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Contemporary Picture Of Guru Tegh Bahadur?


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Was looking through the Sikh Foundation website earlier and came across this.

It's described as the only portrait painted in the actual life time of one of our Gurus. It shows a powerfully built nauvay padshah, much as I have imagined him. We should remember that Guru ji earned the name Tegh Bahadur (brave sword) in his teenage years when he fought with conspicuous prowess in some of the first Sikh battles under his father Guru Hargobind ji (his regular name was Tyag Mal).

It is well worth having a peek at the wider collection as linked above. I just love the piece entitled 'sazaa', maybe some of you can also remember the old 'murga' stance? lol

Enjoy.

post-3203-127583975984_thumb.png

Edited by dalsingh101
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Thanks for sharing. IMHO, this painting is the same as hundreds of others painted in the Mughal style, which do not differentiate between 6th. 7th. 9th and 10th Gurus.

There are actually alleged 'contemporary' paintings of our warrior Gurus in Patna and Nanded, I saw of them in Nanded 2 years ago, they are les Mughalesque (all looking the same) and bring out more individual/facial characteristics etc.

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There are actually alleged 'contemporary' paintings of our warrior Gurus in Patna and Nanded, I saw of them in Nanded 2 years ago, they are les Mughalesque (all looking the same) and bring out more individual/facial characteristics etc.

Did you take any photos of them you could share? Or could you point us to some site that may display them?

You should do a write up about Patna Sahib, it's a bit of a mystery to most Sikhs. Now that we have Nidar and Parmjit's book on Hazur Sahib, we need something similar about Patna Sahib, although I doubt it will be as exciting and well documented as Hazur Sahib (I might be wrong though).

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I was reading The Khalsa & the Punjab - studies in Sikh history to the 19th century (Ed. Himadri Banerjee) which was published by Tulika books (India) in 2002 under the auspices of the Indian History Congress and came across a black and white reproduction of the image in the OP or an image which is practically identical to it (pg. 165).

What surprised me was the caption which says: "Fig 2: Ram Rai, son of Har Rai (Mughal, c. 1685). Collection of Mahant Indresh Charan Das."

About the same time I was skimming through Sikh Art & Literature (Ed. Kerry Brown) which was published in 1999 by Routledge in conjunction with The Sikh Foundation which, as some of you may know, is headed by Narinder 'father of fibre optics' Kapany and whose website is the source of the image in the OP. In that book we have a small colour reproduction of the image in the OP with the caption: "Plate 5 'Guru Tegh Bahadur', 1670, Mughal school, gouache on paper, 22 x 16.5 cm (Kapany collection)"

If we take this info at face value then we have 2 practically identical images, one in the collection of Narinder Kapany and the other in Mahant Indresh.

Another image elsewhere in the Tulika book gives a location for Mahant Indresh Charan Das in Dera Shri Guru Ram Rai, Dehradun and I can't help but wonder if this guy is a direct blood descendent of Ram Rai or the person who currently sits on that sects gurgaddi?

Point is that there clearly seems to be confusion as regards to the identity of the person in these images. It would be interesting to know the source of the painting in the Kapany collection i.e. did it come from Ram Rai's Dera or elsewhere?

Edit: A link to an institute that appears to be headed by the aforementioned mahant - http://www.sgrrmc.com/page/history.aspx

Quote from site "Sri Guru Ram Rai ji left for his heavenly abode in 1687.After that Sajjada Nashin Sri Mahants have been ascending the ‘Gaddi’ and were persons of extreme wisdom with a strong sense of devotion, commitment and service to mankind. The ninth Sri Mahant Indresh Charan Das ji established Sri Guru Ram Rai Education Mission and brought a revolution in the field of education. "

Edited by dalsingh101
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On 6/6/2010 at 9:31 PM, dalsingh101 said:

Was looking through the Sikh Foundation website earlier and came across this.

 

It's described as the only portrait painted in the actual life time of one of our Gurus. It shows a powerfully built nauvay padshah, much as I have imagined him. We should remember that Guru ji earned the name Tegh Bahadur (brave sword) in his teenage years when he fought with conspicuous prowess in some of the first Sikh battles under his father Guru Hargobind ji (his regular name was Tyag Mal).

 

It is well worth having a peek at the wider collection as linked above. I just love the piece entitled 'sazaa', maybe some of you can also remember the old 'murga' stance? lol

 

Enjoy.

monthly_06_2010/post-3203-127583975984_thumb.png

Can this be re-uploaded please

 

Thanks

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