhi charde” [4. The anecdote of Baba (Nanak) with Rai Bular at the time of his grazing a herd of buffaloes]. In a line below, in smaller characters, in red pigment, the words: “sakhi unath hoye” [number of sakhis, 59?].

reported and complaints taken. Once a villager went to him to complain that the young herder boy, Nanak, had been grossly neglectful of his duties, with the result that the cattle he had taken out to the fields to graze had run all over his standing crop and ruined it.

When Rai Bular went to inspect the fields for the damage that was claimed had been done, the story goes, he found that the crop was still standing there, completely intact. The complaint was naturally dismissed, but word began to go around about God having divinely intervened to save Nanak, who everyone knew was always lost in thoughts of Him.

From the childhood days of Guru Nanak come many stories. Not all the Janamsakhis agree in matters of detail, but in all of them figure early episodes that tell the reader of Nanak being no ordinary child. His wise words even as a boy, the disinterest in matters of the world, the reclusive nature, all come across in great utterances that employ the use of Persian as much as Sanskrit words, and of course Punjabi. But there also are miraculous happenings and sights that foretell a great deal.

The person on horseback here, in this crisp drawing, is a local functionary of high rank, Rai Bular, to whom things were routinely

Attached to this episode, which occurs in all the principal Janamsakhis, is another that occurs in Bhai Bala’s version alone. The same Rai Bular, it is stated there, found that the boy Nanak was peacefully asleep in the field, and while he slept a great snake had emerged from somewhere and spread his hood over Nanak’s head to provide him much-needed shade from the sun. Seeing this, Rai Bular was greatly amazed. This boy, he knew then, was no common subject of his.

The drawing is highly refined: the figure of the horse, taut and alert, the buffaloes lazily resting, the wonderstruck man reporting things to Rai Bular, but above all the superbly realized lithe body of young Nanak as he lies asleep under the shade speak of the hand of a master artist at work. Nothing is worked out in exact detail, for this remains a preliminary drawing, but one can see where a work such as this could have led.

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1.4 Guru Nanak sitting, as a young boy, in a graveyard From the same Janamsakhi series as no. 1.3 Brush drawing on paper Pahari; from the family workshop of Nainsukh of Guler; last quarter of the 18th century 6 x 4-1/2 in. (15.1 x 11.5 cm) Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Acc. no. 2372 Inscribed, on verso, in Devanagari characters, with the words: “20. Baba ji kabrin vich betha mulla ne dhooni didi girhasti te virakt hoya” [20. Baba ji (Nanak) went and sat in the graveyard. The Muslim cleric waved ceremonial smoke. Baba’s mind became detached from his life as a householder].

Living as he did in a society peopled with ascetics and recluses of all kinds—ateets and sannyasis, jogis and siddhas, yatis and bairagis—Guru Nanak must have been aware of their practices, some of them esoteric, others observed in public. Austerities of all kinds were practiced then, as they are now—testing the limits of the body, penitence and mortification through different means—for ways to self-realization and to God were constantly being explored. Countless seekers of the past, including the Buddha, had traveled this road, gone through these rigors. There are not many references to Guru Nanak practicing austerities, however. An occasional mention surfaces of his living on acacia leaves and sand for days on end, but by and large his way was that of sahaja (observances that could lead to bliss).

The episode told in this mysterious folio is variously interpreted in different Janamsakhis, for it relates to Guru Nanak disappearing for several days after entering the waters of the Bein stream. The time of realization was near. We see Nanak as a young boy, a seeker and meditator—bare-bodied, sporting a top-knot on an otherwise shaved head, holding a mala in his hands, like a Hindu acolyte—withdrawing from the world, and sitting in a graveyard. He is there all by himself, as if occupying this space to seek answers to questions and to test his own resolve, for little else than spirits and supernatural presences are associated with the place. On either side of him, however, sits a Muslim faqir (cleric), one of them holding a morchhal (peacock’s-tail fly-whisk) and the other what appears to be an exorcising instrument, a burning stick. The suggestion clearly is of the Muslim holy men working upon him, as if to rid him of evil spirits and persuade him to change his faith. One sees Guru Nanak shrink back a little, although there is no fear on his face. Nothing else is stated. With graves all around and the edge of a stream at the bottom, an eerie silence seems to reign. In the life story of Guru Nanak, the moment is charged with meaning, for this became a turning point. The Guru, returning home, gave away all that he had to the poor. Then, he “donned a religious costume” and began to associate only with religious men.

