Guru Har Rai - The Seventh Sikh Guru Volume 1 and Volume 2 | English Graphic Novel | Sikh Comics Series

"Behold — with one hand man breaks flowers and with one hand offers them, but the flowers perfume both hands alike. The Guru ought, therefore, to return good for evil."
— Guru Har Rai

The child wept over a broken flower. The man commanded 2,200 warriors. The Guru was both — and never confused them.

Har Rai was the grandson of Guru Hargobind, born in 1630 in Kiratpur Sahib, the city his grandfather had founded in the Shivalik Hills. From his earliest years, he was different from the children around him. Where Guru Hargobind had been a warrior by temperament as much as by necessity, young Har Rai was gentle by nature, moved to tears by a broken flower, unable to pass a hungry stranger without stopping, incapable of indifference to any living creature in pain.

The moment that revealed him came in a garden. Walking through the flowers one morning, the hem of his robe caught a branch and scattered the blooms onto the ground. The child wept. His grandfather Guru Hargobind, the saint-soldier who had fought four battles against the Mughal Empire, watched quietly and then spoke: gather your cloak carefully as you walk through this world. Live fully in it, and yet remain always the master of yourself. The instruction went far deeper than garden etiquette. Guru Hargobind had seen everything he needed to see. This was the soul he would pass the Gurgaddi to.

In March 1644, the divine light passed to Har Rai. He was fourteen years old. He was the Seventh Sikh Guru.

The story of Guru Har Rai is a reminder that strength and gentleness are not opposites — and that a flower and a sword, held in the same hands, can change the world.

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Part of the Sikh Comics series on the Ten Sikh Gurus — explore the full collection.

He did not disband the army. Guru Hargobind had built a cavalry of 2,200 warriors and Guru Har Rai maintained every one of them, understanding that the peace he sought could only be protected by the strength to defend it. But where his grandfather had fought battles, Guru Har Rai fought a different kind of war — against suffering, against disease, against the indifference of the powerful towards the powerless.
He established the Naulakha Bagh, the garden of 900,000 plants, at Kiratpur, a vast living apothecary of rare herbs, medicinal plants, and exotic species gathered from across the subcontinent. Alongside it he built a free hospital and dispensary, staffed by trained physicians, where medicines were given without charge to anyone who needed them. He ordered that wherever langar was served, wherever the community kitchen fed the hungry, free healthcare must also be available. He treated Delhi's outbreaks of smallpox, cholera, and plague. He built a sanctuary where birds and animals lived freely and were cared for. Five centuries before the word existed in its modern form, Guru Har Rai was an environmentalist, a man who understood that God's creation did not begin and end with human beings.

Then came the moment that tested every principle he held.

Shah Jahan's eldest son Dara Shikoh lay dying, poisoned, it is said, by the scheming of his brother Aurangzeb. Shah Jahan had sent for every physician in the empire. None could help. His advisors told him that only a rare combination of herbs could cure his son, and those herbs existed in only one place in all of India: the garden of Guru Har Rai in Kiratpur. The Emperor, who had sent his armies against the Sikhs, who had harassed and persecuted the community across his reign, sent a humble message to the Guru asking for help.

Guru Har Rai did not hesitate. "The flowers perfume both the hand that holds them and the hand that receives them. The Guru returns good for evil." He sent the herbs, along with instructions for their use. Dara Shikoh recovered. Shah Jahan, moved and grateful, vowed never again to cause the Guru harm.

But Dara Shikoh's recovery did not save him. The war of succession among Shah Jahan's sons ended with Aurangzeb seizing the throne and Dara Shikoh executed on charges of apostasy. The most powerful and most ruthless of the Mughal emperors now sat in Delhi. And Aurangzeb had noted, with cold interest, that the Seventh Sikh Guru had helped his rival brother.

He summoned Guru Har Rai to his court to explain himself.

Guru Har Rai refused to go. He had made a vow never to present himself before Aurangzeb, whose intentions towards the Sikh faith he understood precisely. Instead he sent his elder son Ram Rai, a gifted boy of thirteen, to represent the Guru's house at the Mughal court. He instructed Ram Rai clearly: rely on the divine power of the Gurus, stay true to the Sikh scriptures, and do not deviate from them under any pressure.

