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[Illustration: _Radha and Krishna in the Grove_ Kangra
(Punjab Hills), c. 1785]




THE LOVES OF KRISHNA

IN INDIAN PAINTING
AND POETRY



By
W. G. ARCHER



To
MR. AND MRS. H. N.
WITH LOVE AND ADMIRATION




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I am deeply indebted to Dr. A.L. Basham for generous guidance throughout
the preparation of this book, to George Keyt for permitting me to quote
extensively from his brilliant translation of the _Gita Govinda_, and to
Deben Bhattacharya who supplied me with new translations of later poems
and discussed a number of important points. I must also express my deep
gratitude to Mildred Archer and to Gopi Krishna Kanoria for valued
criticism and advice, to Messrs. Faber and Faber, the Harvill Press,
Messrs. Macmillan, the Oxford University Press, the Phoenix House and
Messrs. Sidgwick and Jackson for permitting me to quote passages from
works still copyright, to Professor J. Brough for an informative note on
Bhanu Datta's _Rasamanjari_ and to all those owners of collections who
have either allowed me to reproduce pictures in their possession or have
kindly supplied me with photographs.

Part of the material for this book was delivered as lectures to the Royal
Asiatic Society, the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society and at the
Victoria and Albert Museum.




CONTENTS

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I INTRODUCTION

 II THE MAHABHARATA: KRISHNA THE HERO

III THE BHAGAVATA PURANA: THE COWHERD
      i  Birth and Early Adventures
     ii  The Loves of the Cowgirls
    iii  The Death of the Tyrant

 IV THE BHAGAVATA PURANA: THE PRINCE
      i  The Return to Court
     ii  Marriages and Offspring
    iii  Last Phases
     iv  The _Purana_ Re-considered


  V THE KRISHNA OF POETRY
      i  The Triumph of Radha
     ii  The _Gita Govinda_
    iii  Later Poetry
     iv  The _Rasika Priya_


 VI THE KRISHNA OF PAINTING

    NOTES

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    INDEX

    PLATES AND COMMENTARY

    SOURCES




I


INTRODUCTION

During the twentieth century, a certain type of Indian painting began to
fascinate the West. Unlike Mughal art, it was a product of Hindu courts in
Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills and unlike Mughal painting, its chief
concern was with the varied phases of romance. Ladies would be shown
brooding in their chambers as storm clouds mounted in the sky. A girl
might be portrayed desperately fondling a plantain tree, gripping a pet
falcon, the symbol of her lover, or hurrying through the rainy darkness
intent only on reaching a longed-for tryst. A prince would appear lying on
a terrace, his outstretched arms striving vainly to detain a calm beauty
or welcoming with delight a bashful girl as she slowly advanced. In all
these pictures, romantic love was treated as the highest good and physical
passion was interpreted with a freshness and innocence unequalled in the
world's art.

Such paintings were, at first sight, easy to appreciate. Although they
alternated between two methods of expression--the first a style of savage
distortion, the second a style of the softest grace--each manner enlivened
the common subject.[1] Yet in two respects elucidation was vitally
necessary. Just as in Japan, the lover might express his longings by
cryptic references to Nature, the Indian artist employed poetic symbols to
charge his subjects with romantic ardour. Flowers were never merely
flowers nor clouds clouds. The symbols of Indian poetry--the lotus swaying
in a stream, the flowering creeper embracing a trunk--were intended to
suggest passion-haunted ladies. The mingling of clouds, rain and lightning
symbolized the embraces of lovers, and commonplace objects such as dishes,
vases, ewers and lamps were brought into subtle conjunction to hint at
'the right true end of love.' What, in fact, might seem at first sight to
be a simple portrait, proved on closer understanding to be a study in
despair, a revelation of delight or a clue to rapture, each image with its
sexual implications contriving to express some nuance of longing. In these
pictures, only a part of the meaning was apparent and without a
comprehension of the poetry, much of its true significance was lost.

Such an obstacle to understanding was real enough but, as the eye ranged
over this new kind of love-painting, a second difficulty appeared. In many
pictures, the lover had special characteristics. He was shown with a crown
of peacock's feathers, clad in a golden _dhoti_ and in every case his skin
was mauve or slate-blue.[2] In certain cases, the lady of his choice
appeared bowing at his feet, her pose suggesting the deepest adoration;
yet, in other pictures, his role was quite different. He was then a
resolute warrior, fighting and destroying demons. It was clear, in fact,
that here was no ordinary lover but one who might also be a god. At the
same time, other perplexing circumstances were present. The lover's
appearance was that of an aristocratic youth and the ladies whom he loved
had the bearing of elegant princesses. Yet often the scene of their
encounters was a forest thick with flowering trees. His companions were
cowherds and the objects of his love were not the ladies of a court but
cowgirls. Other activities betrayed the same lowly sphere. In certain
pictures, he was shown eating with cowherds, sharing in their sports,
grazing the cattle and himself milking cows. That such a lover should
dominate the paintings was perplexing in the extreme and just as cultured
Indians would be baffled by Italian and Flemish painting unless they
already knew the life of Christ, it was clear that part, even the
majority, of these pictures would remain obscure unless the character of
their central figure was first explained. One further point remained. In
many cases, the pictures were not intended to be viewed in isolation but
were illustrations of a text. Many were inscribed with Sanskrit or Hindi
verses and in each case there was an intimate connection between the
content of the picture and the poem's subject. To understand the pictures,
therefore, some acquaintance with these texts was necessary for only in
this way could the identity and role of the blue-skinned lover be
appreciated. He was, in fact, Krishna--an incarnation of God--and in his
worship some of the deepest requirements of the Indian spirit found
ecstatic release.

The purpose of this book is to throw some light on Indian painting by
presenting the story of Krishna in the clearest possible terms. It might
be supposed that, of all Indian gods, Krishna was already the one best
known to the West and therefore, perhaps, the one least requiring
explanation. Among modern poets, Sacheverell Sitwell devotes a whole poem
in _Canons of Giant Art_ to describing Krishna's effect.

  Rain falls and ceases, all the forest trembles:
  Mystery walks the woods once more,
  We hear a flute.
  It moves on earth, it is the god who plays
  With the flute to his lips and music in his breath:
  The god is Krishna in his lovely youth.

Louis MacNeice in _Ten Burnt Offerings_ describes a much-loved cat,

  Fluid as Krishna chasing the milkmaids.

And the same Krishna, flute player and lover of milkmaids, is familiar to
British audiences from the dancing of Ram Gopal. Yet side by side with
this magnetic figure, a second, strangely different Krishna is also known.
This second Krishna is the preacher of the _Bhagavad Gita_, the great
sermon delivered on the battle-field of Kurukshetra. It is a cardinal
document of Indian ethics, and consoled Mahatma Gandhi during his work for
Indian independence. It has for many years been known in the West but has
recently attracted fresh attention through a modern translation by
Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda. This Krishna of the _Gita_
is clearly quite different in character from the Krishna of the milkmaids
and, without some effort at reconciliation, the two must obviously present
a baffling enigma. Indeed so great is the contrast that many Englishmen,
entranced by the lover, might be astonished to hear of a more didactic
role, while those who value the _Gita_ might easily be disturbed on
finding its author so daringly identified with the theory and practice of
romantic love. The truth, if we are to admit it, is that despite
considerable acquaintance with Krishna as a name, few educated people in
the West have intimate knowledge of his story. In fact, we have only to
ask some basic questions to realize how slender is general understanding.
What, for example, were the circumstances in which Krishna was born and
why did he enter the world? Of which Indian god is he an incarnation? Who
were his parents and how did he come to live among cowherds? Who were
Radha and Rukmini? In what ways did he love the milkmaids and why has this
aspect of his story assumed such big proportions in Indian religion? Why,
in fact, is God a romantic lover? Just as few Indians, even highly
educated Indians, could survive a friendly cross-examination on details of
the New Testament, the majority of cultured Englishmen would find it hard
to answer even a few of these simple questions.

It is to remedy in part this situation that I have marshalled the material
given in this book. With certain types of issue I have made no attempt to
deal. I have not, for example, discussed statements such as 'Krishna was
not a god but a hero of a rough tribe of cowherds.' 'The Gita is an
interpolation.' 'There is general agreement on the historicity of
Krishna.' 'Radha appears to be a late addition.' Higher Criticism, whether
applied to the Bible or to the classics of Indian religion must
necessarily remain a small scholars' preserve--of vital importance to the
few but of little account to the main body of believers or to artists
illustrating adored themes. I have rather been concerned to present
information about Krishna in the form in which it has actually reached
Indian minds and has influenced belief and worship. During the last two
thousand years, various texts have dealt with Krishna, emphasizing first
one and then another aspect of his character and in the process assembling
more and more details. These texts are still revered by Indians and
although they are the product of widely separated eras, all of them have
still an air of contemporary authority. By considering them in historical
sequence, we can understand not only the subject-matter of romantic Indian
painting but realize why Krishna, the adored lover, should still enchant
religious India.

[Footnote 1: Note 1.]

[Footnote 2: Note 2.]




II


THE _MAHABHARATA_: KRISHNA THE HERO

The first reference to Krishna occurs in the _Chandogya Upanishad_ of
perhaps the sixth century B.C. _Upanishads_ were 'forest sittings' or
'sessions with teachers.' Sages and their disciples discussed the nature
of life and strove to determine the soul's exact relationship to God. The
starting-point was the theory of re-incarnation. Death, it was believed,
did not end the soul. Death was merely a stepping-stone to another life,
the soul moving from existence to existence in one long effort to escape
re-birth. From this cycle, only one experience could bring release and
that was consciousness or actual knowledge of the supreme Spirit. When
that state was achieved, the soul blended with the Godhead and the cycle
ended. The problem of problems, therefore, was how to attain such
knowledge. The _Chandogya Upanishad_ does not offer any startling solution
to this matter. The teacher who conducts the session is a certain Ghora of
the Angirasa family and it is the person of his disciple rather than his
actual message which concerns us. The disciple is called Krishna and his
mother has the name Devaki. Devaki is the later Krishna's mother and there
is accordingly every reason to suppose that the two Krishnas are the same.
Nothing, however, is stated of this early Krishna's career and although
parts of the sage's teachings have been compared to passages in the
_Gita_,[3] Krishna himself remains a vague and dim name.

For the next few centuries, knowledge of Krishna remains in this
fragmentary state. Nothing further is recorded and not until the great
Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, crystallizes out between the fourth
century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. does a more detailed Krishna make
his appearance.[4] By the end of this period, many vital changes had taken
place. The Indian world-view had become much clearer and it is possible
not only to connect Krishna with a definite character but to see him in
clear relation to cosmic events. The supreme Spirit was now envisaged as a
single all-powerful God, known according to his functions as Brahma,
Vishnu and Siva. As Brahma, he brought into existence three
worlds--heaven, earth and the nether regions--and also created gods or
lesser divinities, earth and nature spirits, demons, ogres and men
themselves. Siva, for his part, was God the final dissolver or destroyer,
the source of reproductive energy and the inspirer of asceticism. He was
thought of in many forms--as a potent ascetic, a butcher wild for blood, a
serene dancer--and in his character of regenerator was represented by his
symbol, the _lingam_ or phallus. The third aspect, Vishnu, was God in his
character of loving protector and preserver. This great Trinity was
ultimately supreme but under it were a number of lesser powers. Those that
represented the forces of good were called _devas_ or gods. They were led
by their king, Indra, lord of clouds, and associated with him were gods
such as Agni (fire), Varuna (water), Surya the sun and Kama the god of
passion. These gods lived in Indra's heaven, a region above the world but
lower than Vaikuntha, the heaven of Vishnu. Dancing-girls and musicians
lived with them and the whole heaven resembled a majestic court on earth.
From this heaven the gods issued from time to time intervening in human
affairs. Demons, on the other hand, were their exact opposites. They
represented powers of evil, were constantly at war with the gods and took
vicious pleasure in vexing or annoying the good. Below gods and demons
were men themselves.

In this three-tiered universe, transmigration of souls was still the basic
fact but methods of obtaining release were now much clearer. A man was
born, died and then was born again. If he acted well, did his duty and
worked ceaselessly for good, he followed what was known as the path of
_dharma_ or righteousness. This ensured that at each succeeding birth he
would start a stage more favourably off than in his previous existence
till, by sheer goodness of character, he qualified for admission to
Indra's heaven and might even be accounted a god. The achievement of this
status, however, did not complete his cycle, for the ultimate goal still
remained. This was the same as in earlier centuries--release from living
by union with or absorption into the supreme Spirit; and only when the
individual soul had reached this stage was the cycle of birth and re-birth
completed. The reverse of this process was illustrated by the fate of
demons. If a man lapsed from right living, his second state was always
worse than his first. He might then be born in humble surroundings or if
his crimes were sufficiently great, he became a demon. As such, his
capacity for evil was greatly increased and his chances of ultimate
salvation correspondingly worsened. Yet even for demons, the ultimate goal
was the same--release from living and blissful identification with the
Supreme.

_Dharma_ alone, however, could not directly achieve this end. This could
be done by the path of _yoga_ or self-discipline--a path which involved
penances, meditation and asceticism. By ridding his mind of all desires
and attachments, by concentrating on pure abstractions, the ascetic
'obtained insight which no words could express. Gradually plumbing the
cosmic mystery, his soul entered realms far beyond the comparatively
tawdry heavens where the great gods dwelt in light and splendour. Going
"from darkness to darkness deeper yet," he solved the mystery beyond all
mysteries; he understood, fully and finally, the nature of the universe
and of himself and he reached a realm of truth and bliss, beyond birth and
death. And with this transcendent knowledge came another realization--he
was completely, utterly, free. He had found ultimate salvation, the final
triumph of the soul.'[5] Such a complete identification with the supreme
Spirit, however, was not easily come by and often many existences were
required before the yogi could achieve this sublime end.

There remained a third way--the path of _bhakti_ or devotion to God. If a
man loved God not as an abstract spirit but as a loving Person, if he
loved with intensity and singleness of heart, adoration itself might
obtain for him the same reward as a succession of good lives. Vishnu as
protector might reward love with love and confer immediately the blessing
of salvation.

The result, then, was that three courses were now open to a man and
whether he followed one or other depended on his own particular cast of
mind, the degree of his will-power, the strength of his passions and
finally, his capacity for renunciation, righteousness and love. On these
qualifications the upshot would largely depend. But they were not the only
factors. Since gods and demons were part of the world, a man could be
aided or frustrated according as gods or demons chose to intervene. Life
could, in fact, be viewed from two angles. On the one hand it was one long
effort to blend with the Godhead--an effort which only the individual
could make. On the other hand, it was a war between good and evil, gods
and demons; and to such a contest, God as Vishnu could not remain
indifferent. While the forces of evil might properly be allowed to test or
tax the good, they could never be permitted completely to win the day.
When, therefore, evil appeared to be in the ascendant, Vishnu intervened
and corrected the balance. He took flesh and entering the world, slew
demons, heartened the righteous and from time to time conferred salvation
by directly exempting individuals from further re-births.

It is these beliefs which govern the _Mahabharata_ epic and provide the
clue to Krishna's role. Its prime subject is a feud between two families,
a feud which racks and finally destroys them. At the same time, it is very
much more. Prior to the events narrated in the text, Vishnu has already
undergone seven incarnations, taking the forms of a fish, tortoise, boar
and man-lion and later those of Vamana the dwarf, Parasurama ('Rama with
the Axe'), and finally, the princely Rama. In each of these incarnations
he has intervened and, for the time being, rectified the balance. During
the period covered by the epic, he undergoes an eighth incarnation and it
is in connection with this supremely vital intervention that Krishna
appears.

To understand the character which now unfolds, we must briefly consider
the central story of the _Mahabharata_. This is narrated in the most
baffling and stupendous detail. Cumbrous names confront us on every side
while digressions and sub-plots add to the general atmosphere of confusion
and complexity. It is idle to hope that this vast panorama can arouse
great interest in the West and even in India it is unlikely that many
would now approach its gigantic recital with premonitions of delight. It
is rather as a necessary background that its main outlines must be
grasped, for without them Krishna's character and career can hardly be
explained.

The epic begins with two rival families each possessed of a common
ancestor, Kuru, but standing in bitter rivalry to each other. Kuru is
succeeded by his second son, Pandu, and later by Dhritarashtra, his first
son but blind. Pandu has five sons, who are called Pandavas after him,
while Dhritarashtra has a hundred sons called Kauravas after Kuru, their
common grandfather. As children the two families grow up at the same
court, but almost immediately jealousies arise which are to have a deadly
outcome. Hatred begins when in boyish contests the Pandavas outdo the
Kauravas. The latter resent their arrogance and presently their father,
the blind king, is persuaded to approve a plot by which the five Pandavas
will be killed. They are to sleep in a house which during the night will
be burnt down. The plot, however, miscarries. The house is burnt, but
unbeknown to the Kauravas, the five brothers escape and taking with them
their mother, Kunti, go for safety to the forest. Here they wander for a
while disguised as Brahmans or priests but reach at last the kingdom of
Panchala. The King of Panchala has a daughter, Draupadi, whose husband is
to be chosen by a public archery competition. Arjuna, one of the five
brothers, wins the contest and gains her as bride. The Pandavas, however,
are polyandrous and thus, on being married to one brother, Draupadi is
also married to the other four. At the wedding the Pandavas disclose their
identities. The Kauravas learn that they are still alive and in due course
are reconciled. They reinstate the Pandavas and give them half the
kingdom. Before Arjuna, however, can profit from the truce, he infringes
by accident his elder brother's privacy by stumbling on him while he is
with their common wife. As a consequence he violates a standing agreement
and has no alternative but to go into exile for twelve years. Arjuna
leaves the court, visits other lands, acquires a new wife and makes a new
alliance. In other respects, all is well and the two families look forward
to many years of peaceful co-existence.

