The Dasam Granth is a collection of various poetic compositions attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. The text enjoyed an equal status with the Adi Granth, or Guru Granth Sahib, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were installed side by side on the same platform. The Dasam Granth lost favor during the colonial period when reformist Singh Sabha Movement scholars couldn't contextualize the reworkings of Puranic stories or the vast collection of 'Tales of Deceit' Sri Charitropakhyan.
An early 19th-century Dasam Granth manuscript frontispiece (British Library MS Or.6298)
Acclaimed letter of Bhai Mani Singh discussing the compilation of various banis of Dasam Granth
Guru Gobind Singh with the Goddess Bhagwati
Opening folio of a Dasam Granth manuscript authored by Baba Deep Singh
Guru Gobind Singh was the tenth and last human Sikh Guru. He was a warrior, poet, and philosopher. In 1675, at the age of nine he was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs after his father Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed by Emperor Aurangzeb. His father was the ninth Sikh Guru. His four biological sons died during his lifetime – two in battle and two executed by the Mughal governor Wazir Khan.
Contemporary painting of Guru Gobind Singh (seated) found within a Dasam Granth manuscript of Anandpur Sahib
Guru Gobind Singh's birthplace in Patna, Bihar
Guru Tegh Bahadar and a young Gobind Das at the Anandpur Darbar
Artistic depiction of "Dusht Daman", the alleged previous incarnation of Guru Gobind Singh as narrated in the "Bachittar Natak"
