Janamsakhi illustration
The illustrated life-stories of Guru Nanak, the oldest Sikh painting.
The janamsakhis are collections of stories about the life of Guru Nanak, told in Punjabi prose from the seventeenth century onwards. Several manuscripts were illustrated, and these are the oldest surviving Sikh paintings.
The most famous is the B-40 Janamsakhi, completed in 1733 and now in the British Library, whose 57 paintings by an artist named Alam Chand Raj show the Guru with Mardana, meeting saints and kings, sleeping with his feet towards Mecca, and holding back the rock thrown at him at Panja Sahib. The style is simple and bold, in bright colours, close to folk painting.
Later janamsakhis of the nineteenth century, made in the Pahari style, are more refined. Together they fixed the image of Guru Nanak that has come down to us: an elderly, white-bearded holy man with a rosary, accompanied by the young musician with his rabab.
Gallery
8 works
Pictures from Wikimedia Commons; select one to see it full size with its credit.
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