The fates, however, seem determined on their destruction. The leader of
the Pandavas is their eldest brother, Yudhisthira. He conquers many other
lands and is encouraged to claim the title, 'ruler of the world.' The
claim is made at a great sacrifice accompanied by a feast. The claim
incenses the Kauravas and once again the ancient feud revives. Themselves
expert gamblers, they challenge Yudhisthira to a contest by dice.
Yudhisthira stupidly agrees and wagering first his kingdom, then his
brothers and finally his wife, loses all and goes again into exile. With
him go the other Pandavas, including Arjuna who has since returned. For
twelve years they roam the forests, brooding on their fate and planning
revenge. When their exile ends, they at once declare war. Both sides seek
allies, efforts at peacemaking are foiled and the two clash on the
battle-field of Kurukshetra. For eighteen days the battle rages till
finally the Pandavas are victorious. Their success, however, is at an
appalling cost. During the contest all five Pandavas lose their sons. The
hundred sons of their rival, the blind king Dhritarashtra, are dead and
with a sense of tragic futility, the epic ends.

It is as an actor in this tangled drama that Krishna appears. Alongside
the Pandavas and the Kauravas in Northern India is a powerful people, the
Yadavas. They live by grazing cattle but possess towns including a
capital, the city of Dwarka in Western India. At this capital resides
their ruler or king and with him is a powerful prince, Krishna. This
Krishna is related to the rival families, for his father, Vasudeva, is
brother of Kunti, the Pandavas' mother. From the outset, therefore, he is
placed in intimate proximity to the chief protagonists. For the moment,
however, he himself is not involved and it is only after the Pandavas have
gone into exile and reached the kingdom of Panchala that he makes his
entrance. The occasion is the archery contest for the hand of Draupadi.
Krishna is there as an honoured guest and when Arjuna makes the winning
shot, he immediately recognizes the five Pandavas as his kinsmen although
as refugees they are still disguised as Brahmans. When the assembled
princes angrily protest at Draupadi's union with a Brahman, and seem about
to fight, Krishna intervenes and persuades them to accept the decision.
Later he secretly meets the Pandavas and sends them wedding presents.
Already, therefore, he is fulfilling a significant role. He is a powerful
leader, a relative of the central figures and if only because the feud is
not his own, he is above the conflict and to some extent capable of
influencing its outcome.

His next appearance brings him closer still to the Pandavas. When Arjuna
is exiled for his breach of marriage etiquette, he visits Krishna in his
city of Dwarka. A great festival is held and in the course of it Arjuna
falls in love with Krishna's sister, Subhadra. Krishna favours the
marriage but advises Arjuna to marry her by capture. Arjuna does so and by
becoming Krishna's brother-in-law cements still further their
relationship.

This friendship has one further consequence, for, after Arjuna has
completed his exile and returned to the Pandava court, Krishna visits him
and the two go into the country for a picnic. 'After a few days, Arjuna
said to Krishna, "The summer days have come. Let us go to the River Jumna,
amuse ourselves with some friends and come back in the evening." Krishna
replied, "I would like that very much. Let us go for a bathe." So Arjuna
and Krishna set out with their friends. Reaching a fine spot fit for
pleasure and overgrown with trees, where several tall houses had been
built, the party went inside. Food and wine, wreaths of flowers and
fragrant perfumes were laid out and at once they began to frolic at their
will. The girls in the party with delightful rounded haunches, large
breasts and handsome eyes began to flirt as Arjuna and Krishna commanded.
Some played about in the woods, some in the water, some inside the houses.
And Draupadi and Subhadra who were also in the party gave the girls and
women costly dresses and garments. Then some of them began to dance, some
to sing, some laughed and joked, some drank wine. And the houses and
woods, filled with the noise of flutes and drums, became the very seat of
pleasure.'[6]

A little later, Krishna is accorded special status. At the sacrifice
performed by Yudhisthira as 'ruler of the world,' gifts of honour are
distributed. Krishna is among the assembled guests and is proposed as
first recipient. Only one person objects, a certain king Sisupala, who
nurses a standing grievance against him. A quarrel ensues and during it
Krishna kills him. Krishna's priority is then acclaimed but the incident
serves also to demonstrate his ability as a fighter.

One other aspect of Krishna's character remains to be noted. Besides being
a bold warrior, he is above all an astute and able ally. During the
Pandavas' final exile in the forest, he urges them to repudiate their
banishment and make war. When the exile is over and war is near, he acts
as peace-maker, urging the Kauravas to make concessions. When he is foiled
by Duryodhana, the blind king's son, he attempts to have him kidnapped.
Finally, once the great battle is joined, he offers both sides a choice.
Each may have the help either of himself alone or of his immediate
kinsmen, the Vrishnis. The Vrishnis will fight in the battle, while
Krishna himself will merely advise from a distance. The Kauravas choose
the fighters, the Pandavas Krishna. Krishna accordingly aids the Pandavas
with counsel. He accompanies Arjuna as his charioteer and during the
battle is a constant advocate of treachery. As Kama, a leading Kaurava,
fights Arjuna, his chariot gets stuck and he dismounts to see to it. The
rules of war demand that Arjuna should now break off but Krishna urges him
to continue and Kama is killed unresisting. Similarly when Bhima, one of
the five Pandava brothers, is fighting Duryodhana with his club, Krishna
eggs him on to deal a foul blow. Bhima does so and Duryodhana dies from a
broken thigh. In all these encounters, Krishna shows himself completely
amoral, achieving his ends by the very audacity of his means.

So far, Krishna's character is merely that of a feudal magnate, and there
is nothing in his views or conduct to suggest that he is Vishnu or God.
Two incidents in the epic, however, suddenly reveal his true role. The
first is when Yudhisthira has gambled away Draupadi and the Kauravas are
intent on her dishonour. They attempt to make her naked. As one of them
tries to remove her clothes, Draupadi beseeches Krishna as Vishnu to
intervene and save her. Krishna does so and by his help she remains
clothed; however many times her dress is removed. The second occasion is
on the final battle-field of Kurukshetra. Arjuna, seeing so many brothers,
uncles and cousins ranged on either side is moved to pity at the senseless
nature of the strife and confides his anguished doubts in Krishna. Krishna
seems, at first, to be only his friend, his brother-in-law and adviser. He
points out that to a warrior nothing is nobler than a righteous war and
declares, 'Do your duty always but without attachment.' He then advocates
the two paths of _yoga_(knowledge) and _dharma_ (righteousness). 'Even if
a man falls away from the practice of _yoga_, he will still win the heaven
of the doers of good deeds and dwell there many long years. After that, he
will be reborn into the home of pure and prosperous parents. He will then
regain that spiritual discernment which he acquired in his former body;
and so he will strive harder than ever for perfection. Because of his
practices in the previous life, he will be driven on toward union with the
Spirit, even in spite of himself. For the man who has once asked the way
to the Spirit goes farther than any mere fulfiller of the Vedic rituals.
By struggling hard, that yogi will move gradually towards perfection
through many births and reach the highest goal at last[7].

But it is the path of _bhakti_ or devotion to a personal God which
commands Krishna's strongest approval and leads him to make his startling
revelation. 'Have your mind in Me, be devoted to Me. To Me shall you come.
What is true I promise. Dear are you to Me. They who make Me their supreme
object, they to Me are dear. Though I am the unborn, the changeless Self,
I condition my nature and am born by my power. To save the good and
destroy evildoers, to establish the right, I am born from age to age. He
who knows this when he comes to die is not reborn but comes to Me.' He
speaks, in fact, as Vishnu himself.

This declaration is to prove the vital clue to Krishna's character. It is
to be expanded in later texts and is to account for the fervour with which
he is soon to be adored. For the present, however, his claim is in the
nature of an aside. After the battle, he resumes his life as a prince and
it is more for his shrewdness as a councillor than his teaching as God
that he is honoured and revered. Yet special majesty surrounds him and
when, thirty-six years after the conflict, a hunter mistakes him for a
deer and kills him by shooting him in the right foot[8], the Pandavas are
inconsolable. They retreat to the Himalayas, die one by one and are
translated to Indra's heaven[9].

Such an account is obviously a great advance on the _Chandogya Upanishad_.
Yet, as we ponder its intricate drama, we are faced with several
intractable issues. It is true that a detailed character has emerged, a
figure who is identified with definite actions and certain clear-cut
principles. It is true also that his character as Vishnu has been
asserted. But it is Krishna the feudal hero who throughout the story
takes, by far, the leading part. Between this hero and Krishna the God,
there is no very clear connection. The circumstances in which Vishnu has
taken form as Krishna are nowhere made plain. Except on the two occasions
mentioned, Krishna is apparently not recognized as God by others and does
not himself claim this status. Indeed it is virtually only as an
afterthought that the epic is used to transmit his great sermon, and
almost by accident that he becomes the most significant figure in the
story. Even the sermon at first sight seems at variance with his actions
as a councillor--his repeated recourse to treachery ill consorting with
the paramountcy of duty. In point of fact, such a conflict can be easily
reconciled for if God is supreme, he is above and beyond morals. He can
act in any way he pleases and yet, as God, can expect and receive the
highest reverence. God, in fact, is superior to ethics. And this viewpoint
is, in fact, to prove a basic assumption in later versions of the story.
Here it is sufficient to note that while the _Mahabharata_ describes these
two contrasting modes of behaviour, no attempt is made to face the exact
issue. Krishna as God has been introduced rather than explained and we are
left with the feeling that much more than has been recorded remains to be
said.

This feeling may well have dogged the writers who put the _Mahabharata_
into its present shape for, a little later, possibly during the sixth
century A.D., an appendix was added. This appendix was called the
_Harivansa_ or Genealogy of Krishna[10] and in it were provided all those
details so manifestly wanting in the epic itself. The exact nature of
Krishna is explained--the circumstances of his birth, his youth and
childhood, the whole being welded into a coherent scheme. In this story
Krishna the feudal magnate takes a natural place but there is no longer
any contradiction between his character as a prince and his character as
God. He is, above all, an incarnation of Vishnu and his immediate purpose
is to vanquish a particular tyrant and hearten the righteous. This
viewpoint is maintained in the _Vishnu Purana_, another text of about the
sixth century and is developed and illustrated in the tenth and eleventh
books of the _Bhagavata Purana_. It is this latter text--a vast compendium
of perhaps the ninth or tenth century--which affords the fullest account
in literature of Krishna's story.

[Footnote 3: Note 3.]

[Footnote 4: Note 4.]

[Footnote 5: A.L. Basham, _The Wonder that was India_, 245.]

[Footnote 6: _Mahabharata, Adi Parva_, Section 224 (Roy, I, 615-16).]

[Footnote 7: C. Isherwood and S. Prabhavananda, _The Song of God,
Bhagavad-Gita_, 86-7.]

[Footnote 8: Plate 2.]

[Footnote 9: Note 5.]

[Footnote 10: Note 6.]




III

THE _BHAGAVATA PURANA_: THE COWHERD



(i) Birth and Early Adventures


The _Bhagavata Purana_ is couched in the form of a dialogue between a sage
and a king. The king is the successor of the Pandavas but is doomed to die
within a week for having by accident insulted a holy ascetic. To ensure
his salvation, he spends the week listening to the _Bhagavata Purana_ and
concentrating his mind on Krishna whom he declares to be his helper.[11]

Book Ten begins by describing the particular situation which leads to
Krishna's birth. The scene is Mathura, a town in northern India, adjoining
the kingdom of the Kauravas. The surrounding country is known as Braj and
its ruling families are the Yadavas. Just outside Mathura is the district
of Gokula which is inhabited by cowherds. These are on friendly terms with
the Yadavas, but are inferior to them in caste and status. The time is
some fifty years or more before the battle of Kurukshetra and the ruling
king is Ugrasena. Ugrasena's queen is Pavanarekha and a mishap to her sets
in train a series of momentous events.

One day she is taking the air in a park, when she misses her way and finds
herself alone. A demon, Drumalika, is passing and, entranced by her grace,
decides to ravish her. He takes the form of her husband, Ugrasena, and
despite Pavanarekha's protests proceeds to enjoy her. Afterwards he
assumes his true shape. Pavanarekha is dismayed but the demon tells her
that he has given her a son who will 'vanquish the nine divisions of the
earth, rule supreme and fight Krishna.' Pavanarekha tells her maids that a
monkey has been troubling her. Ten months later a son is born. He is named
Kansa and the court rejoices.

As Kansa grows up he reveals his demon's nature. He ignores his father's
words, murders children and defeats in battle King Jarasandha of
Magadha.[12] The latter gives him two daughters in marriage. He then
deposes his father, throws him into prison, assumes his powers and bans
the worship of Vishnu. As his crimes increase, he extends his conquests.
At last Earth can bear the burden no longer and appeals to the gods to
approach the supreme Deity, Brahma, to rid her of the load. Brahma as
Creator can hardly do this, but Vishnu as Preserver agrees to intervene
and plans are laid. Among the Yadava nobility are two upright persons. The
first is Devaka, the younger brother of King Ugrasena and thus an uncle to
the tyrant. The second is a certain Vasudeva. Devaka has six daughters,
all of whom he marries to Vasudeva. The seventh is called Devaki. Vishnu
announces that Devaki will also be married to Vasudeva, and plucking out
two of his hairs--one black and one white--he declares that these will be
the means by which he will ease Earth's burden. The white hair is part of
Sesha, the great serpent, which is itself a part of Vishnu and this will
be impersonated as Devaki's seventh child. The black hair is Vishnu's own
self which will be impersonated as Devaki's eighth child. The child from
the white hair will be known as Balarama and the child from the black hair
as Krishna. As Krishna, Vishnu will then kill Kansa. Earth is gratified
and retires and the stage is set for Krishna's coming.

Devaki, with Kansa's approval, is now married to Vasudeva. The wedding is
being celebrated in the grandest manner when a voice from heaven is heard
saying, 'Kansa, the eighth son of her whom you are now escorting will
cause your destruction. You shall die at his hand.' Kansa is greatly
alarmed and is about to slay Devaki when Vasudeva agrees to yield him all
their sons. Kansa accordingly spares her. Each of Devaki's first six sons,
however, is delivered up at birth and each is slaughtered.

As the time for fulfilling the prophecy approaches, Kansa grows fearful.
He learns that gods and goddesses are being born as cowherds and cowgirls
and, interpreting this as a sign that Krishna's birth is near, he commands
his men to slaughter every cowherd in the city. A great round-up ensues
and many cowherds are killed. The leading cowherd is a wealthy herdsman
named Nanda, who lives with his wife Yasoda in the country district of
Gokula. Although of lower caste, he is Vasudeva's chief friend and in view
of the imminent dangers confronting his family, it is to Nanda that
Vasudeva now sends one of his other wives, Rohini. Devaki has meanwhile
conceived her seventh son, the white hair of Vishnu, and soon to be
recognized as Krishna's brother. To avoid his murder by Kansa, Vishnu has
the foetus transferred from Devaki's womb to that of Rohini, and the
child, named Balarama, is born to Rohini, Kansa being informed that Devaki
has miscarried. The eighth pregnancy now occurs. Kansa increases his
precautions. Devaki and Vasudeva are handcuffed and manacled. Guards are
mounted and besides these, elephants, lions and dogs are placed outside.
The unborn child, however, tells them not to fear and Devaki and Vasudeva
compose their minds.

Krishna is now born, dark as a cloud and with eyes like lotuses. He is
clad in a yellow vest and wears a crown. He takes the form of Vishnu and
commands Vasudeva to bear him to Nanda's house in Gokula and substitute
him for the infant daughter who has just been born to Yasoda, Nanda's
wife. Devaki and Vasudeva worship him. The vision then fades and they
discover the new-born child crying at their side. They debate what to
do--Devaki urging Vasudeva to take the baby to Nanda's house where Rohini,
his other wife, is still living and where Yasoda will receive it. Vasudeva
is wondering how to escape when his handcuffs and chains fall off, the
doors open and the guards are seen to be asleep. Placing Krishna in a
basket, he puts it on his head and sets out for Gokula. As he goes, lions
roar, the rain pours down and the river Jumna faces him. There is no help
but to ford it and Vasudeva accordingly enters the stream. The water gets
higher and higher until it reaches his nose. When he can go no farther,
the infant Krishna stretches out a foot, calms the river and the water
subsides. Vasudeva now arrives at Nanda's house where he finds that Yasoda
has borne a girl and is in a trance. Vasudeva puts Krishna beside her,
takes up the baby girl, recrosses the river and joins Devaki in her
prison. The doors shut, the handcuffs and fetters close on them again and
as the baby starts to cry, the guards awake. A sentry then carries Kansa
the news. Kansa hurries to the spot, seizes the child and tries to dash it
on a stone. As he does so the child becomes the goddess Devi and
exclaiming that Kansa's enemy is born elsewhere and nothing can save him,
vanishes into heaven.[13] Kansa is greatly shaken and orders all male
children to be killed,[14] but releases Vasudeva and Devaki.

Meanwhile Nanda, the rich herdsman, is celebrating the birth. Pandits and
astrologers are sent for, the child's horoscope is cast and his destiny
foretold. He will be a second deity like Brahma himself. He will destroy
demons, relieve the land of Braj of all its cares, be called the lord of
the cowgirls and be praised the whole world over. Nanda promises to
dedicate cows, loads the Brahmans with presents, and summons all the
musicians and singers of the city. Singing, dancing and music break forth,
the courtyards throng with people, and the cowherds of Gokula come in with
their wives. On their heads are pitchers full of curd and as a magical
means of ensuring prosperity, they proceed to throw it over the
gathering. Nanda presents them with cloth and betel and they depart elated
at the news.

Some days later Nanda learns of Kansa's order to seize all male children
and, deeming it prudent to offer presents, he collects the cowherds in a
body and goes to Mathura to pay tribute. Kansa receives him and on his way
back Vasudeva meets him at the river. He dare not disclose his secret that
Krishna is not Nanda's son but his own. At the same time he cannot
suppress his anxiety as a father. He contents himself by telling Nanda
that demons and evil spirits are abroad seeking to destroy young children
and urges him to return to Gokula as quickly as possible.