Ram Rai arrived in Delhi and impressed Aurangzeb's court with his intelligence and his demonstrations of spiritual power. Gold and gifts were lavished on him. Then Aurangzeb produced a verse from the Adi Granth, a line from Guru Nanak's composition in Asa Ki Vaar, and declared that it was insulting to Muslims. Ram Rai, surrounded by the Emperor's court, showered with approval and afraid of its withdrawal, did what his father had specifically told him never to do. He changed the word. He told the Emperor the text had been incorrectly transcribed by the scribe.

When the report reached Guru Har Rai, he was disappointed. He sent word to his son: "Ram Rai has altered the Word of Guru Nanak to please a king. He shall never see my face again."

Ram Rai never did. He lived the rest of his life in Dehradun, under Aurangzeb's patronage, separated from the Guru's house forever. Guru Har Rai appointed his younger son, the five-year-old Har Krishan, as the next Sikh Guru. The message was unambiguous: no comfort, no reward, no crown is worth the alteration of a single word of Gurbani.

On October 6, 1661, Guru Har Rai passed from this world at Kiratpur, thirty-one years old, having led the Sikhs for seventeen years. He left behind free hospitals, living gardens, a faith strengthened in its music and its scripture traditions, and a standard of integrity so complete that his own son could not meet it.

He was the Guru who proved that a man of extraordinary gentleness can also be a man of extraordinary strength. That flowers and swords, held in the same hands with the same devotion, are not contradictions — they are the fullness of what it means to live as a Sikh.

What's Inside:

• The Broken Flower: Young Har Rai in the garden, the scattered blooms, and the lesson Guru Hargobind drew from his grandson's tears, a teaching about living fully in the world while remaining its master
• The Succession: How Guru Hargobind recognised the divine light in his gentle grandson, and why he passed the Gurgaddi to him
• The Army and the Garden: How Guru Har Rai maintained Guru Hargobind's cavalry of 2,200 warriors while simultaneously building the Naulakha Bagh, the garden of 900,000 plants and the free hospital that served all of humanity
• The Dispensary: Free medicine, free healthcare alongside every langar, and the treatment of Delhi's outbreaks of smallpox, cholera, and plague, five centuries before the concept of public health existed
• The Animal Sanctuary: Guru Har Rai's care for birds, animals, and the natural world, and why he is remembered as the first environmentalist in Sikh history
• Dara Shikoh: The poisoned Mughal prince, the herbs that only the Guru possessed, and the response that revealed everything about Guru Har Rai's character, returning good for evil without hesitation
• Aurangzeb's Summons: The new Emperor's demand that the Guru appear at his court, and the refusal that set the stage for the most painful episode of Guru Har Rai's life
• Ram Rai: The gifted eldest son sent to Delhi in the Guru's place, the gold and approval of the Mughal court, the altered word, and the father who banished his own son rather than allow a single syllable of Gurbani to be compromised
• The Succession of Guru Har Krishan: The appointment of a five-year-old as the Eighth Sikh Guru, and what it said about the standard the Seventh Guru held above everything, including his own family

Perfect For:

• Children aged 7 and up (and the adults reading alongside them)
• Gurdwara Sunday school programs and Sikh Studies classes
• Parents and grandparents wanting to share the lives of the Ten Sikh Gurus with the next generation
• Anyone who needs to be reminded that gentleness is not weakness — and that integrity sometimes costs even what we love most

Book Details:
56 pages · Paperback · English · Published 2021 · ISBN 9789382887898 · Publisher: Sikh Comics

Covers both volumes of the Guru Har Rai story — from his succession as the Seventh Sikh Guru through the founding of the Naulakha Bagh, the healing of Dara Shikoh, the banishment of Ram Rai, and the appointment of Guru Har Krishan.

An illustrated Sikh children's book bringing the life and teachings of the Seventh Sikh Guru to vivid life — one sakhi at a time.

Also Available in Punjabi