Guru Nanak encounters a group of ascetics at Kurukshetra, page from a manuscript of the Janam Sakhi (Life Stories)

Tradition relates that in the course of his travels, Guru Nanak arrived at Kurukshetra, the legendary site of the battle in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. It was the evening of a solar eclipse and the occasion of a festival at which people gathered at the site for performing ritual devotions and bathing in the pool to wash off their sins.

This painting shows the moment in the episode when a group of devotees led by a Brahman priest (here depicted as ascetics) aggressively criticized Guru Nanak for accepting an offering of deer meat. The preparation of the meat by Nanak's companion (indicated by the cooking pot at the left of the painting) on the auspicious eclipse day was offensive to the vegetarian Hindus. Nanak's response to his critics, recorded as a hymn in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib, not only highlighted their double standards in certain matters of faith but also expressed Nanak's own teachings.