The _Purana_ now concentrates on two main themes: on Krishna's infancy in
Gokula, dilating on his baby pranks, his capacity for mischief, the love
he arouses in the hearts of his foster-mother, Yasoda, and of all the
married cowgirls and, secondly, on his supernatural powers and skill in
ridding the country of troublesome demons. These are at first shown as
hostile to Krishna only, but as the story unfolds, his role gradually
widens and we see him acting as the cowherds' ally, protecting them from
harm, attacking the forces of evil and thus fulfilling the supreme purpose
for which he has been born. From time to time the cowherds realize that
Krishna is Vishnu and adore him as God. Then amnesia intervenes. They
retain no recollection of the vision and see him simply as a youthful
cowherd, charming in manner, whose skill in slaying demons arouses their
love. In this way Krishna lives among them--in fact, God, but in the eyes
of the people, a young boy.[15]

The first demon to threaten Krishna's life is a huge ogress named Putana.
Her role is that of child-killer--any child who is suckled in the night by
Putana instantly dying. Putana assumes the form of a sweet and charming
girl, dabs her breasts with poison and while Nanda is still at Mathura,
comes gaily to his house. Entranced by her appearance, Yasoda allows her
to hold the baby Krishna and then to suckle him. Krishna, however, is
impervious to the poison, and fastening his mouth to her breast, he begins
to suck her life out with the milk. Putana, feeling her life going, rushes
wildly from the village, but to no avail. Krishna continues sucking and
the ogress dies. When Yasoda and Rohini catch up with her, they find her
huge carcass lying on the ground with Krishna still sucking her breast.
'Taking him up quickly and kissing him, they pressed him to their bosoms
and hurried home.'

Nanda now arrives from Mathura and congratulates the cowherds on their
escape--so great was Putana's size that her body might have crushed and
overwhelmed the whole colony. He then arranges for her burning but as her
flesh is being consumed, a strange perfume is noticed for Krishna, when
killing her, had granted her salvation.

A second demon now intervenes. It is twenty-seven days since Krishna's
birth. Brahmans and cowherds have been summoned to a feast, the cowgirls
are singing songs and everyone is laughing and eating. Krishna for the
time being is out of their minds, having been put to sleep beneath a heavy
cart loaded with pitchers. A little later he wakes up, begins to cry for
the breast and finding no one there wriggles about and starts to suck a
toe. At this moment the demon, Saktasura, is flying through the sky. He
notices the child and alights on the cart. His weight cracks it but before
the cart can collapse, Krishna kicks out so sharply that the demon dies
and the cart falls to pieces. Hearing a great crash, the cowgirls dash to
the spot, marvelling that although the cart is in splinters and all the
pots broken, Krishna has survived.

The third attack occurs when Krishna is five months old. Yasoda is sitting
with him in her lap when she notices that he has suddenly become very
heavy. At the same time, the whirlwind demon, Trinavarta, raises a great
storm. The sky darkens, trees are uprooted and thatch dislodged. As Yasoda
sets Krishna down, Trinavarta seizes him and whirls him into the air.
Yasoda finds him suddenly gone and calls out, 'Krishna, Krishna.' The
cowgirls and cowherds join her in the search, peering for him in the gusty
gloom of the dark storm. Full of misery, they search the forest and can
find him nowhere. Krishna, riding through the air, however, can see their
distress. He twists Trinavarta round, forces him down and dashes him to
death against a stone. As he does so, the storm lightens, the wind drops
and the cowherds and cowgirls regain their homes. There they discover a
demon lying dead with Krishna playing on its chest. Filled with relief,
Yasoda picks him up and hugs him to her breast.

Vasudeva now instructs his family priest, Garga the sage, to go to Gokula,
meet Nanda and give Krishna and Balarama proper names. Rohini, he points
out, has had a son, Balarama, and Nanda has also had a son, Krishna. It is
time that each should be formally named. The sage is delighted to receive
the commission and on arriving is warmly welcomed. He declines, however,
to announce the children's names in public, fearing that his connection
with Vasudeva will cause Raja Kansa to connect Krishna with the eighth
child--his fated enemy. Nanda accordingly takes him inside his house and
there the sage names the two children. Balarama is given seven names, but
Krishna's names, he declares, are numberless. Since, however, Krishna was
once born in Vasudeva's house, he is called Vasudeva. As to their
qualities, the sage goes on, both are gods. It is impossible to understand
their state, but having killed Kansa, they will remove the burdens of the
world. He then goes silently away. This is the first time that Nanda and
Yasoda are told the true facts of Krishna's birth. They do not, however,
make any comment and for the time being it is as if they are still quite
ignorant of Krishna's destiny. They continue to treat him as their son and
no hint escapes them of his true identity.

Meanwhile Krishna, along with Rohini's son, Balarama, is growing up as a
baby. He crawls about the courtyard, lisps his words, plays with toys and
pulls the calves' tails, Yasoda and Rohini all the time showering upon him
their doting love. When he can walk, Krishna starts to go about with other
children and there then ensues a series of naughty pranks. His favourite
pastime is to raid the houses of the cowgirls, pilfer their cream and
curds, steal butter and upset milk pails. When, as sometimes happens, the
butter is hung from the roof, they pile up some of the household
furniture. One of the boys then mounts upon it, another climbs on his
shoulders, and in this way gets the butter down.[16] As the pilfering
increases, the married cowgirls learn that Krishna is the ringleader and
contrive one day to catch him in the act. 'You little thief,' they say,
'At last we've caught you. So it's you who took our butter and curds. You
won't escape us now.' And taking him by the hand they march him to Yasoda.
Krishna, however, is not to be outwitted. Employing his supernatural
powers, he substitutes the cowgirls' own sons for himself and while they
go to Yasoda, himself slips off and joins his playmates in the fields.
When the cowgirls reach Yasoda, they complain of Krishna's thefts and tell
her that at last they have caught him and here he is. Yasoda answers, 'But
this is not Krishna. These are your own sons.' The cowgirls look at the
children, discover the trick, are covered in confusion and burst out
laughing. Yasoda then sends for Krishna and forbids him to steal from
other people's houses. Krishna pretends to be highly indignant. He calls
the cowgirls liars and accuses them of always making him do their work. If
he is not having to hold a milk pail or a calf, he says, he is doing a
household chore or even keeping watch for them while they neglect their
work and gossip. The cowgirls listen in astonishment and go away.

Another day Krishna is playing in a courtyard and takes it into his head
to eat some dirt. Yasoda is told of it and in a fit of anger runs towards
him with a stick. 'Why are you eating mud?' she cries. 'What mud?' says
Krishna. 'The mud one of your friends has just told me you have eaten. If
you haven't eaten it, open your mouth.' Krishna opens it and looking
inside, Yasoda sees the three worlds. In a moment of perception, she
realizes that Krishna is God. 'What am I doing in looking upon the Lord of
the three worlds as my son?' she cries. Then the vision fades and she
picks up Krishna and kisses him.

Another day, Yasoda asks the married cowgirls to assist her in churning
milk. They clean the house, set up a large vessel, prepare the churning
staff and string, and start to churn. Krishna is awakened by the noise and
finding no one about comes crying to Yasoda. 'I am hungry, mother,' he
says. 'Why have you not given me anything to eat?' And in a fit of
petulance he starts to throw the butter about and kick over the pitchers.
Yasoda tells him not to be so naughty, sits him on her lap and gives him
some milk. While she is doing this, a cowgirl tells her that the milk has
boiled over and Yasoda jumps up leaving Krishna alone. While she is away
he breaks the pots, scatters the curds, makes a mess of all the rooms and,
taking a pot full of butter, runs away with it into the fields. There he
seats himself on an upturned mortar, assembles the other boys and vastly
pleased with himself, laughingly shares the butter out. When Yasoda
returns and sees the mess, she seizes a stick and goes to look for
Krishna. She cannot find it in her heart, however, to be angry for long
and when Krishna says, 'Mother, let me go. I did not do it,' she laughs
and throws the stick away. Then pretending to be still very angry, she
takes him home and ties him to a mortar. A little later a great crash is
heard. Two huge trees have fallen and when the cowherds hurry to the spot,
they find that Krishna has dragged the mortar between the trunks, pulled
them down and is quietly sitting between them.[17] Two youths--by name Nala
and Kuvara--have been imprisoned in the trees and Krishna's action has
released them. When she sees that Krishna is safe, Yasoda unties him from
the mortar and hugs him to her.

This incident of the trees now forces Nanda to make a decision. The
various happenings have been profoundly unnerving and he feels that it is
no longer safe to stay in Gokula. He decides therefore to move a day's
march farther on, to cross the river and settle in the forests of
Brindaban. The cowherds accordingly load up their possessions on carts and
the move ensues.[18]

The story now enters its second phase. Krishna is no longer a mischievous
baby, indulging in tantrums yet wringing the heart with his childish
antics. He is now five years old and of an age to make himself useful. He
asks to be allowed to graze the calves. At first Yasoda is unwilling. 'We
have got so many servants,' she says. 'It is their job to take the calves
out. Why go yourself? You are the protection of my eye-lids and dearer to
me than my eyes.' Krishna, however, insists and in the end she entrusts
him and Balarama to the other young cowherds, telling them on no account
to leave them alone in the forest, but to bring them safely home. Her
words are, in fact, only too necessary, for Kansa, the tyrant king, is
still in quest of the child who is to kill him. His demon minions are
still on the alert, attacking any likely boy, and as Krishna plays with
the cowherds and tends the calves, he suffers a further series of attacks.

A cow demon, Vatsasura, tries to mingle with the herd. The calves sense
its presence and as it sidles up, Krishna seizes it by the hind leg,
whirls it round his head and dashes it to death. A crane demon, Bakasura,
then approaches. The cowherds recognize it, but while they are wondering
how to escape, the crane opens its beak and engulfs Krishna. Krishna,
however, becomes so hot that the crane cannot retain him. It lets him go.
Krishna then tears its beak in two, rounds up the calves and taking the
cowherd boys with him, returns home.

Another day Krishna is out in the forest with the cowherds and the calves,
when a snake demon, Ugrasura, sucks them into its mouth. Krishna expands
his body to such an extent that the snake bursts. The calves and cowherd
children come tumbling out and all praise Krishna for saving them. On the
way back, Krishna suggests that they should have a picnic and choosing a
great _kadam_ tree, they sweep the place clean, set out their food and
proceed to enjoy it. As they eat, the gods look down, noting how handsome
the young Krishna has grown. Among the gods is Brahma, who decides to
tease Krishna by hiding the calves while the cowherd children are
eating.[19] He takes them to a cave and when Krishna goes in search of
them, hides the cowherd children as well. Krishna, however, is not to be
deterred. Creating duplicates of every calf and boy he brings them home.
No one detects that anything is wrong and for a year they live as if
nothing has happened. Brahma has meanwhile sunk himself in meditation, but
suddenly recalls his prank and hurries out to set matters right. He is
astonished to find the original calves and children still sleeping in the
cave, while their counterparts roam the forest. He humbly worships
Krishna, restores the original calves and children and returns to his
abode. When the cowherd children awake, Krishna shows them the calves. No
one realizes what has happened. The picnic continues and laughing and
playing they go home.

We now enter the third phase of Krishna's childhood. He is eight years old
and is therefore competent to graze not merely the calves but the cows as
well.[20] Nanda accordingly performs the necessary ritual and Krishna goes
with the cowherds to the forest.

An idyllic phase in Krishna's life now starts. 'At this time Krishna and
Balarama, accompanied by the cow-boys, traversed the forests, that echoed
with the hum of bees and the peacock's cry. Sometimes they sang in chorus
or danced together; sometimes they sought shelter from the cold beneath
the trees; sometimes they decorated themselves with flowery garlands,
sometimes with peacocks' feathers; sometimes they stained themselves of
various hues with the minerals of the mountain; sometimes weary they
reposed on beds of leaves, and sometimes imitated in mirth the muttering
of the thundercloud; sometimes they excited their juvenile associates to
sing, and sometimes they mimicked the cry of the peacock with their pipes.
In this manner participating in various feelings and emotions, and
affectionately attached to each other, they wandered, sporting and happy,
through the wood. At eveningtide came Krishna and Balarama, like to
cowboys, along with the cows and the cowherds. At eveningtide the two
immortals, having come to the cow-pens, joined heartily in whatever sports
amused the sons of the herdsmen.'[21]

One day as they are grazing the cows, they play a game. Krishna divides
the cows and cowherds into two sides and collecting flowers and fruits
pretends that they are weapons. They then stage a mock battle, pelting
each other with the fruits. A little later Balarama takes them to a grove
of palm trees. The ass demon, Dhenuka, guards it. Balarama, however,
seizes it by its hind legs, twists it round and hurls it into a high tree.
From the tree the demon falls down dead. When Dhenuka's companion asses
hasten to the spot, Krishna kills them also. The cowherds then pick the
coconuts to their hearts' content, fill a quantity of baskets and having
grazed the cows, go strolling home.

The next morning Krishna rises early, calls the cowherds and takes the
cows to the forest. As they are grazing them by the Jumna, they reach a
dangerous whirlpool. In this whirlpool lives the giant snake, Kaliya,
whose poison has befouled the water, curdling it into a great froth. The
cowherds and the cattle drink some of it, are taken ill, but revive at
Krishna's glance. They then play ball. A solitary _kadam_ tree is on the
bank. Krishna climbs it and a cowherd throws the ball up to him. The ball
goes into the water and Krishna, thinking this the moment for quelling the
great snake, plunges in after it. Kaliya detects that an intruder has
entered the pool, begins to spout poison and fire and encircles Krishna in
its coils. In their alarm the cowherds send word to Nanda and along with
Yasoda, Rohini and the other cowgirls, he hastens to the scene. Krishna
can no longer be seen and in her agitation Yasoda is about to throw
herself in. Krishna, however, is merely playing with the snake. In a
moment he expands his body, jumps from the coils and begins to dance on
the snake's heads. 'Having the weight of three worlds,' the _Purana_ says,
'Krishna was very heavy.' The snake fails to sustain this dancing burden,
its heads droop and blood flows from its tongues. It is about to die when
the snake-queens bow at Krishna's feet and implore his mercy. Krishna
relents, spares the snake's life but banishes it to a distant island.[22]
He then leaves the river, but the exhaustion of the cowherds and cowgirls
is so great that they decide to stay in the forest for the night and
return to Brindaban next morning. Their trials, however, are far from
over. At midnight there is a heavy storm and a huge conflagration. Scarlet
flames leap up, dense smoke engulfs the forest and many cattle are burnt
alive. Finding themselves in great danger, Nanda, Yasoda and the cowherds
call on Krishna to save them. Krishna quietly rises up, sucks the fire
into his mouth and ends the blaze.

The hot weather now comes. Trees are heavy with blossom, peacocks strut in
the glades and a general lethargy seizes the cowherds. One day Krishna and
his friends are out with the cattle when Pralamba, a demon in human form,
comes to join them. Krishna warns Balarama of the demon's presence and
tells him to await an opportunity to kill him. He then divides the
cowherds into two groups and starts them on the game of guessing fruits
and flowers. Krishna's side loses and as a penalty they have to run a
certain distance carrying Balarama's side on their shoulders. Pralamba
carries Balarama. He runs so fast that he quickly outstrips the others. As
he reaches the forest, he changes size, becoming 'large as a black hill.'
He is about to kill Balarama when Balarama himself rains blows upon him
and kills him instead.[23] While this is happening, the cows get lost,
another forest fire ensues and Krishna has once again to intervene. He
extinguishes the fire, regains the cattle and escorts the cowherds to
their homes.[24] When the others hear what has happened, they are filled
with wonder 'but obtain no clue to the actions of Krishna.'

During all this time, Krishna as 'son' of the wealthiest and most
influential cowherd, Nanda, has been readily accepted by the cowherd
children as their natural leader. His lack of fear, his bravery in coping
with demons, his resourcefulness in extricating the cowherds from awkward
situations, his complete self-confidence and finally his princely bearing
have revealed him as someone altogether above the ordinary. From time to
time he has disclosed his true nature as Vishnu but almost immediately has
exercised his 'illusory' power and prevented the cowherds from remembering
it. He has consequently lived among them as God but their love and
admiration are still for him as a boy. It is at this point that the
_Purana_ now moves to what is perhaps its most significant phase--a
description of Krishna's effects on the cowgirls.

[Footnote 11: Note 7.]

[Footnote 12: Magadha--a region corresponding to present-day South Bihar.]

[Footnote 13: Plate 3.]

[Footnote 14: Note 8.]

[Footnote 15: Note 9.]

[Footnote 16: Plate 4.]

[Footnote 17: Plate 5.]

[Footnote 18: Plate 6. In the _Harivansa_, the cause of the migration is
given as a dangerous influx of wolves.]

[Footnote 19: Note 10.]

[Footnote 20: Plate 7.]

[Footnote 21: Note 7.]

[Footnote 22: Plate 8.]

[Footnote 23: Plate 9.]

[Footnote 24: Plate 10.]



(ii) The Loves of the Cowgirls


We have seen how during his infancy Krishna's pranks have already made
him the darling of the women. As he grows up, he acquires a more adult
charm. In years he is still a boy but we are suddenly confronted with
what is to prove the very heart of the story--his romances with the
cowgirls. Although all of them are married, the cowgirls find his presence
irresistible and despite the warnings of morality and the existence of
their husbands, each falls utterly in love with him. As Krishna wanders in
the forest, the cowgirls can talk of nothing but his charms. They do their
work but their thoughts are on him. They stay at home but all the time
each is filled with desperate longing. One day Krishna plays on his flute
in the forest. Playing the flute is the cowherds' special art and Krishna
has, therefore, learnt it in his childhood. But, as in everything else,
his skill is quite exceptional and Krishna's playing has thus a beauty all
its own. From where they are working the cowgirls hear it and at once are
plunged in agitation. They gather on the road and say to each other,
'Krishna is dancing and singing in the forest and will not be home till
evening. Only then shall we see him and be happy.'

One cowgirl says, 'That happy flute to be played on by Krishna! Little
wonder that having drunk the nectar of his lips the flute should trill
like the clouds. Alas! Krishna's flute is dearer to him than we are for
he keeps it with him night and day. The flute is our rival. Never is
Krishna parted from it.' A second cowgirl speaks. 'It is because the flute
continually thought of Krishna that it gained this bliss.' And a third
says, 'Oh! why has Krishna not made us into flutes that we might stay with
him day and night?' The situation in fact has changed overnight for far
from merely appealing to the cowgirls' maternal instincts, Krishna is now
the darling object of their most intense passion.

Faced with this situation, the cowgirls discuss how best to gain Krishna
as their lover. They recall that bathing in the early winter is believed
to wipe out sin and fulfil the heart's desires. They accordingly go to the
river Jumna, bathe in its waters and after making clay images of Parvati,
Siva's consort, pray to her to make Krishna theirs. They go on doing this
for many days.