There is carefully observed detail in the drawing: the lone water ewer, the individuated faces of the two Muslim holy men, their dresses and gestures, the appearance of Guru Nanak himself as a young acolyte, the lamp burning at one of the graves in the distance, recalling an ageold practice while establishing the fact that the time is night.

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1.5 The wedding of Guru Nanak Folios from an illustrated manuscript of a Janamsakhi Opaque watercolor on paper Maharashtra; 19th century 5-1/8 x 8 in. (13 x 20.3 cm) Collection of Satinder and Narinder Kapany It is of great interest to see, in different illustrated Janamsakhis, the manner in which the series of scenes connected with the early life of Guru Nanak, especially the ceremonies relating to his marriage, are rendered. Every artist draws in this matter upon his own observation, and considering that Janamsakhis were produced in different styles and in different regions, the variation can be very absorbing. In the scene showing young Nanak’s marriage in the series of Janamsakhi drawings in the Pahari style, for instance, Nanak and his bride sit much like Krishna and Rukmini do in paintings from the Bhagavata Purana: under a wooden canopy with a pyramidal top, the couple is seen perched on high seats; the bride’s face is completely veiled; Nanak, wearing a crown, pours libations into the fire with a ladle; a Brahmin priest seated opposite him recites mantras (sacred words) from a book; the bride’s companions stand behind her, barely able to conceal their excitement. Clearly, this is the way things happened in ordinary Hindu households in the Pahari area, and this is how the painter visualizes Guru Nanak’s marriage rites. In the scene of the marriage illustrated by the painter of the eastern Indian region, in the “unbound set” from the Kapany collection, on the other hand, the air is very Muslim. Dressed like a Muslim bridegroom, Nanak, legs tucked under him, sits wearing an ornate pearl-studded chaplet, which is now parted; his gesture is in response to that of the priest who looks much like a qazi (Muslim priest) asking him if he will accept the bride; the bride is nowhere in sight; musicians have already started playing upon their dholak (drums). If the painter of this series was a Muslim, as he might well have been, everything falls into place.

In this folio, the setting, the composition, in fact the whole feeling of the scene has changed. As a bridegroom, young Nanak, wearing a Deccani-type turban, sits cross-legged on a terrace covered with a carpet; by his side is his bride, looking much like a Maharashtrian maiden; facing the two are four dhoti-clad priests, two of them seated reciting mantras, and the other two standing behind, each with a prominent tuft of hair, like a loose top-knot, falling along the back of the neck. The marriage is being solemnized in the open, a tree flanking the scene at either end. If the painter of this manuscript came from the Maharashtra region, as suggested in the introductory essay—Nanded in Maharashtra, one recalls, was an important seat of Sikh devotion, because of its long association with Guru Gobind Singh who breathed his last there—his rendering of the marriage scene must have been inspired by what was all around him.

The manuscript, which has a summary quality but is not dry, has been described as “Kashmiri” by del Bonta, but it bears virtually no stylistic relationship to Kashmiri work. The coloring, the quality of drawing, the conventions, and the types of men and women and the dresses they wear are quite different from what is generally seen in Kashmiri painting. The painters, if they were local to the region, which is proposed here, did obviously acquaint themselves with Janamsakhi texts, or selected episodes, before undertaking the task of illustration.

But it is likely that the Gurmukhi captions on the borders of the paintings were put in by an owner.

