c. Late 17th - early 18th century

The Vaishnava Saints Bhagwanji and Narainji of the Pindori Gaddi

Bhagwanji (shown holding a lotus) founded the influential sect Pindori Gaddi, which is devoted to the god Vishnu. In this painting, he sits with his white bearded student Narainji, who holds a horizontal religious manuscript, or pothi. Bhagwanji and Narainji are so closely intertwined in thought and in history that they are said to have shared a single soul, a unity represented here by the merging of their lower bodies. They rest against a bolster on a sumptuous platform and, as in the images of the conjoined deities Harihara and Vaikuntha-Kamalaja nearby, they sit on an open lotus, emphasizing their pure and divine nature.