One day they choose a part of the river where there is a steep bank.
Taking off their clothes they leave them on the grass verge, enter the
water and swim around calling out their love for Krishna. Unknown to them,
Krishna is in the vicinity and is grazing the cows. He steals quietly up,
sees them in the river, makes their clothes into a bundle and then climbs
up with it into a tree. When the cowgirls come out of the water, they
cannot find their clothes until at last one of them spies Krishna sitting
in the tree. The cowgirls hurriedly squat down in the water entreating
Krishna to return their clothes. Krishna, however, tells them to come up
out of the water and ask him one by one. The cowgirls say, 'But this will
make us naked. You are making an end of our friendship.' Krishna says,
'Then you shall not have your clothes back.' The cowgirls answer, 'Why do
you treat us so? It is only for you that we have bathed all these days.'
Krishna answers, 'If that is really so, then do not be bashful or deceive
me. Come and take your clothes.' Finding no alternative, the cowgirls
argue amongst themselves that since Krishna already knows the secrets of
their minds and bodies, there is no point in being ashamed before him,
and they come up out of the water shielding their nakedness with their
hands.[25] Krishna tells them to raise their hands and then he will return
their clothes. The cowgirls do so begging him not to make fun of them and
to give them at least something in return. Krishna now hands the clothes
back giving as excuse for his conduct the following somewhat specious
reason. 'I was only giving you a lesson,' he says. 'The god Varuna lives
in water, so if anyone goes naked into it he loses his character. This was
a secret, but now you know it.' Then he relents. 'I have told you this
because of your love. Go home now but come back in the early autumn and we
will dance together.' Hearing this the cowgirls put on their clothes and
wild with love return to their village.

At this point the cowgirls' love for Krishna is clearly physical. Although
precocious in his handling of the situation, Krishna is still the rich
herdsman's handsome son and it is as this rather than as God that they
regard him. Yet the position is never wholly free from doubt for in loving
Krishna as a youth, it is as if they are from time to time aware of
adoring him as God. No precise identifications are made and yet so strong
are their passions that seemingly only God himself could evoke them. And
although no definite explanation is offered, it is perhaps this same idea
which underlies the following incident.

One day Krishna is in the forest when his cowherd companions complain
of feeling hungry. Krishna observes smoke rising from the direction of
Mathura and infers that the Brahmans are cooking food preparatory to
making sacrifice. He asks the cowherds to tell them that Krishna is hungry
and would like some of this food. The Brahmans of Mathura angrily spurn
the request, saying 'Who but a low cowherd would ask for food in the midst
of a sacrifice?' 'Go and ask their wives,' Krishna says, 'for being kind
and virtuous they will surely give you some.' Krishna's power with women
is then demonstrated once more. His fame as a stealer of hearts has
preceded him and the cowherds have only to mention his name for the wives
of the Brahmans to run to serve him. They bring out gold dishes, load them
with food, brush their husbands aside and hurry to the forest. One husband
stops his wife, but rather than be left behind the woman leaves her body
and reaches Krishna before the others. When the women arrive they marvel
at Krishna's beauty. 'He is Nanda's son,' they say. 'We heard his name and
everything else was driven from our minds. Let us gaze on this darling
object of our lives. O Krishna, it is due to you that we have seen you and
thus got rid of all our sins. Those stupid Brahmans, our husbands, mistook
you for a mere man. But you are God. As God they offer to you prayers,
penance, sacrifice and love. How then can they deny you food?' Krishna
replies that they should not worship him for he is only the child of the
cowherd, Nanda. He was hungry and they took pity on him, and he only
regrets that being far from home he cannot return their hospitality. They
must now go home as their presence is needed for the sacrifices and their
husbands must still be waiting. So cool an answer dismays the women and
they say, 'Great king, we loved your lotus-like face. We came to you
despite our families. They tried to stop us but we ignored them. If they
do not take us back, where shall we go? And one of us, prevented by her
husband, gave her life rather than not see you.' At this Krishna smiles,
reveals the woman and says, 'Whoever loves God never dies. She was here
before you.' Krishna then eats the food and assuring them that their
husbands will say nothing, sends them back to Mathura. When they arrive,
they find the Brahmans chastened and contrite--cursing their folly in
having failed to recognize Krishna as God and envious of their wives for
having seen him and given him food.

Having humbled the Brahmans, Krishna now turns to the gods, choosing
Indra, their chief, for attack. The moment is his annual worship when the
cowherds offer sweets, rice, saffron, sandal and incense. Seeing them
busy, Krishna asks Nanda what is the point of all their preparations. What
good can Indra really do? he asks. He is only a god, not God himself. He
is often worsted by demons and abjectly put to flight. In fact he has no
power at all. Men prosper because of their virtues or their fates, not
because of Indra. As cowherds, their business is to carry on agriculture
and trade and to tend cows and Brahmans. Their earliest books, the Vedas,
require them not to abandon their family customs and Krishna then cites as
an ancient practice the custom of placating the spirits of the forests and
hills. This custom, he says, they have wrongly superseded in favour of
Indra and they must now revive it. Nanda sees the force of Krishna's
remarks and holds a meeting. 'Do not brush aside his words as those of a
mere boy,' he says. 'If we face the facts, we have really nothing to do
with the ruler of the gods. It is on the forests, rivers and the great
hill, Govardhana, that we really depend.' The cowherds applaud this
advice, resolve to abandon the gods and in their place to worship the
mountain, Govardhana. The worship of the hill is then performed. Krishna
advises the cowherds to shut their eyes and the spirit of the hill will
then show itself. He then assumes the spirit's form himself, telling Nanda
and the cowherds that in response to their worship the mountain spirit has
appeared. The cowherds' eyes are easily deceived. Beholding, as they
think, Govardhana himself, they make offerings and go rejoicing home.

Such an act of defiance greatly enrages Indra and he assembles all the
gods. He forgets that earlier in the story it was the gods themselves who
begged Vishnu to be born on earth and that many of their number have even
taken birth as cowherds and cowgirls in order to delight in Krishna as
his incarnation. Instead he sees Krishna as 'a great talker, a silly
unintelligent child and very proud.' He scoffs at the cowherds for
regarding Krishna as a god, and in order to reinstate himself he orders
the clouds to rain down torrents. The cowherds, faced with floods on every
side, appeal to Krishna. Krishna, however, is fully alive to the position.
He calms their fears and raising the hill Govardhana, supports it on his
little finger.[26] The cowherds and cattle take shelter under it and
although Indra himself comes and pours down rain for seven days, Braj and
its inhabitants stay dry. Indra is compelled to admit that Vishnu has
indeed descended in the form of Krishna and retires to his abode. Krishna
then sets the hill down in its former place. Following this discomfiture,
Indra comes down from the sky accompanied by his white elephant and by
Surabhi, the cow of plenty. He offers his submission to Krishna, is
pardoned and returns.

All these events bring to a head the problem which has been exercising
the cowherds for long--who and what is Krishna? Obviously no simple boy
could lift the mountain on his finger. He must clearly be someone much
greater and they conclude that Krishna can only be Vishnu himself. They
accordingly beseech him to show them the paradise of Vishnu. Krishna
agrees, creates a paradise and shows it to them. The cowherds see it and
praise his name. Yet it is part of the story that these flashes of insight
should be evanescent--that having realized one instant that Krishna is
God, the cowherds should regard him the next instant as one of themselves.
Having revealed his true nature, therefore, Krishna becomes a cowherd once
again and is accepted by the cowherds as being only that.

One further incident must be recorded. In compliance with a vow, Nanda
assembles the cowherds and cowgirls and goes to the shrine of Devi, the
Earth Mother, to celebrate Krishna's twelfth birthday. There they make
lavish offerings of milk, curds and butter and thank the goddess for
protecting Krishna for so long. Night comes on and they camp near the
shrine. As Nanda is sleeping, a huge python begins to swallow his foot.[27]
Nanda calls to Krishna, who hastens to his rescue. Logs are taken from
a fire, but as soon as the snake is touched by Krishna, a handsome young
man emerges and stands before him with folded hands. He explains that he
was once the celestial dancer, Sudarsana who in excess of pride drove his
chariot backwards and forwards a hundred times over the place where a
holy man was meditating. As a consequence he was cursed and told to
become a python until Krishna came and released him. To attract Krishna's
attention he has seized the foot of Nanda. Krishna bids him go and,
ascending his chariot, Sudarsana returns to the gods.

The _Purana_ now returns to Krishna's encounters with the cowgirls, their
passionate longings and ardent desire to have him as their lover. Since
the incident at the river, they have been waiting for him to keep his
promise. Krishna, however, has appeared blandly indifferent--going to the
forest, playing with the cowherds but coldly ignoring the cowgirls
themselves. When autumn comes, however, the beauty of the nights stirs his
feelings. Belatedly he recalls his promise and decides to fulfil it. That
night his flute sounds in the forest, its notes reaching the ears of the
cowgirls and thrilling them to the core. Like girls in tribal India today,
they know it is a call to love. They put on new clothes, brush aside their
husbands, ignore the other members of their families and hurry to the
forest. As they arrive, Krishna stands superbly before them. He wears a
crown of peacocks' feathers and a yellow dhoti and his blue-black skin
shines in the moonlight. As the cowgirls throng to see him, he twits them
on their conduct. Are they not frightened at coming into the dark forest?
What are they doing abandoning their families? Is not such wild behaviour
quite unbefitting married girls? Should not a married girl obey her
husband in all things and never for a moment leave him? Having enjoyed the
deep forest and the moonlight, let them return at once and soothe their
injured spouses. The cowgirls are stunned to hear such words, hang their
heads, sigh and dig their toes into the ground. They begin to weep and at
last turn on Krishna, saying 'Oh! why have you deceived us so? It was your
flute that made us come. We have left our husbands for you. We live for
your love. Where are we to go?' 'If you really love me,' Krishna answers
'Dance and sing with me.' His words fill the cowgirls with delight and
surrounding Krishna 'like golden creepers growing on a dark-coloured
hill,' they go with him to the banks of the Jumna. Here Krishna has
conjured up a golden circular terrace ornamented with pearls and diamonds
and cooled by sprouting plantains. The moon pours down, saturating the
forest. The cowgirls' joy increases. They beautify their bodies and then,
wild with love, join with Krishna in singing and dancing. Modesty deserts
them and they do whatever pleases them, regarding Krishna as their lover.
As the night goes on, Krishna 'appears as beautiful as the moon amidst the
stars.'

As the cowgirls' ecstasies proceed, Krishna feels that they are fast
exceeding themselves. They think that he is in their power and are already
swelling with pride. He decides therefore to leave them suddenly, and
taking a single girl with him vanishes from the dance.[28] When they find
him gone, the cowgirls are at a loss to know what to do. 'Only a moment
ago,' one of them says, 'Krishna's arms were about my neck, and now he has
gone.' They begin to comb the forest, anxiously asking the trees, birds
and animals, for news. As they go, they recall Krishna's many winning
ways, his sweetnesses of character, his heart-provoking charms and begin
to mimic his acts--the slaying of Putana, the quelling of Kaliya, the
lifting of the hill Govardhana. One girl imitates Krishna dancing and
another Krishna playing. In all these ways they strive to evoke his
passionately-desired presence. At length they discover Krishna's
footprints and a little farther on those of a woman beside them. They
follow the trail which leads them to a bed of leaves and on the leaves
they find a looking-glass. 'What was Krishna doing with this?' they ask.
'He must have taken it with him,' a cowgirl answers, 'so that while he
braided his darling's hair, she could still perceive his lovely form.' And
burning with love, they continue looking.

While they are searching, the particular cowgirl who has gone with Krishna
is tempted to take liberties. Thinking Krishna is her slave, she complains
of feeling tired and asks him to carry her on his shoulders. Krishna
smiles, sits down and asks her to mount. But as she puts out her hands, he
vanishes and she remains standing with hands outstretched.[29] Tears stream
from her eyes. She is filled with bitter grief and cries 'O Krishna! best
of lovers, where have you gone? Take pity.'

As she is bemoaning her fate, her companions arrive.[30] They put their
arms around her, comfort her as best they can, and then, taking her with
them, continue through the moonlight their vain and anguished search.
Krishna still evades them and they return to the terrace where the night's
dancing had begun. There they once again implore Krishna to have pity,
declaring that there is none like him in charm, that he is endlessly
fascinating and that in all of them he has aroused extremities of
passionate love. But the night is empty, their cries go unanswered, and
moaning for the Krishna they adore, they toss and writhe on the ground.

At last, Krishna relents. He stands among them and seeing him, their cares
vanish 'as creepers revive when sprinkled with the water of life.' Some
of the cowgirls hardly dare to be angry but others upbraid him for so
brusquely deserting them. To all, Krishna gives the same answer. He is not
to be judged by ordinary standards. He is a constant fulfiller of desire.
It was to test the strength of their love that he left them in the forest.
They have survived this stringent test and convinced him of their love.
The girls are in no mood to query his explanation and 'uniting with him'
they overwhelm him with frantic caresses.

Krishna now uses his 'delusive power' in order to provide each girl with
a semblance of himself. He asks them to dance and then projects a whole
series of Krishnas. 'The cowgirls in pairs joined hands and Krishna was
in their midst. Each thought he was at her side and did not recognize him
near anyone else. They put their fingers in his fingers and whirled about
with rapturous delight. Krishna in their midst was like a lovely cloud
surrounded by lightning. Singing, dancing, embracing and loving, they
passed the hours in extremities of bliss. They took off their clothes,
their ornaments and jewels and offered them to Krishna. The gods in heaven
gazed on the scene and all the goddesses longed to join. The singing
mounted in the night air. The winds were stilled and the streams ceased to
flow. The stars were entranced and the water of life poured down from the
great moon. So the night went on--on and on--and only when six months were
over did the dancers end their joy.'

As, at last, the dance concludes, Krishna takes the cowgirls to the Jumna,
bathes with them in the water, rids himself of fatigue and then after once
again gratifying their passions, bids them go home. When they reach their
houses, no one is aware that they have not been there all the time.

[Footnote 25: Plate 11.]

[Footnote 26: Plate 12.]

[Footnote 27: Note 11.]

[Footnote 28: Plate 13.]

[Footnote 29: Plate 14.]

[Footnote 30: Plate 15.]



(iii) The Death of the Tyrant


This scene with its crescendos of excitement, its delight in physical
passion and ecstatic exploration of sexual desire is, in many ways, the
climax of Krishna's pastoral career. It expresses the devotion felt for
him by the cowgirls. It stresses his loving delight in their company. It
suggests the blissful character of the ultimate union. No further
revelation, in fact, is necessary for this is the crux of Krishna's life.
None the less the ostensible reason for his birth remains--to rid the
earth of the vicious tyrant Kansa--and to this the _Purana_ now returns.

We have seen how in his anxious quest for the child who is to kill him,
Kansa has dispatched his demon warriors on roving commissions, authorizing
them to attack and kill all likely children. Many children have in this
way been slaughtered but Kansa is still uncertain whether his prime
purpose has been fulfilled. He has no certain knowledge that among the
dead children is his dreaded enemy. He is still unaware that Krishna is
destined to be his foe and he therefore continues the hunt, his demon
emissaries pouncing like commandos on youthful stragglers and hounding
them to their deaths. Among such youths Krishna is still an obvious target
and although unaware that this is the true object of their quest, demons
continue to harry him.

One night Krishna and Balarama are in the forest with the cowgirls when a
yaksha demon, Sankhasura, a jewel flashing in his head, comes among them.
He drives the cowgirls off but hearing their cries, Krishna follows after.
Balarama stays with the girls while Krishna catches and beheads the demon.

On another occasion, Krishna and Balarama are returning at evening with
the cows when a bull demon careers amongst them. He runs amok scattering
the cattle in all directions. Krishna, however, is not at all daunted and
after wrestling with the bull, catches its horns and breaks its neck.

To such blind attacks there is no immediate end. One day, however, a sage
discloses to Kansa the true identity of his enemy. He tells him in what
manner Balarama and Krishna were born, how Balarama was transferred
from Devaki's womb to that of Rohini, and how Krishna was transported
to Nanda's house in Gokula. Kansa is now confronted with the ghastly
truth--how Vasudeva's willingness to surrender his first six sons has
lulled his suspicions, how his confidence in Vasudeva has been entirely
misplaced, and how completely he has been deceived. He sends for Vasudeva
and is on the point of killing him when the sage interposes, advising
Kansa to imprison Vasudeva for the present and meanwhile make an all-out
attempt to kill or capture Balarama and Krishna. Kansa sees the force of
his remarks, spares Vasudeva for the moment, throws him and Devaki into
jail and dispatches a special demon, the horse Kesi, on a murderous
errand.

As the horse speeds on its way, Kansa assembles his demon councillors,
explains the situation to them and asks for their advice. If Krishna
should not be killed in the forest, the only alternative, the demons
suggest, is to decoy him to Mathura. Let a handsome theatre be built, a
sacrifice to Siva held and a special festival of arms proclaimed. All the
cowherds will naturally come to see it. Nanda, the rich herdsman, will
bring presents, Krishna and Balarama will come with other cowherds. When
they have arrived the wrestler Chanura can throw them down and kill them.
Kansa is delighted at the suggestion, adding only that a savage elephant
should be stationed at the gate ready to tear Krishna and Balarama to
pieces immediately they enter. He then dismisses his demon advisers and
sends for Akrura, the chief of the Yadavas and a leading member of his
court. Akrura, he judges, will be the best person to decoy Krishna to
Mathura. He accordingly briefs him as to his intentions and instructs him
to await orders. Akrura deems it politic to express compliance but
secretly is overjoyed that he will thus obtain access to the Krishna he
adores.

The first stage of Kansa's master plan is now brought into effect. The
horse demon, Kesi, reaches Brindaban and begins to paw the ground and kick
up its heels. The cowherds are frightened but Krishna dares it to attack.
The horse tries to bite him but Krishna plunges his hand down its throat
and expands it to a vast size until the demon bursts. Its remains litter
the ground but Krishna is so unmoved that he merely summons the cowherd
children to play a game. Squatting with them under a fig tree, he names
one of them a general, another a minister, a third a councillor and
himself pretending to be a raja plays with them at being king. A little
later they join him in a game of blind man's bluff.