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1.6 Guru Nanak at the carpenter Lalo’s home Folio from the same Janamsakhi series as no. 1.2 Opaque watercolor on paper India, probably Murshidabad, West Bengal; ca. 1755–1770 8 x 7-1/4 in. (20.3 x 18.4 cm) Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; gift of Satinder and Narinder Kapany Acc. no. 1998.58.14 The much loved and instructive episode of Guru Nanak’s visit to the humble carpenter Bhai Lalo finds a place in nearly every painted Janamsakhi, but in nearly every rendering, the Guru, accompanied by Mardana, his rabab-playing companion, appears only with Lalo, who is shown always at work: Malik Bhago, the wealthy official of the village whose feast Guru Nanak had declined to partake of, and with whose ill-gotten wealth he contrasted the honest labor of Lalo in this episode, is not seen. The suggestion possibly is that that part of the story is more meant to be read or heard than seen. The quiet exchanges between the Guru and the simple low-caste carpenter are in focus here. While Mardana plays upon his instrument, the Guru seems to hold forth. Lalo listens to every word, every single verse with care but does not stop working. Honest labor, and the fruit thereof, is what the painter seems to be intent upon driving home.

white in which both Mardana and Lalo are attired—holds up a hand in the familiar gesture of holding forth or reciting; Mardana listens even as he plays; Lalo bends purposefully forward, concentrating hard upon the block of wood he is chiseling with an adze: everyone is in character. The leaf is quite beautifully colored: the green sward at the back, the leafy crowns of the two trees, the pink wall of Lalo’s home, the lemon-colored rug, the yellow-ocher of Guru Nanak’s habit, all make a clean, pleasant impression. Of special interest here are the tools of the woodworker’s trade that lie scattered on the ground in front, for they form a study in themselves: saw, hammer, mallet, chisel, plane, rasp, gouge, spindle, and the like, all neatly laid out by the side of small pieces of furniture already finished. It is as if the painter—he might well have come from the carpenter class himself, like so many other painters of the past that we know—wants us to notice how keenly he observes and how close he is to people like Lalo.

The scene is set in the yard fronting Lalo’s simple home. Guru Nanak, wearing his usual cap and a yellow-ocher robe—so different from the

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1.7 A king pays homage to Guru Nanak Folio from the same Janamsakhi series as no. 1.1 Opaque watercolor on paper Pahari; from the family workshop of Nainsukh of Guler; last quarter of the 18th century 8-7/8 x 6-1/2 in. (22.6 x 16.5 cm) Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Acc. no. 4072(3) Inscribed, on verso, in Devanagari characters, with the words: “Sakhi raje Madhurbain nal hoyi” [An encounter with Raja Madhurbain took place]; the same words also inscribed in Gurmukhi characters.

horseback, the finely caparisoned steed having just been brought to a halt, as if the prince had come suddenly upon the scene and become drawn to it. All eyes are trained upon him even as he gazes at the becalming countenance of the Guru. Little else fills the space: at the back a large, bare patch of ground stretches out, leaving just a little space for the sky; in the foreground, occupying a small corner is a small pool of water, a few small boulders marking its edge.

Out in the open, like a recluse, Guru Nanak sits, cross-legged, on a small square piece of cloth, under a tree with an open book in front and a bairagan under the left armpit. His dress is much the same that one sees in other paintings from this distinguished series: a cap with upturned flaps on the head, a lilac-mauve long jama (shirt) covering the body, and a small mala round the neck. A somewhat inwardly drawn expression on the face and a vertical tilak (blessing) mark on the forehead complete the image of a saintly person. By his side sits a devotee, meant to be Bhai Bala perhaps and quite close, as always, the minstrel Mardana, playing upon his rabab. But the familiar threesome has company, for from the left approaches a princely figure on

At first one is inclined to think that the anecdote illustrated here relates to Raja Shivnabh “of Ceylon,” which finds prominent mention in the texts. But some versions of the Janamsakhi speak also of Guru Nanak’s encounters with other rajas, among them Madhurbain, about whom there is a long passage in the Bhai Bala version. The episode involves the chief of the island called the Silmil Dvipa, who greets Guru Nanak but makes false statements to him about who the foremost among the chiefs of this group is. The Guru knowing, through his mystic powers, these statements to be false, speaks to the raja (king) about the futility of deceit. The raja repents and falls at the Guru’s feet, begging his forgiveness and becoming a follower. Here, the painter seems to be suggesting a first meeting, something that will be followed up by others, in which events will unfold. Meanwhile, without cluttering the page, the painter brings into being another place through coloring the background a golden yellow, something that is markedly different from the grassy patches of green that one ordinarily sees in this series. Of interest is the book lying open in front of the Guru. Evidently filled with hymns, the book has some text written on it. The book is in the horizontal pothi format.