This unexpected _dénouement_ enrages Kansa but instead of desisting from
the attempt and bringing into force the second part of his plan, he
decides to make one further effort to murder his hated foe. He accordingly
summons the wolf demon, Vyamasura, gives him detailed instructions and
dispatches him to Brindaban. The demon hies to the forest, arriving while
Krishna and the children are still at blind man's buff. He has dressed
himself as a beggar and going humbly up to Krishna asks if he may join in.
Krishna tells him to choose whatever game he likes and the demon says,
'What about the game of wolf and rams?' 'Very well,' Krishna answers, 'You
be the wolf and the cowherd boys the rams.' They start to play and the
demon rounds up all the children and keeps them in a cave. Then, assuming
true wolf's form he pounces on Krishna. Krishna, however, is quite
prepared and seizing the wolf by the throat, strangles it to death.

Akrura is now sent for and instructed to go to Brindaban and return with
Krishna to Mathura. He sets out and as he journeys allows his thoughts to
dwell on the approaching meeting. 'Now,' he muses 'has my life borne
fruit; my night is followed by the dawn of day; since I shall see the
countenance of Vishnu, whose eyes are like the expanded leaf of the lotus.
I shall behold that lotus-eyed aspect of Vishnu, which, when seen only in
imagination, takes away the sins of men. I shall today behold that glory
of glories, the mouth of Vishnu, whence proceeded the Vedas, and all their
dependent sciences. I shall see the sovereign of the world, by whom the
world is sustained; who is worshipped as the best of males, as the male
sacrifice in sacrificial rites. I shall see Vishnu, who is without
beginning or end; by worshipping whom with a hundred sacrifices, Indra
obtained the sovereignty over the gods. The soul of all, the knower of
all, he who is all and is present in all, he who is permanent, undecaying,
all-pervading will converse with me. He, the unborn, who has preserved the
world in the various forms of a fish, tortoise, a boar, a horse, a lion
will this day speak to me. Now the lord of the earth, who assumes shapes
at will, has taken upon him the condition of humanity, to accomplish some
object cherished in his heart. Glory to that being whose deceptive
adoption of father, son, brother, friend, mother, and relative, the world
is unable to penetrate. May he in whom cause and effect, and the world
itself, is comprehended, be propitious to me, through his truth; for
always do I put my trust in that unborn, eternal Vishnu; by meditation on
whom man becomes the repository of all good things.'[31]

He goes on to think of how he will kneel before Krishna with folded hands
and afterwards put on his head the dust of Krishna's feet--the same feet
which 'have come to destroy crime, which fell on the snake Kaliya's head
and which have danced with the cowgirls in the forest.' Krishna, he
believes, will know at once that he is not Kansa's envoy and will receive
him with kindness. And this is what actually ensues. Meeting Krishna
outside Brindaban, he falls at his feet, Krishna lifts him up, embraces
him and brings him into Nanda's house. Akrura tells Nanda and Krishna
how Kansa has oppressed the people of Mathura, imprisoned Vasudeva and
Devaki and has now sent him to invite them to attend the festival of
arms. Krishna listens and at once agrees to go, while Nanda sends out a
town-crier to announce by beat of drum that all the cowherds should get
ready to leave the next day. When morning comes, Krishna leaves in a
chariot, accompanied by the cowherds and their children.

The news of his sudden departure devastates the cowgirls. Since the
circular dance in which their love was consummated, they have been meeting
Krishna every evening and delighting in his company. And during the
daytime their passionate longings have centred solely on him. That he
should leave them so abruptly causes them complete dismay and they are
only comforted when Krishna assures them that he will return after a few
days.

On the way to Mathura Akrura bathes in the Jumna and is granted a vision
of Krishna as Vishnu himself.

Reaching Mathura, Nanda and the cowherds pitch their tents outside the
city walls[32] while Krishna with Balarama and the cowherd children go
inside the city for a walk. As they wander through the streets, the news
of their arrival precedes them and women, excited by Krishna's name,
throng the rooftops, balconies and windows. 'Some ran off in the middle of
their dinner: others while bathing and others while engaged in plaiting
their hair. They forgot all dalliance with their husbands and went to look
at Krishna.' As Krishna proceeds, he meets some of Kansa's washermen
carrying with them bundles of clothes. He asks them to give him some and
when they refuse, he attacks one of them and strikes off his head. The
others drop their bundles and run for their lives. The cowherd children
try to dress themselves up but not knowing how to wear the clothes, some
of them put their arms into trousers and their legs into coats. Krishna
laughs at their mistakes until a tailor, a servant of Kansa, repudiates
his master, glorifies Krishna and sets the clothes right. A little later,
a gardener takes them to his house and places garlands round their necks.
As they are leaving, they meet a young woman, a hunchback, carrying a pot
of scented ointment. Krishna cannot resist flirting with her and asks her
for whom she is carrying the ointment. The girl, Kubja, sees the amorous
look in his eyes and being greatly taken by his beauty answers 'Dear one,
do you not know that I am a servant of Raja Kansa and though a hunchback
am entrusted with making his perfumes?' 'Lovely one,' Krishna answers,
'Give us a little of this ointment, just enough to rub on our bodies.'
'Take some,' says Kubja, and giving it to Krishna and Balarama, she allows
them to rub it on their bodies. When they have finished, Krishna takes her
under the chin, lifts her head and at the same time, presses her feet down
with his toes. In this way he straightens her back, thereby changing her
into the loveliest of girls. Filled with love and gratitude, Kubja catches
Krishna by the dress and begs him to come and visit her. Krishna promises
to go later and smilingly dismisses her.

Krishna now reaches the gate where the bow of Siva 'as long as three palm
trees' and very heavy, is being guarded by soldiers. He picks it up, bends
it to the full and breaks it in pieces. When the guards attack him, he
kills them and presently slaughters all the reinforcements which Kansa
sends. When the battle is over, he strolls calmly back to the cowherds'
tents.[33]

Next day, Krishna and the cowherds enter Mathura to attend the sports.
Krishna is obstructed by a giant elephant, attacks it and after a great
fight kills it. He and Balarama then extract the tusks and parade with
them in the arena. It is now the turn of Kansa's wrestlers. Their leader,
Chanura, dares Krishna to give Kansa a little amusement by wrestling with
him. Krishna takes him at his word and again after a fierce combat leaves
the wrestler dead on the ground.[34] At the same time, Balarama attacks and
kills a second wrestler, Mustaka. When other wrestlers strive to kill
Krishna and Balarama, they also are dispatched. Seeing first one and then
another plan go astray, Kansa orders his remaining demons to fetch
Vasudeva, Devaki and Ugrasena, declaring that after he has killed them he
will put the two young men to death. This declaration seals his fate. In a
flash Krishna slays Kansa's demons and then, leaping on the dais where
Kansa is sitting, he seizes him by the hair and hurls him to the ground.
Kansa is killed and all Mathura rejoices. Kansa's eight demon brothers are
then slain and only when Krishna has dragged Kansa's body to the river
Jumna and is sure that not a single demon is left do he and Balarama
desist from fighting.

[Footnote 31: Note 7.]

[Footnote 32: Plate 16.]

[Footnote 33: Plate 16.]

[Footnote 34: Plate 17.]




IV

THE _BHAGAVATA PURANA_: THE PRINCE



(i) The Return to Court


The death of Kansa brings to a close the first phase of Krishna's career.
His primary aim has now been accomplished. The tyrant whose excesses have
for so long vexed the righteous is dead. Earth's prayer has been granted.
Krishna has reached, in fact, a turning-point in his life and on what he
now decides the rest of his career depends. If he holds that his earthly
mission is ended, he must quit his mortal body, resume his sublime
celestial state and once again become the Vishnu whose attributes have
been praised by Akrura when journeying to Brindaban. If, on the other
hand, he regards his mission as still unfulfilled, is he to return to
Brindaban or should he remain instead at Mathura? At Brindaban, his foster
parents, Nanda and Yasoda, his friends the cowherds and his loves the
cowgirls long for his return. He has spent idyllic days in their company.
He has saved them from the dangers inherent in forest life. He has kept a
host of demon marauders at bay. At the same time, his magnetic charms have
aroused the most intense devotion. If he returns, it will be to dwell with
people who have doted on him as a child, adored him as a youth and who
love him as a man. On the other hand, Mathura, it is clear, has also
strong claims. Although reared and bred among the cowherds, Krishna is, in
fact, a child of Mathura. Although smuggled from the prison immediately
afterwards, it was in Mathura that he left his mother's womb. His true
father is Vasudeva, a leader of the Yadava nobility and member of the
Mathura ruling caste. His true mother, Devaki, is related to the Mathura
royal family. If his youth and infancy have been passed among the
cowherds, this was due to special reasons. His father's substitution of
him at birth for Yasoda's baby daughter was dictated by the dire perils
which would have confronted him had he remained with his mother. It was,
at most, a desperate expedient for saving his life and although the
tyrant's unremitting search for the child who was to kill him prolonged
his stay in Brindaban, his transportation there was never intended as a
permanent arrangement. A deception has been practised. Nanda and Yasoda
regard and believe Krishna to be their son. None the less there has been
no formal adoption and it is Vasudeva and Devaki who are his parents.

It is this which decides the issue. As one who by birth and blood belongs
to Mathura, Krishna can hardly desert it now that the main obstacle to his
return--the tyrant Kansa--has been removed. His plain duty is to his
parents and his castemen. Painful therefore as the severance must be, he
decides to abandon the cowherds and see them no more. He is perhaps
fortified in his decision by the knowledge that even in his relations with
the cowgirls a climax has been reached. A return would merely repeat their
nightly ecstasies, not achieve a fresh experience. Finally although Kansa
himself has been killed, his demon allies are still at large. Mathura and
Krishna's kinsmen, the Yadavas, are far from safe. He can hardly desert
them until their interests have been permanently safeguarded and by then
he will have become a feudal princeling, the very reverse of the young
cowherd who night after night has thrilled the cowgirls with his flute.

Following the tyrant's death, then, a train of complicated adjustments are
set in motion. The first step is to re-establish Krishna with his true
parents who are still in jail where the tyrant has confined them. Krishna
accordingly goes to visit them, frees them from their shackles and stands
before them with folded hands. For an instant Vasudeva and Devaki know
that Krishna is God and that in order to destroy demons he has come on
earth. They are about to worship him when Krishna dispels this knowledge
and they look on him and Balarama as their sons. Then Krishna addresses
them. For all these long years Vasudeva and Devaki have known that Krishna
and Balarama were their children and have suffered accordingly. It was not
Krishna's fault that he and Balarama were placed in Nanda's charge. Yet
although parted from their mother, they have never forgotten her. It pains
them to think that they have done so little to make her happy, that they
have never had her society and have wasted their time with strangers. And
he reminds them that in the world only those who serve their fathers and
mothers obtain power. Vasudeva and Devaki are greatly touched by Krishna's
words. Their former woe vanishes and they embrace Krishna and Balarama
fondly.

Having acknowledged Vasudeva and Devaki as his true parents, Krishna has
now to adjust his social position. Since Nanda and the cowherds belong to
a lower caste than that of Vasudeva and the other Yadavas, Krishna and
Balarama, who have eaten and drunk with the cowherds and have been brought
up with them, are not true members of the Yadava community. The family
priest is accordingly consulted and it is decided that a ceremony for
admitting them into caste must be performed. This is done and Krishna and
Balarama are given the customary sacred threads. They are now no longer
cowherds but true Yadavas. At the same time they are given a spiritual
preceptor who instructs them in the sacred texts and manuals of learning.
When they have finished the course, they express their gratitude by
restoring to him his dead son who has been drowned in the sea.

One further obligation springs from their new position. We have seen how
in the epic, the _Mahabharata_, Krishna stands in a special relation to
the Pandavas, the faction which emerges victorious from the great feud.
The mother of the Pandavas is called Kunti and it is Kunti who is the
sister of Krishna's father, Vasudeva. Since he is now with his true
father, rumours concerning Kunti reach Krishna and he learns that along
with her sons, the five Pandavas, she is being harassed by the Kaurava
king, the blind Dhritarashtra, egged on by his son, the evil Duryodhana.
Being now a part of his father's family, Krishna can hardly be indifferent
to the fate of so intimate a relative. Akrura, the leading Yadava
diplomat, whom the tyrant had employed to bring Krishna to Mathura, is
accordingly despatched on yet another mission. He is to visit the Kauravas
and Pandavas, ascertain the facts, console Krishna's aunt, Kunti, and then
return and report. Akrura reaches the Kauravas' capital and discovers that
the rumours are only too correct. Relations between the two families are
strained to breaking point. The blind king is at the mercy of his son,
Duryodhana, and it is the latter who is ceaselessly harrying Kunti and her
sons. A little later, as we have already seen, a final attempt on their
lives will be made, they will be induced to sleep in a new house, the
house will be fired and only by a fortunate chance will the Pandavas
escape to the forest and dwell in safety. This, however, is in the future
and for the moment Kunti and her sons are still at court. Akrura assures
Kunti of Krishna's abiding concern and returns to Mathura. Krishna and
Balarama are perturbed to hear his news, deliberate on whether to
intervene, but decide for the moment to do nothing.

The second adjustment which Krishna has now to make is to reconcile the
cowherds to his permanent departure from them and to wean them from their
passionate adherence to his presence. This is much more difficult. We have
seen how on the journey to Mathura, Krishna has been accompanied by Nanda
and the cowherds and how during the closing struggle with the tyrant they
also have been present. When the fight is finally over, they prepare to
depart, taking it for granted that Krishna and Balarama will come with
them. Krishna has therefore to disillusion Nanda. He breaks the news to
him that it is not he and Yasoda who are actually his parents but Vasudeva
and Devaki. He loads Nanda with jewels and costly dresses and thanks him
again and again for all his loving care. He then explains that he has now
to stay in Mathura for a time to meet his castemen, the Yadavas. Nanda is
greatly saddened by the news. The cowherds strive to dissuade him but
Krishna is adamant. He retains a few cowherds with him, but the rest
return to Brindaban, Krishna promising that after a time he will visit
them. On arrival Nanda strives in vain to console Yasoda and is forced to
tell her that Krishna has now acknowledged Vasudeva as his true father,
that he has probably left Brindaban for good and that his own early
intuition that Krishna was God is correct. Yasoda, as she thinks of her
lost 'son,' is overwhelmed with grief, but recovers when she realizes that
actually he is God. As to the cowgirls, their grief is endless as they
recall Krishna's heart-ensnaring charms.

Such a step is obviously only the first move in what must necessarily be a
long and arduous operation. Finding it impossible to say outright that he
will never see them again, Krishna has committed himself to paying the
cowherds a visit. Yet he realizes that nothing can be gained by such a
step since, if his future lies with the princely Yadavas, any mingling
with the cowherds will merely disrupt this final role. Yet clearly he
cannot just abandon his former associates without any regard at all for
their proper feelings. Weaning is necessary, and it must above all be
gradual. He decides, therefore, that since he himself cannot go, someone
must be sent on his behalf. Accordingly, he instructs a friend, Udho, to
go to Brindaban, meet the cowherds and make excuses for his absence. At
the same time, he must urge the cowgirls to give up regarding Krishna as
their lover but worship him as God. Udho is accordingly dressed in
Krishna's clothes, thereby making him appear a real substitute and is
despatched in Krishna's chariot.

When Udho arrives, he finds Nanda and Yasoda still lamenting Krishna's
absence and the cowgirls still longing for him as their lover. He begs
them to regard Krishna as God--as someone who is constantly near those who
love him even if he cannot be seen. Krishna, he says, has forbidden them
to hope for any further impassioned ecstasies and now requires them to
offer him their devotion only. If they do penance and meditate, Krishna
will never leave them. From the day they commenced thinking of him, none
have been so much loved as they. 'As earth, wind, water, fire, rain dwell
in the body, so Krishna dwells in you; but through the influence of his
delusive power seems to be apart.' Udho's pleading shocks and embitters
the cowgirls. 'How can he talk to us like that?' they ask. 'It is
Krishna's body that we adore, not some invisible idea high up in the sky.
How has Krishna suddenly become invisible and imperceptible, a being
without qualities and form, when all along he has delighted us with his
physical charms. As to penance and meditation, these concern widows. What
woman does penance while her husband is alive? It is all the doing of
Kubja, the girl of Mathura whose charms have captivated Krishna. Were it
not for Kubja and other beauties of Mathura, Krishna would now be with us
in Brindaban. Had we known he would not return, we would never have let
him go.' In such words they repudiate Udho's message, upbraid Krishna for
his fickle conduct and demonstrate with what intensity they still adore
him.

Udho is reduced to silence and can only marvel at the cowgirls' bliss in
abandoning everything to think only of Krishna. Finally they send Krishna
the message--that if he really desires them to abandon loving him with
their bodies and resort to penance, he himself must come and show them how
to do it. Unless he comes, they will die of neglect.

A few days later, Udho returns to Mathura bringing with him milk and
butter as presents to Krishna from Nanda and Yasoda and escorting Rohini,
Vasudeva's other wife and Balarama's mother. He gives Krishna the
cowgirls' message and reports how all Brindaban longs for his return.
'Great King,' he says, 'I cannot tell you how they love you. You are their
life. Night and day they think of you. Their love for you is complete as
perfect worship. I gave them your advice concerning penance, but I have
learnt from them perfect adoration. They will only be content when they
see and touch you again.' Krishna listens and is silent. It is clear that
efforts at weaning the cowgirls from him have so far failed and something
further must be attempted.

Yet his resolve to sever all connections with his former life remains and
it is perhaps symbolic of his purpose that he now recalls the hunch-back
girl, Kubja, takes Udho with him and in a single ecstatic visit becomes
her lover. As he reaches her house, the girl greets him with delight,
takes him inside and seats him on a couch of flowers. Udho stays outside
and then while Krishna waits, the girl quickly bathes, scents herself,
combs her hair and changes her dress. Then 'with gaiety and endearment'
she approaches Krishna. Krishna, however, takes her by the hand and
places her near him. Their passions rise and the two achieve the utmost
bliss. Krishna then leaves her, rejoins Udho and 'blushing and smiling'
returns home.

The third step which Krishna must take is to deal with the political and
military situation which has arisen from the slaying of the tyrant. We
have seen how Kansa, although actually begotten by a demon was officially
a son of Ugrasena, the king of Mathura, and as one of his many demon acts,
had dethroned his father and seized the kingdom for himself. Ugrasena is
still alive and the obvious course, therefore, is to reinstate him on the
throne. Ugrasena, however, is unwilling to assume power and he and the
other Yadavas implore Krishna to accept the title for himself. Krishna,
however, has no desire to become king. He therefore overcomes Ugrasena's
hesitations and in due course the latter is enthroned.

This settles the succession problem, but almost immediately a graver issue
arises. During his reign of terror, Kansa had made war on Jarasandha, king
of Magadha. He had defeated him but as part of the peace terms had taken
two of his daughters as queens. These have now been widowed by his death
and repairing to their father's court, they rail bitterly against Krishna
and beg their father to avenge their husband's death. Jarasandha, although
a former rival of Kansa, is also a demon and can therefore summon to his
aid a number of demon allies. Great armies are accordingly mobilized.
Mathura is surrounded and the Yadavas are in dire peril. Krishna and
Balarama, however, are undismayed. They attack the foes single-handed and
by dint of their supernatural powers, utterly rout them. Jarasandha is
captured but released so that he may return to the attack and even more
demons may then be slaughtered. He returns in all seventeen times, is
vanquished on each occasion but returns once more. This time he is aided
by another demon, Kalayavana, and seeing the constant strain of such
attacks, Krishna decides to evacuate the Yadavas and settle them at a new
base. He commissions the divine architect, Visvakarma, to build a new city
in the sea. This is done in one night, the city is called Dwarka[35] and
there the Yadavas with all their goods are transported. When this has been
done, Krishna and Balarama trick the demons. They pretend to be utterly
defeated, retreat from Mathura and in despair ascend a tall hill. The
demon armies surround them and there appears to be no possible way of
escape. Jarasandha orders wood to be brought from the surrounding towns
and villages, piled up round the hill, saturated with oil and then set
fire to. A vast flame shoots up. The whole hill is ablaze but Krishna and
Balarama slip out unseen, take the road to Mathura and finally reach
Dwarka. When the hill is reduced to ashes, Jarasandha concludes that
Krishna and Balarama have perished. He advances to Mathura, occupies the
empty town, proclaims his authority and returns to Magadha.

[Footnote 35: Dwarka is sited on the western seaboard, 300 miles north-west
of Bombay.]



(ii) Marriages and Offspring


The immediate position, then, is that Krishna has abandoned his life among
the cowherds, has been accepted as a Yadava, has coped with the difficult
and dangerous situation arising from the tyrant king's death and finally
has saved the Yadavas from extinction by demons. This, however, has meant
the abandonment of Mathura and the movement of the Yadavas to a new city,
Dwarka. The same problem, therefore, which faced him earlier, confronts
him once again. Having obtained immunity for the Yadavas and brought them
to a new land, can Krishna now regard his mission as accomplished? Or must
he linger on earth still longer? The answer can hardly be in doubt; for
although the Yadavas appear to be installed in good surroundings, demon
hordes still range the world. The tyrant Kansa was only the worst and most
powerful member of the demon hosts. The war with Jarasandha has rid the
world of many demons, but vast numbers remain and until their ranks have
been appreciably reduced, Krishna's mission will be unfulfilled. Only one
course of action, therefore, is possible. He must accept a permanent
position in Yadava society, live as an honoured noble, a prince of the
blood royal and as occasion warrants continue to intervene in the struggle
between the good and the bad.

Such a decision is taken and Krishna installs himself at Dwarka. Before he
can fulfil his duties as an adult member of the race, however, certain
preliminaries are necessary and among them is the important issue of his
marriage. Both he and Balarama require wives and the question is how are
they to get them. Balarama's problem is easily settled by a marriage to
Revati, a princess. Krishna's, on the other hand, is less straightforward
and he is still undecided when news is brought that the Raja of Kundulpur
has a daughter of matchless loveliness, her name Rukmini. Her eyes, it was
said, were like a doe's, her complexion like a flower, her face dazzling
as the moon. Rukmini in turn has overheard some beggars reciting Krishna's
exploits, has fallen in love with his image and is at once delighted and
disturbed. In this way each is fascinated by the other. Almost
immediately, however, a crisis occurs. Rukmini's brother, Rukma, urges her
father to marry her to a rival, Sisupala. Krishna's claims as Vishnu
incarnate are advanced in vain and he is ridiculed as being just a
cowherd. Against his better judgment her father acquiesces and
arrangements for a wedding with Sisupala go forward. Rukmini now takes the
daring step of sending a message to Krishna, declaring her love and asking
him to save her. Krishna reads it with delight. He at once leaves for
Kundulpur, finding it gay with flags and banners, golden spires and
wreaths of flowers. Sisupala has arrived, but in addition, there is
Krishna's old enemy, Jarasandha, encamped with an army of demons. Rukmini
is in despair until she learns that Krishna also has arrived. A little
later Balarama reaches the scene, bringing with him an army. Sisupala is
dismayed at his arrival and both sides watch each other's movements. The
wedding day now dawns and Rukmini, guarded by Sisupala's soldiers, goes
outside the city to worship at a shrine to Devi.[36] As she nears the
shrine, Krishna suddenly appears. Rukmini gazes with adoration at him. He
springs among the soldiers, lifts her into his chariot and rushes her
away.

This summary abduction is more than Sisupala can bear. Troops career after
Krishna. Armies engage. A vast battle ensues. As they fight, Rukmini looks
timorously on. At last, Balarama vanquishes the demon hosts, 'as a white
elephant scatters lotuses.' Sisupala and Jarasandha flee, but Rukmini's
evil brother, Rukma, returns to the fray, strives feverishly to kill
Krishna, fails and is taken captive. His life is spared at Rukmini's
behest, but he is led away, his hands tied behind his back and his
moustaches shaven off. Balarama intercedes and effects his release and
Rukma goes away to brood on his discomfiture and plot revenge. Krishna now
returns to Dwarka in triumph, is given a rapturous welcome and a little
later celebrates his marriage with full ritual. 'Priests recited the
Vedas, Krishna circled round with Rukmini. Drums resounded. The delighted
gods rained down flowers; demi-gods, saints, bards and celestial musicians
were all spectators from the sky.'

Having married Rukmini, Krishna has now the full status of a grown prince.
But he is nothing if not supernormal; and just as earlier in his career he
has showered his affection on a host of cowgirls, he now acquires a whole
succession of further wives. The first is Jambhavati, the second
Satyabhama. Satyabhama's father is a certain Sattrajit who has obtained
from the sun the boon of a jewel. The jewel flashes with light and Krishna
advises him to surrender it to King Ugrasena. The man refuses; whereupon
his brother seizes it and goes away to the forest. Here a lion pounces
upon him, devours the man and his horse and hides the jewel. The lion is
then killed by a bear who centuries earlier had served with Vishnu's
earlier incarnation, Rama, during his campaign against the demon king of
Lanka.[37] The bear carries away the jewel and gives it to its mate. When
Sattrajit hears that his brother is missing, he concludes that Krishna has
caused his death and starts a whispering campaign, accusing Krishna of
making away with the jewel. Krishna hears of the slander and at once
decides to search for the missing man, recover the jewel and thus silence
his accuser for ever. As he goes through the forest, Krishna finds a cave
where the dead lion is lying. He enters it, grapples with the bear but is
quickly recognized by the bear as Krishna himself. The bear bows before
him and begs him to accept his daughter Jambhavati in marriage. He
includes the jewel as part of the dowry. Krishna marries the girl and
returns. Back at the court he upbraids Sattrajit for falsely accusing him.
'I did not take the jewel,' he says. 'The bear took it. Now he has given
the jewel to me and also his daughter. Take back your jewel and be
silent.' Sattrajit is overwhelmed with shame and by way of amends gives
Krishna his own daughter, Satyabhama. Krishna marries her and Sattrajit
begs him to take the jewel also. Krishna refuses and the jewel remains
with its owner. A little later, Sattrajit is murdered and the jewel once
again stolen. The murderer thief is tracked down by Krishna and killed,
but only after many delays is the jewel at last recovered from Akrura--the
leading Yadava who earlier in the story has acted first as Raja Kansa's
envoy to Krishna and later as Krishna's envoy to Kunti. Krishna orders him
to return it to its owner, Sattrajit's grandson. Akrura places it at
Krishna's feet and Krishna gives it to Satyabhama. The upshot, then, is
that the slander is ended, the jewel is regained and in the process
Krishna acquires two further wives.

These extra marriages, however, by no means end the tally of his consorts,
for during a visit to his relatives, the Pandavas, now returned from exile
and for the moment safely reinstalled in their kingdom, he sees a lovely
girl, Kalindi, wandering in the forest. She is the daughter of the sun and
has been sent to dwell by a river until her appointed bridegroom, Krishna,
arrives to claim her. Krishna is delighted with her youth, places her in
his chariot and on his return to Dwarka, celebrates their wedding. A
little later other girls are married to him, in many cases only after a
fierce struggle with demons. In this way, he obtains eight queens, at the
same time advancing his prime purpose of ridding the world of demons.

At this point, the _Purana_ embarks on an episode which, at first sight,
appears to have very little to do with its main subject. In fact, however,
its relevance is great for, as a consequence, Krishna the prince acquires
as many female companions as he had enjoyed as a youth. The episode begins
with Earth again appearing in heaven. Having successfully engineered
Krishna's birth, she does special penance and again beseeches the supreme
Trinity to grant her a boon. This boon is a son who will never be equalled
and who will never die. Brahma, Vishnu and Siva agree to give her a son,
Naraka, but on the following conditions: he will conquer all the kings of
the earth, rout the gods in the sky, carry off the earrings of Aditi (the
mother of the gods), wear them himself, take the canopy of Indra and place
it over his own head and finally, collect together but not marry sixteen
thousand one hundred virgin daughters of different kings. Krishna will
then attack him and at Earth's own behest, will kill Naraka and take to
Dwarka all the imprisoned girls. Earth says, 'Why should I ever tell
anyone to kill my own son?' and is silent. None the less the boon is
granted, the conditions are in due course fulfilled and after a furious
encounter with Naraka at his city of Pragjyotisha,[38] Krishna is once
again victorious. During the battle, Muru or Mura, the arch demon, aided
by seven sons, strenuously defends the city. Krishna kills him by cutting
off his five heads but has then to resist whole armies of demons assembled
by the sons. When these also have been destroyed, Krishna meets Naraka and
after a vicious contest finally kills him, recovering in consequence the
earrings of Aditi and the canopy of Indra. Naraka's palace is then opened
and reveals the bevy of imprisoned girls. As they gaze on Krishna, their
reactions are reminiscent of the cowgirls'. They implore Krishna to take
them away and allow them to lavish on him their impassioned love. Krishna
agrees, chariots are sent for and the vast concourse of passion-stricken
girls is transported to Dwarka. Here Krishna marries them, showering
affection on each of the sixteen thousand and one hundred 'and displaying
unceasing love for his eight queens.'

Such an incident revives an aspect of Krishna's early character which up
to the present has been somewhat obscured by other events. Besides slaying
demons he has all along been sensitive to feminine needs, arousing in
women passionate adoration and at the same time fulfilling the most
intense of their physical desires. It is these qualities which
characterize his later career.

Having on one occasion given Rukmini, his first consort, a flower of the
heavenly wishing tree,[39] Krishna finds that he has aroused the jealousy
of his third consort, Satyabhama. To please her, he accordingly undertakes
to get for her not merely a flower or branch but the tree itself. He
therefore goes to Vaikuntha, the paradise of Vishnu, and takes the
opportunity to return the earrings of Aditi and place the canopy over the
lord of the gods. He then sends a message to Indra asking for the tree.
Indra as the tree's custodian recalls his former discomfiture in Brindaban
when Krishna had abolished his worship and venerated the hill Govardhana
in his place. Despite his subsequent surrender to Krishna, and abject
worship of him, Indra is still incensed and bluntly refuses. Krishna then
goes to the tree, wounds its guardians and bears the tree away. Indra is
tempted to do battle but realizing Krishna's superior power calls off his
hosts. Back in Dwarka, Krishna instals the tree in Satyabhama's palace but
returns it to Indra a year later.

On another occasion, Krishna and Rukmini are making love on a golden bed
in a palace bedecked with gems. The sheets are white as foam and are
decorated with flowers. Pictures have been painted on the walls and every
aid to pleasure has been provided. Rukmini is lovelier than ever, while
Krishna, 'the root of joy,' dazzles her with a face lovely as the moon, a
skin the colour of clouds, a peacock crown, a long garland of flowers and
a scarf of yellow silk. As he lies, he is 'the sea of beauty, the light of
the three worlds.' After making love, Krishna suddenly asks Rukmini why
she preferred him to Sisupala. He points out that he is not a king and is
therefore quite unworthy of her, that since he has rescued her from
Sisupala, her wish has been accomplished and it is best that she should
now leave him and marry a prince of the royal blood who will be worthy of
her name. Rukmini is stunned at the suggestion. She collapses on the
floor, her hair obscuring her lovely face. Krishna raises her up, sits her
on his knees, and strokes her cheeks. When at length Rukmini revives,
Krishna hastens to explain that he was only jesting and that in view of
her deep love he will never abandon her. Rukmini assures him that nowhere
in the world is there Krishna's equal. The beggars who recited his praises
and from whom she first heard his name, were in fact Brahma and Siva. All
the gods revere him. To adore him is the only joy. Those who love Krishna
alone are happy. If blinded by pride a man forgets him, Krishna abases
him. It was because Rukmini besought his compassion that Krishna has loved
her. Hearing her simple sincerity, Krishna is greatly moved and says,
'Love of my heart, you know me through and through. You have given
yourself to me, adored me and known my love. I shall love you always.'
Rukmini hears him with deep contentment and the two make love.

Such a declaration however is not intended to imply a cold neglect of his
other wives for it is part of Krishna's role that he should please and
satisfy all. Accordingly, when Narada, the sage, makes one of his
recurring appearances--this time in order to investigate how Krishna
contrives to keep happy so vast a concourse of women--he finds Krishna
everywhere. With Rukmini he reclines at ease, with Jambhavati he plays
dice, at Satyabhama's house, he is having his body rubbed with oil, at
Kalindi's, he is asleep. In this way, wherever Narada goes, he finds
Krishna with one or other of his queens. In fact, the same 'delusive'
powers which he had earlier employed when dancing with the
cowgirls--making each believe he was dancing with her and her alone--are
now being used to satisfy his wives.

In this way Krishna continues to live. Sometimes his wives caress his
body, ply him with delicacies or swathe him in perfumed garments.
Sometimes to ease their passion they make little figures of him or let
themselves be dressed by him. One night they go with him to a tank and
there make love in the water. Everything in the scene reminds them of
their love and they address first a _chakai_ bird. 'O _chakai_ bird, when
you are parted from your mate, you spend the whole night sadly calling and
never sleeping. Speak to us of your beloved. We are Krishna's
slave-girls.' They speak to the sea. 'O sea, you lie awake night and day,
heaving sighs. Do you grieve for a loved one who is far away?' Then they
see the moon. 'O moon, why do you grow thin? Are you also filled with
longing? Are you fascinated by Krishna?' In this way they address birds,
hills and rivers, seeking from each some consolation for their frenzied
love.

In due course, each of the sixteen thousand one hundred and eight bears
Krishna ten sons and one daughter and each is beautiful as himself.

[Footnote 36: Plate 18.]

[Footnote 37: Lanka--modern Ceylon.]

[Footnote 38: Note 12.]

[Footnote 39: A sight of the heavenly wishing-tree, the _kalpa_ or
_parijata_, which grew in Indra's heaven, was believed to make the old
young.]



(iii) Last Phases


This gradual expansion of his marital state takes Krishna even farther
from the adoring loves of his youth, the cowgirls of Brindaban. Indeed for
months on end it is as if he has dismissed them from his mind. One day he
and Balarama are sitting together when Balarama reminds him of their
promise that after staying for a time in Mathura they will assuredly visit
them. Krishna, it is clear, cannot go himself, but Balarama is less
impeded and with Krishna's approval, he takes a ploughshare and pestle,
mounts a chariot and speeds on his way.

As he nears Brindaban, the familiar scenes greet him. The cowherds and
cowgirls come into view, but instead of joy there is general despair. The
cows low and pant, rejecting the grass. The cowherds are still discussing
Krishna's deeds and the cowgirls cannot expel him from their minds. As
Balarama enters their house, Nanda and Yasoda weep with joy. Balarama is
plied with questions about Krishna's welfare and when he answers that all
is well, Yasoda describes the darkness that has descended on them since
the joy of their hearts left. Balarama now meets the cowgirls. Their hair
is disordered, they are no longer neat and smart. Their minds are not in
their work and despite Krishna's absence, they are filled with passionate
longings and frenzied desires. Some of them marvel at Krishna's love and
count it good even to have known him. Others bitterly upbraid Krishna for
deserting them. Balarama explains that his visit is to show them that
Krishna has not entirely forgotten them and as proof he offers to re-enact
the circular dance and himself engage with them as lover.

In this way the circular dance is once again performed. The full moon
pours down, the cowgirls deck themselves and songs rise in the air. Flutes
and drums play and in the midst of the throng Balarama sings and dances,
clasping the cowgirls to him, making love and rousing them to ecstasy.
Night after night the dance is performed, while each day Balarama comforts
Nanda and Yasoda with news of Krishna. One night as his visit is ending,
he feels exhausted and commands the river Jumna to change its course and
bathe him with its water. The Jumna fails to comply, so Balarama draws the
river towards him with his plough and bathes in its stream. From that time
on, the Jumna's course is changed. His exhaustion now leaves him and he
gratifies the cowgirls with fresh passion. With this incident his visit
ends. He bids farewell to Nanda, Yasoda and the cowgirls and leaving the
forest returns to Dwarka.