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1.8 A prince pays homage to Guru Nanak From the same Janamsakhi series as no. 1.3 Brush drawing on paper Pahari; from the family workshop of Nainsukh of Guler; last quarter of the 18th century 6 x 4-1/2 in. (15.1 x 11.5 cm) Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh Acc. no. 2352 Inscribed, on verso, in Devanagari characters, with the words: “Sakhi raje Madhurbain nal hoyi” [An encounter with Raja Madhurbain took place]; also the number “34” in figures.

This drawing is predictably close to the painting of the same theme (see no. 1.7). It has the same set of figures: Guru Nanak, a devotee, and Mardana occupy the space in the right half of the leaf as a young prince on horseback approaches the scene. The differences, however, are of interest. Guru Nanak appears markedly older here, and if the drawing had had any color, one would have expected his beard to be completely white, unlike in the painting where there is only a streak of

gray in the black beard. Also, the cap he wears here is of another kind: the flaps are turned down and over the cap is wrapped a dark cord, which goes round the head twice. By the side of the mat on which Guru Nanak sits also appear, apart from the open pothi (horizontal book), a small kamandalu, and a morchhal. The devotee holds, unlike in the painting, a small staff in one hand, and Mardana’s stance, as he moves his left hand’s fingers over the strings of the rabab, is markedly more animated. The most noticeable of the differences is in the appearance of the princely figure. Not only is he rendered here beardless and decidedly younger—someone like the Pahari ruler Bhup Singh of Guler or Nala of the Nala-Damayanti series come to mind; he is seen folding his hand in obeisance to the Guru, body slightly bent forward and an eager expression on his face. Faintly drawn also is the outline of a bow slung across his body, to reinforce the image of a prince out hunting and coming upon this holy figure purely by chance. As in the other drawings of the series, the figures are conceived on a slightly larger scale than in the paintings, and the spaces are more densely filled.

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B. N. GOSWAMY studied history at the Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, and later specialized in the history of Indian art. For more than thirty years he was a professor of Art History at the Panjab University, where he was also Director of the University Museum of Fine Arts. He has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Heidelberg, Pennsylvania, California (at Berkeley and Los Angeles), Texas, and Zurich and has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States, and India. Most of his publications have been in the area of Indian painting, imperial land grants, and the history of Indian costume. He is currently Professor Emeritus at the Punjab University.

CARON SMITH received a degree in philosophy from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and Ph.D. in Chinese Art and Archaeology from the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. She has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the Department of Asian Art and Office of the President; at the Asia Society, New York, as Associate Director of Galleries and Curator of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection; and at the San Diego Museum of Art, where she was Senior Curator of Asian Art. Currently she is Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

ART

I See no Stranger Early Sikh Art and Devotion

Dr. Goswamy and Dr. Smith have successfully collaborated on exhibitions and a catalogue in the past, notably Domains of Wonder: Selected Masterworks of Indian Painting for the San Diego Museum of Art. Their combined academic and museumbased experience, their deep knowledge of the material at hand, and their understanding of what makes a compelling book and exhibition have all been brought to bear in I See No Stranger: Early Sikh Art and Devotion.

214 pages, 124 colour illustrations 10.75 x 10.75” (273 x 273 mm), hc ISBN: 978-81-88204-77-9 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-890206-04-8 (Grantha) ₹2500 | $65 | £40 2006 • World rights

Rubin Museum of Art

Mapin Publishing

www.rmanyc.org

www.mapinpub.com

Printed in India

B.N. Goswamy and Caron Smith