Krishna's relations with the cowgirls are now completely ended, but on one
last occasion he happens to meet them. News has come that the sun will
soon be eclipsed and accordingly, Krishna and Balarama take the Yadavas on
pilgrimage. They choose a certain holy place, Kurukshetra, and assembling
all their queens and wives, make the slow journey to it. When they
arrive, a festival is in progress. They bathe and make offerings. While
they are still encamped, other kings come in, including the Pandavas and
Kauravas. With them are their wives and families and Kunti, the mother of
the Pandavas, is thus enabled to meet once more her brother, Vasudeva, the
father of Krishna. A little later, Nanda and Yasoda along with the
cowherds and cowgirls also arrive. They have come on the same pilgrimage
and finding Krishna there, at once throng to see him. Vasudeva greets his
old friend, Nanda, and recalls the now long-distant days when Krishna had
lived with him in his house. Krishna and Balarama greet Nanda and Yasoda
with loving respect, while the cowgirls are excited beyond description.
Krishna however refuses to regard them and faced with their ardent looks
and impassioned adoration, addresses to them the following sermon.
'Whoever believes in me shall be fearlessly carried across the sea of
life. You gave me your bodies, minds and wealth. You loved me with a love
that knew no limit. No one has been so fortunate as you--neither Brahma
nor Indra, neither any other god nor any man. For all along I have been
living in you, loving you with a love that has never faltered. I live in
everyone. What I say to you cannot easily be understood, but as light,
water, fire, earth and air abide in the body, so does my glory.' To the
cowgirls such words strike chill. But there is nothing they can say and
when the festival is over, Krishna and the Yadavas return to Dwarka, while
Nanda with the cowherds and cowgirls go back to Brindaban. This is the
last time Krishna sees them.

This dismissal reveals how final is Krishna's severance from his former
life, yet provided the cowherds are not involved, he is quick to honour
earlier relationships. One day in Dwarka his mother, Devaki, tells him
that she has a private grief--grief at the loss of the six elder brothers
of Krishna slain by the tyrant Kansa. Krishna tells her not to mourn,
descends to the third of the three worlds, interviews its ruler, Raja
Bali, and effects the release of the six brothers. Returning with them, he
gives them to his mother and her joy is great.

On another occasion he is visited by Sudama, a Brahman who had lived with
him, when, after slaying the tyrant, he and Balarama had gone for
instruction to their spiritual preceptor. Since then Sudama has grown thin
and poor. The thatch on his hut has tumbled down. He has nothing to eat.
His wife is alarmed at their abject state and advises him to seek out
Krishna, his chief friend. 'If you go to him,' she says, 'our poverty will
end because it is he who grants wealth and virtue, fulfils desires and
bestows final happiness.' Sudama replies that even Krishna does not give
anyone anything without that person giving him something first. As he has
not given, how can he hope to receive? His wife then ties up a little rice
in an old white cloth and gives it to Sudama as a present to Krishna.
Sudama sets out. On reaching Dwarka, he is admitted to Krishna's presence,
is immediately recognized and is treated with the utmost kindness and
respect. Krishna himself washes his feet and reveres him as a Brahman.[40]
'Brother,' he says, 'from the time you quitted our preceptor's house, I
have heard nothing of you. Your coming has purified my house and made me
happy.' Krishna then notices the rice and laughingly asks Sudama what
present his wife has sent him and why it is hidden under his arm. Sudama
is greatly abashed but allows Krishna to take the bundle. On taking it,
Krishna eats the rice. He then conducts Sudama within, feasts him on
delicacies and puts him to bed. During the night he sends Visvakarma, the
divine architect, to Sudama's home, with instructions to turn it into a
palace. The next morning Sudama takes leave of Krishna, congratulating
himself on not having asked Krishna for anything. As he nears home, he is
dismayed to find no trace of his hut, but instead a golden palace. He
approaches the gate-keeper and is told it belongs to Sudama, the friend of
Krishna. His wife comes out and he finds her dressed in fine clothes and
jewels and attended by maid-servants. She takes him in and at first he is
abashed at so much wealth. Krishna, he reflects, can only have given it to
him because he doubted his affection. He did not ask Krishna for wealth
and cannot fathom why he has been given it. His wife assures him that
Krishna knows the thoughts of everyone. Sudama did not ask for wealth, but
she herself desired it and that is why Krishna has given it to them.
Sudama is convinced and says no more.

All these incidents provide a clue to Krishna's nature. They illustrate
his attitudes, confirm him in his role as protector and preserver and show
him in a new light--that of a guardian and upholder of morality. He is
still a fervent lover, but his love is sanctioned and formalized by legal
marriage. Moreover, a new respect characterizes his dealings with Brahmans
and his approach to festivals. Instead of the young revolutionary, we now
meet a sage conservative. These changes colour his final career.

As life at Dwarka runs its course, Krishna's activities centre more and
more on wars with demons and his relations with the Pandavas. Despite his
prowess and renown, demons trouble the Yadavas from time to time, but all
are killed either by Krishna wielding a magic quoit or by Balarama plying
his plough or pestle. On one occasion, a monkey demon runs amok, harassing
the people and ravaging the country. He surprises Balarama bathing in a
tank with his wives, despoils their clothes and defiles their pitchers. A
great combat then ensues, the monkey hurling trees and hills while
Balarama counters with his plough and pestle. But the outcome is hardly in
doubt and at last the monkey is killed.

On another occasion, Krishna is compelled to intervene in force. Following
his marriage with his first queen, Rukmini, a son, Pradyumna has been
born. He is no less a person than Kama, the god of love, whom Siva has
burnt for disturbing his meditations. When grown up, Pradyumna is married
to a cousin, the daughter of his uncle, Rukma. Rukma has never forgiven
Krishna for abducting and marrying his sister, Rukmini, and despite their
intimate alliance is sworn to kill him. His plot is discovered and in a
final contest, Balarama kills him. Meanwhile, Pradyumna has had a son,
Aniruddha, who grows up into a charming youth, while at the same time
Vanasura, a demon with a thousand arms, has a lovely daughter, Usa. When
Usa is twelve years old, she longs for a husband and in a dream sees and
embraces Aniruddha. She does not know who he is, but describes him to a
confidante. The latter draws pictures of all the leading royalty, and
among the Yadavas, Usa recognizes her love, Aniruddha. The confidante
agrees to bring him to her and going through the air to Dwarka, finds him
sleeping, dreaming of Usa. She transports him to Usa's palace and on
waking. Aniruddha finds himself alone with his love. Usa conceals him, but
the news reaches her father and he surrounds the palace with his demon
army. Aniruddha routs the army but is caught by Vanasura, who then
imprisons the two young lovers. News now reaches Krishna who rushes an
army to the scene. A battle ensues during which Vanasura loses all his
arms save four. He then worships Krishna, and Aniruddha and Usa are
married.

Meanwhile Krishna is carefully maintaining relations with the Pandavas. We
have seen how immediately after the slaying of the tyrant he sends an
envoy to inquire after his aunt Kunti, the sister of his father, and
mother of the five Pandavas. We have also noticed how during a visit to
the Pandava court, he has acquired a new queen, Kalindi. He now embarks on
several courses of action, each of which is designed to cement their
relations. During a visit to his court, Arjuna, the brother whose lucky
shot won Draupadi for the Pandavas, falls in love with Subhadra, Krishna's
sister. Krishna is delighted to have him as a brother-in-law and as
already narrated in the epic, he advises Arjuna to marry her by capture. A
little later Krishna learns that Yudhisthira will shortly proclaim himself
a 'ruler of the world' and decides to visit the Pandava court to assist at
the sacrifice. He takes a vast army with him and advances on the court
with massive splendour. As he arrives, he learns that Jarasandha whose
feud is unabated has now imprisoned twenty thousand rajas, all of whom cry
to be released. Krishna decides that Jarasandha's demon activities must be
ended once for all and taking two of the Pandavas with him, Bhima and
Arjuna, he sets out to destroy him. Jarasandha elects to engage Bhima in
single-handed combat and for twenty-seven days the fight proceeds, each
wielding a club and neither securing the advantage. Krishna now learns
that Jarasandha can only be killed if he is split in two. He directs
Bhima, therefore, to throw him down, place a foot on one of his thighs and
catching the other leg with his hand, tear him asunder. Bhima does so and
in this way Jarasandha is destroyed. The captive rajas are now released
and after returning home they foregather at the Pandavas' court to assist
at the sacrifice.

As arrangements proceed an incident occurs which illustrates yet again the
complex situation arising from Krishna's dual character. Krishna is God,
yet he is also man. Being a man, it is normally as a man that he is
regarded. Yet from time to time particular individuals sense his Godhead
and then he is no longer man but God himself. Even those, however, who
view him as God do so only for brief periods of time and hence the
situation is constantly arising in which Krishna is one moment honoured as
God and then a moment later is treated as a man. And it is this situation
which now recurs.

As we have already seen in the epic, part of the custom at imperial
sacrifices was to offer presents to distinguished guests, and according to
the epic the person chosen to receive the first present was Krishna
himself. The _Purana_ changes this by substituting gods for guests.
Yudhisthira is uncertain who should be worshipped first. 'Who is the great
lord of the gods,' he asks, 'to whom we should bow our heads?' To this a
Pandava gives a clear answer. Krishna, he says, is god of gods. 'No one
understands his nature. He is lord of Brahma, Siva and Indra. It is he who
creates, preserves and destroys. His work is endless. He is the unseen and
imperishable. He descends upon the earth continually for the sake of his
worshippers and assuming mortal form appears and acts like a mortal. He
sits in our houses and calls us 'brothers.' We are deluded by his power
and consider him a brother. Yet never have we seen one as great as him.'
He speaks in fact as one who, knowing Krishna, has seen, for the moment,
the god beyond the man. His vision is shared by the others present.
Krishna is therefore placed on a throne and before the vast concourse of
rajas, Yudhisthira worships him.

Among the guests, however, is one raja to whom the vision is denied. He is
Sisupala, Krishna's rival for the hand of Rukmini, and since Rukmini's
abduction, his deadly enemy. Krishna's elevation as a god is more than he
can stomach and he utters an angry protest. Krishna, he says, is not god
at all. He is a mere cowherd's son of low caste who has debased himself by
eating the leavings of the cowherds' children and has even been the lover
of the cowgirls. As a child he was an arrant pilferer, stealing milk and
butter from every house, while as a youth he has trifled with other men's
wives. He has also slighted Indra. Krishna quietly listens to this
outburst. Then, deeming Sisupala's enmity to have reached its furthest
limit, he allows his patience to be exhausted. He reaches for his quoit
and hurling it through the air, slays Sisupala on the spot. The ceremonies
are then completed and Krishna leaves for Dwarka. As he nears the city, he
discovers the Yadavas hard pressed by an army of demons. He and Balarama
intervene. The demons are either killed or put to flight and the Yadavas
are rescued. When a little later Sisupala's two brothers bring an army
against him, they too are vanquished.

Twelve years now intervene. Yudhisthira in the moment of triumph has
gambled away his kingdom. The Pandavas have once again been driven into
exile and the old feud has broken out afresh. As the exile ends, both
sides prepare for war and Krishna also leaves for the battle. Balarama is
loath to intervene so goes away on pilgrimage. After various adventures,
however, he also arrives on the scene. As he comes, a series of
single-handed combats is in progress with Krishna and other Rajas looking
on. Duryodhana, the son of blind Dhritarashtra, the king of the Kauravas
is fighting Bhima, the powerful Pandava and just as Balarama arrives he is
dealt a foul blow and wounded in the thigh. Balarama is shocked to see so
many uncles and cousins involved in strife and begs them to desist.
Duryodhana replies that it is Krishna who has willed the war and that they
are as puppets in his hands. It is Krishna who is actively aiding the
Pandavas and the war is only being carried on because of his advice. It is
Krishna also who has sponsored foul play. Balarama is pained at such
accusations and strongly criticizes Krishna. Krishna, however, is ready
with an answer. The Kauravas, he says, cheated the Pandavas of their
kingdom by the game of dice. Duryodhana had told Draupadi to sit on his
thigh and so he deserved to have it broken. So unjust and tyrannical are
the Kauravas that any methods used against them are fair. Balarama keeps
silent and a little later returns to Dwarka.

This incident concludes the _Purana's_ references to the war. Nothing is
said of Krishna's sermon--the _Bhagavad Gita_. No mention is made of
Krishna's role as charioteer to Arjuna. Nothing further is said of its
deadly outcome. Krishna's career as a warrior, in fact, is ended and with
this episode the _Purana_ enters its final phase.

As Krishna lives at Dwarka, surrounded by his wives and huge progeny, he
wearies of his earthly career. By now his mission has been accomplished.
Hordes of demons have been slain, cruel monarchs killed and much of
Earth's burden lifted. There is no longer any pressing need for him to
stay and he decides to quit his body and 're-enter with all his emanations
the sphere of Vishnu.' To do this, however, the whole of the Yadava race
must first be ended.[41] One, day some Yadava boys make fun of certain
Brahmans. They dress up one of their company as a pregnant girl, take him
to the Brahmans and innocently inquire what kind of child the woman will
bring forth. The Brahmans immediately penetrate the disguise and angered
at the youth's impertinence, they reply, 'A club that will crush the whole
Yadava race.' The boys run to King Ugrasena, relate what has happened and
are even more alarmed when an iron club is brought forth from the boy's
belly. Ugrasena has the club ground to dust and thrown into the sea, where
its particles become rushes. One part of the club, however, is like a
lance and does not break. When thrown into the sea, it is swallowed by a
fish. A hunter catches it and taking the iron spike from its stomach lays
it aside for future use. It is an arrow made from this particular spike
which a little later will bring about Krishna's death. Similarly it is the
iron rushes which will cause the death of the Yadavas. Already, therefore,
a chain of sinister happenings has been started and from now onwards the
action moves relentlessly to its grim and tragic close.

As the final scene unfolds, the gods, headed by Brahma and Siva, approach
Krishna begging him to return. Krishna tells them that everything is now
in train and within seven nights he will complete the destruction of the
Yadavas and return to his everlasting home.

Signs portending the destruction of Dwarka now appear. 'A dreadful figure,
death personified, haunts every house, coming and going no one knows how
and being invulnerable to weapons by which he is assailed. Strong
hurricanes blow; large rats multiply and infest the roads and houses and
attack persons in their sleep; starlings scream in their cages, storks
imitate the hooting of owls and goats the howling of jackals; cows bring
forth foals and camels mules; food in the moment of being eaten is filled
with worms; fire burns with discoloured flames and at sunset and sunrise
the air is traversed by headless and hideous spirits.'[42] Krishna draws
the Yadavas' attention to these omens and advises them to leave Dwarka and
move to Prabhasa, a site farther inland.

Udho, who earlier in the story has acted as Krishna's envoy to the
cowgirls quickly realizes that the end is near and approaches Krishna for
advice. 'Tell me, O Lord, what it is proper I should do. For it is clear
that shortly you will destroy the Yadavas.' Krishna then tells him to go
to a shrine high up in the mountains and by meditating on Krishna obtain
release. He adds minute instructions on the technique of penance and ends
with some definitions of the yoga of devotion. He concludes by telling
Udho that when all the Yadavas have perished, he himself will go to heaven
and Dwarka will be swallowed by the ocean. Udho bows low and leaves for
the mountains.

Krishna now assembles the leading Yadavas and leaving behind only the
elders, the women and children, escorts them to Prabhasa, a town inland,
assuring them that by proper worship they may yet avert their fate. At
Prabhasa the Yadavas bathe and purify themselves, anoint the gods' statues
and make offerings. They appease the Brahmans with costly gifts--'thereby
countering evil omens, gaining the road to happiness and ensuring rebirth
at a higher level.'

Their worship however, is of no avail for almost immediately they fall to
drinking. 'As they drank, the destructive flame of dissension was kindled
amongst them by mutual collision, and fed with the fuel of abuse.
Infuriated by the divine influence, they fell upon one another with
missile weapons and when these were expended, they had recourse to the
rushes growing high. The rushes in their hands became like thunderbolts
and they struck one another with them fatal blows. Krishna interposed to
prevent them but they thought that he was taking part with each severally,
and continued the conflict. Krishna then, enraged, took up a handful of
rushes to destroy them, and the rushes became a club of iron and with this
he slew many of the murderous Yadavas; whilst others, fighting fiercely,
put an end to one another. In a short time, there was not a single Yadava
left alive, except the mighty Krishna and Daruka, his charioteer.'[43]

With the slaughter thus completed, Krishna feels free to leave the earth.
Such Yadavas who have been left behind in Dwarka have been spared, but the
greater part of the race is dead. He therefore makes ready for his own
departure. Balarama, who has helped Krishna in the brawl, goes to the
sea-shore, performs yoga and, leaving his body, joins the Supreme Spirit.
Sesha, the white serpent of eternity, issues from his mouth and hymned by
snakes and other serpents proceeds to the ocean. 'Bringing an offering of
respect, Ocean came to meet him; and then the majestic being, adored by
attendant snakes entered into the waters of the deep.'[44]

Krishna then seats himself by a fig tree, lays his left leg across his
right thigh, turns the sole of his foot outwards and assumes one of the
postures in which abstraction is practised. As he meditates he appears
lovelier than ever. His eyes flash. The four arms of Vishnu spring from
his body. He wears his crown, his sacred thread and garland of flowers. As
he sits, glorious and beautiful, the same hunter, who earlier had salvaged
the iron spike from the fish, chances to pass by. His arrow is tipped with
a piece of the iron and mistaking Krishna's foot for part of a deer, he
shoots his arrow and hits it. Approaching the mark, he sees Krishna's four
arms and is horrified to discover whom he has wounded. As he begs
forgiveness, Krishna grants him liberation and dispatches him to heaven.

Daruka, Krishna's charioteer, now comes in search of his master. Finding
him wounded, he is overwhelmed with grief. Krishna tells him to go to
Dwarka and inform the surviving Yadavas what has happened. On receiving
the news they must leave Dwarka immediately, for the sea will shortly
engulf it. They must also place themselves under Arjuna's protection and
go to Indraprastha. 'Then the illustrious Krishna having united himself
with his own pure, spiritual, inexhaustible and universal spirit abandoned
his mortal body.'[45]

Daruka goes mournfully to Dwarka where he breaks the news. Vasudeva with
his two wives, Devaki and Rohini, die of grief. Arjuna recovers the bodies
of Krishna and Balarama and places them on a funeral pyre. Rukmini along
with Krishna's seven other queens throw themselves on the flames.
Balarama's wives, as well as King Ugrasena, also die. Arjuna then appoints
Krishna's great grandson, Parikshit, to rule over the survivors and, after
assembling the remaining women and children, removes them from Dwarka and
travels slowly away. As they leave, the ocean comes up, swallowing the
city and engulfing everything except the temple.

[Footnote 40: Plate 19.]

[Footnote 41: Note 13.]

[Footnote 42: Note 14.]

[Footnote 43: Note 7.]

[Footnote 44: Plate 1 and Note 7.]

[Footnote 45: Plate 2 and Note 7.]




(iv) The _Purana_ Re-considered


Such an account gives us what the _Mahabharata_ epic did not give--a
detailed description of Krishna's career. It confirms the epic's view of
Krishna as a hero and fills in many gaps concerning his life at Dwarka,
his relations with the Pandavas, his life as a feudal prince and finally,
his death. It makes clear that throughout the story Krishna is an
incarnation of Vishnu and that his main reason for being born is to aid
the good and kill demons. At the same time, it shows him in two important
new lights--firstly, as one whose youth was spent among cowherds, in
circumstances altogether different from those of a prince and secondly, as
a delightful lover of women, who explores to the full the joys of sexual
love. The second role characterizes him both as cowherd and prince but
with important differences of attitude and behaviour. As a prince, Krishna
is wedded first to Rukmini and then to seven other wives, observing on
each occasion the requisite formalities. Even the sixteen thousand one
hundred girls whom he rescues from imprisonment receive this formal
status. With all of them Krishna enjoys a variety of sexual pleasures and
their love is moral, respectable and approved. Krishna the prince, in
fact, is Krishna the husband. Krishna the cowherd, on the other hand, is
essentially a lover. The cowgirls whose impassioned love he inspires are
all married and in consorting with them he is breaking one of the most
solemn requirements of the moral code. The first relationship has the
secure basis of conjugal duty, the second the daring adventurousness of
romantic passion.

The same abrupt contrast appears between his character as a cowherd and
his character as a prince. As a youth he mixes freely with the cowherds,
behaving with an easy naturalness of manner and obtaining from them an
intense devotion. This devotion is excited by everything he does and
whether as a baby crying for the breast, a little boy pilfering butter or
a young man teasing the married girls, he exerts a magnetic charm. At no
time does he neglect his prime duty of killing demons but this is
subordinated to his innocent delight in living. He is shown as impatient
with old and stereotyped forms of worship, as scorning ordinary morality
and treating love as paramount. Although he acts continually with princely
dignity and is always aware of his true character as Vishnu, his impact on
others is based more on the understanding of their needs than on their
recognition of him as God. When, at times, Krishna the cowherd is adored
as God, he has already been loved as a boy and a young man. In the later
story, this early charm is missing. Krishna is frequently recognized to
be God and is continually revered and respected as a man. His conduct is
invariably resolute but there is a kind of statesmanlike formality about
his actions. He is respectful towards ritual, formal observances and
Brahmans while in comparison with his encounters with the cowgirls his
relations with women have an air of slightly stagnant luxury. His wives
and consorts lavish on him their devotion but the very fact that they are
married removes the romantic element from their relationship.

Such vital differences are only partially resolved in the _Bhagavata
Purana_. Representing as they do two different conceptions of Krishna's
character, it is inevitable that the resulting account should be slightly
biased in one direction or the other. The _Bhagavata Purana_ records both
phases in careful detail blending them into a single organic whole. But
there can be little doubt that its Brahman authors were in the main more
favourably inclined towards the hero prince than towards the cowherd
lover. There is a tendency for the older Krishna to disparage the younger.
Krishna the prince's subsequent meetings with the cowgirls are shown as
very different from his rapturous encounters with them in the forest and
the fact that his later career involves so sharp a separation from them
indicates that the whole episode was somewhat frowned upon. This is
especially evident from the manner in which Krishna addresses the cowgirls
when they meet him during the eclipse of the sun. By this time he has
become an ardent husband constantly satisfying his many wives. He is very
far from having abjured the delights of the flesh. Yet for all his former
loves who long for him so passionately he has only one message. They must
meditate upon him in their minds. No dismissal could be colder, no
treatment more calculatingly callous. And even the accounts of Krishna's
love-making reflects this bias. The physical charms of the cowgirls are
minimized and it is only the beauty of Rukmini which is stressed. It is
clear, in fact, that however much the one tradition involved a break with
morals, the second tradition shrank from countenancing adultery and it was
this latter tradition which commanded the authors' approval. Finally, on
one important issue, the _Purana_ as a whole is in no doubt. Krishna's
true consort is Rukmini. That Krishna's nature should be complemented by a
cowgirl is not so much as even considered. The cowgirls are shown as
risking all for Krishna, as loving him above all else but none is singled
out for mention and none emerges as a rival. In this long account of
Krishna's life what is overwhelmingly significant is that the name of his
supreme cowgirl love is altogether omitted.




V

THE KRISHNA OF POETRY



(i) The Triumph of Radha


During the next two hundred years, from the tenth to the twelfth century,
the Krishna story completely alters. It is not that the facts as given in
the _Bhagavata Purana_ are disputed. It is rather that the emphasis and
view-point are changed. Krishna the prince and his consort Rukmini are
relegated to the background and Krishna the cowherd lover brought sharply
to the fore. Krishna is no longer regarded as having been born solely to
kill a tyrant and rid the world of demons. His chief function now is to
vindicate passion as the symbol of final union with God. We have already
seen that to Indians this final union was the sole purpose of life and
only one experience was at all comparable to it. It was the mutual ecstasy
of impassioned lovers. 'In the embrace of his beloved, a man forgets the
whole world--everything both within and without; in the same way, he who
embraces the Self knows neither within nor without.'[46] The function of
the new Krishna was to defend these two premises--that romantic love was
the most exalted experience in life and secondly, that of all the roads to
salvation, the impassioned adoration of God was the one most valid. God
must be adored. Krishna himself was God and since he had shown divine love
in passionately possessing the cowgirls, he was best adored by recalling
these very encounters. As a result, Krishna's relations with the cowgirls
were now enormously magnified and as part of this fresh appraisal, a
particular married cowgirl, Radha, enters the story as the enchanting
object of his passions. We have seen how on one occasion in the _Bhagavata
Purana_, Krishna disappears taking with him a single girl, how they then
make love together in a forest bower and how when the girl tires and begs
Krishna to carry her, he abruptly leaves her. The girl's name is not
mentioned but enough is said to suggest that she is Krishna's favourite.
This hint is now developed. Radha, for this is the girl's name, is
recognized as the loveliest of all the cowgirls. She is the daughter of
the cowherd Vrishabhanu and his wife, Kamalavati, and is married to Ayana,
a brother of Yasoda. Like other cowgirls, her love for Krishna is
all-consuming and compels her to ignore her family honour and disregard
her husband. Krishna, for his part, regards her as his first love. In
place, therefore, of courtly adventures and battles with demons, Krishna's
adulterous romance is now presented as all in all.[47] It is the moods,
feelings and emotions of a great love-affair which are the essence of the
story and this, in turn, is to serve as a sublime allegory expressing and
affirming the love of God for the soul. With this dramatic revolution in
the story, we begin to approach the Krishna of Indian painting.

Such a change can hardly have come about without historical reasons and
although the exact circumstances must perhaps remain obscure, we can see
in this sharp reversal of roles a clear response to certain Indian needs.
From early times, romantic love had been keenly valued, Sanskrit poets
such as Kalidasa, Amaru and Bhartrihari celebrating the charms of womanly
physique and the raptures of sex. What, in fact, in other cultures had
been viewed with suspicion or disquiet was here invested with nobility and
grandeur. Although fidelity had been demanded in marriage, romantic
liaisons had not been entirely excluded and thus there was a sense in
which the love-poetry of the early Indian middle ages had been partly
paralleled by actual courtly or village practice. From the tenth century
onwards, however, a tightening of domestic morals had set in, a tightening
which was further intensified by the Muslim invasions of the twelfth and
thirteen centuries. Romance as an actual experience became more difficult
of attainment and this was exacerbated by standard views of marriage. In
early India, marriage had been regarded as a contract between families
and romantic love between husband and wife as an accidental, even an
unexpected product of what was basically a utilitarian agreement. With the
seclusion of women and the laying of even greater stress on wifely
chastity, romantic love was increasingly denied. Yet the need for romance
remained and we can see in the prevalence of love-poetry a substitute for
wishes repressed in actual life.[48] It is precisely this role which the
story of Krishna the cowherd lover now came to perform. Krishna, being
God, had been beyond morals and hence had practised conduct which, if
indulged in by men, might well have been wrong. He had given practical
expression to romantic longings and had behaved with all the passionate
freedom normally stifled by social duty, conjugal ethics and family
morals. From this point of view, Krishna the prince was a mere pillar of
boring respectability. Nothing in his conduct could arouse delight for
everything he did was correct and proper. Krishna the cowherd on the
other hand, was spontaneous, irresponsible and free. His love for the
cowgirls had had a lively freedom. The love between them was nothing if
not voluntary. His whole life among the cowherds was simple, natural and
pleasing and as their rapturous lover nothing was more obvious than that
the cowgirls should adore him. In dwelling, then, on Krishna, it was
natural that the worshipper should tend to disregard the prince and should
concentrate instead on the cowherd. The prince had revered Brahmans and
supported established institutions. The cowherd had shamed the Brahmans of
Mathura and discredited ceremonies and festivals. He had loved and been
loved and in his contemplation lay nothing but joy. The loves of Krishna,
in fact, were an intimate fulfilment of Indian desires, an exact
sublimation of intense romantic needs and while other factors must
certainly have played their part, this is perhaps the chief reason why,
at this juncture, they now enchanted village and courtly India.

The results of this new approach are apparent in two distinct ways. The
_Bhagavata Purana_ continues to be the chief chronicle of Krishna's
acts but the last half of Book Ten and all of Book Eleven fall into
neglect.[49] In their place, the story of Krishna's relations with the
cowgirls is given new poignancy and precision. Radha is constantly
mentioned and in all the incidents in the _Purana_ involving cowgirls,
it is she who is given pride of place. At the river Jumna, when Krishna
removes the cowgirls' clothes, Radha begs him to restore them. At the
circular dance in which he joins with all the cowgirls, Radha receives his
first attentions, dancing with him in the centre. When Krishna is about to
leave for Mathura, it is Radha who heads the cowgirls and strives to detain
him. She serves, in fact, as a symbol of all the cowgirls' love. At the
same time, she is very far from being merely their spokesman or leader and
while the later texts dwell constantly on her rapturous love-making with
Krishna, they also describe her jealousy when Krishna makes love to other
girls. Indeed the essence of their romance is that it includes a temporary
estrangement and only after Krishna has neglected Radha, flirted with
other cowgirls and then returned to her is their understanding complete.

The second result is the allegorical interpretation which Krishna's
romances now received. In Christian literature, the longing of the soul
for God was occasionally expressed in terms of sexual imagery--the works
of the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, including 'songs of the
soul in rapture at having arrived at the height of perfection which is
union with God.'

  Oh night that was my guide!
  Oh darkness dearer than the morning's pride,
  Oh night that joined the lover
  To the beloved bride
  Transfiguring them each into the other.

  Within my flowering breast
  Which only for himself entire I save
  He sank into his rest
  And all my gifts I gave
  Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.[50]

This same approach was now to clarify Radha's romance with Krishna. Radha,
it was held, was the soul while Krishna was God. Radha's sexual passion
for Krishna symbolized the soul's intense longing and her willingness to
commit adultery expressed the utter priority which must be accorded to
love for God. If ultimate union was symbolized by romantic love, then
clearly nothing could approach such love in ultimate significance. In
deserting their husbands and homes and wilfully committing adultery, Radha
and the cowgirls were therefore illustrating a profound religious truth.
Not only was their adultery proof of Krishna's charm, it was vital to the
whole story. By worldly standards, they were committing the gravest of
offences but they were doing it for Krishna who was God himself. They were
therefore setting God above home and duty, they were leaving everything
for love of God and in surrendering their honour, were providing the most
potent symbol of what devotion meant. This approach explained other
details. Krishna's flute was the call of God which caused the souls of
men, the cowgirls, to forsake their worldly attachments and rush to love
him. In removing the clothes of the cowgirls and requiring them to come
before him naked, he was demonstrating the innocent purity with which the
soul should wait on God. In himself neglecting Radha and toying with the
cowgirls, he was proving, on one level, the power of worldly pleasures to
seduce the soul but on another level, the power of God to love every soul
irrespective of its character and status. From this point of view, the
cowgirls were as much the souls of men as Radha herself and to demonstrate
God's all-pervasive love, Krishna must therefore love not only Radha but
every cowgirl. Equally, in the circular dance, by inducing every cowgirl
to think that she and she alone was his partner, Krishna was proving how
God is available to all. Finally it was realized that even those portions
of the story which, at first sight, seemed cruel and callous were also
susceptible of religious interpretation. When Radha has been loved in the
forest and then is suddenly deserted, the reason is her pride--pride that
because Krishna has loved her, she can assert herself by asking to be
carried. Such assertiveness is incompatible with the kind of humble
adoration necessary for communion with God. To prove this, therefore,
Radha's pride must be destroyed and Krishna resorts to this seemingly
brusque desertion. Action, in fact, which by human standards would be
reprehensible is once again a means for imparting spiritual wisdom. In a
similar way, Krishna's departure for Mathura and final abandonment of the
cowgirls was accorded a religious interpretation. At one level, his
departure symbolized 'the dark night of the soul,' the experience which
comes to every devotee when, despite the most ardent longing, the vision
fades. At another level, it illustrated how life must be lived when God or
Vishnu was no longer on earth. If Krishna's love-making was intended to
symbolize the ultimate rapture, his physical absence corresponded to
conditions as they normally existed. In instructing the cowgirls to
meditate upon him in their minds, Krishna was only attuning them to life
as it must necessarily appear after he has left the human stage.

It was these conceptions which governed the cult of Krishna from the
twelfth century onwards and, as we shall shortly see, informed the poems
which were now to celebrate his love for Radha.

[Footnote 46: Note 15.]

[Footnote 47: Note 16.]

[Footnote 48: Note 17.]

[Footnote 49: I.e. the whole of Krishna's career after his destruction of
the tyrant.]

[Footnote 50: Roy Campbell, _The Poems of St. John of the Cross_ (London,
1951), 11-12.]



(ii) The Gita Govinda


The first poem to express this changed conception is the _Gita
Govinda_--the Song of the Cowherd--a Sanskrit poem written by the Bengali
poet, Jayadeva, towards the close of the twelfth century. Its subject is
the estrangement of Radha and Krishna caused by Krishna's love for other
cowgirls, Radha's anguish at Krishna's neglect and lastly the rapture
which attends their final reunion. Jayadeva describes Radha's longing and
Krishna's love-making with glowing sensuality yet the poem reverts
continually to praise of Krishna as God.

  If in recalling Krishna to mind there is flavour
  Or if there is interest in love's art
  Then to this necklace of words--sweetness,
    tenderness, brightness--
  The words of Jayadeva, listen.

He aims, in fact, at inducing 'recollection of Krishna in the minds of
the good' and adds a description of the forest in springtime solely, he
says, in order once again to recall Krishna.[51] When, at last, the poem
has come triumphantly to its close, Jayadeva again exhorts people to adore
Krishna and 'place him for ever in their hearts, Krishna the source of all
merit.'

The poem begins with a preface of four lines describing how Krishna's
romance with Radha first began. The sky, it says, was dark with clouds.
All around lay the vast forest. Night was coming up and Nanda who had
taken the youthful Krishna with him is alarmed lest in the gathering gloom
the boy should get lost. Radha, who is somewhat older, is with them, so
Nanda desires her to take Krishna home. Radha leads him away but as they
wander by the river, passion mounts in their hearts. They forget that
Nanda has told them to hurry home. Radha ignores the motherly character of
her mission and loitering in the trees, the two commence their
dalliance.[52] In this way the love of Radha and Krishna arises--the love
which is to dominate their hearts with ever-growing fervour.

The poem then leaps a period of time and when the drama opens, a crisis
has occurred. Radha, after long enjoying Krishna's passionate embraces,
finds herself abruptly neglected. Charming but faithless, Krishna is now
pursuing other girls and the jilted Radha wanders alone. Meanwhile spring
has come to the forest and the thought that others are enjoying Krishna's
love tortures her to the point of madness. As she broods on her lost joys,
a friend describes to her what is happening.[53]

  Sandal and garment of yellow and lotus garlands upon his body of
    blue,
  In his dance the jewels of his ears in movement dangling over his
    smiling cheeks,
  Krishna here disports himself with charming women given to love.

  He embraces one woman, he kisses another, and fondles another
    beautiful one.
  He looks at another one lovely with smiles, and starts in pursuit of
    another woman.
  Krishna here disports himself with charming women given to love.[54]

Suddenly Radha sees Krishna[55] and going into the midst of the cowgirls,
she kisses him violently and clasps him to her; but Krishna is so inflamed
by the other girls that he abandons her in a thicket.

As Radha broods on his behaviour, she is filled with bitter sadness.[56]
Yet her love is still so strong that she cannot bring herself to blame
him and instead calls to mind his charm.

  I remember Krishna, the jests he made, who placed his sport in the
    pastoral dance,
  The sweet of whose nectar of lips kept flowing with notes of his luring
    melodious flute,
  With the play of whose eyes and the toss of whose head the earrings
    kept dangling upon his cheeks.

  I remember Krishna, the jests he made, who placed his sport in the
    pastoral dance,
  Whose brow had a perfect sandal spot, as among dark clouds the disc
    of the moon,
  Whose door-like heart was without pity when crushing the bosoms of
    swelling breasts.

  Desire even now in my foolish mind for Krishna,
  For Krishna--without me--lusting still for the herd-girls.
  Seeing only the good in his nature, what shall I do?
  Agitated I feel no anger. Pleased without cause, I acquit him.

And she continues:

  O make him enjoy me, my friend, that Krishna so fickle,
  I who am shy like a girl on her way to the first of her trysts of love,
  He who is charming with flattering words, I who am tender
  In speech and smiling, he on whose hip the garment lies loosely worn.

  O make him enjoy me, my friend, that Krishna so fickle,
  Me who sweated and moistened all over my body with love's exertion,
  That Krishna whose cheeks were lovely with down all standing on end
    as he thrilled,
  Whose half-closed eyes were languid, and restless with brimming
    desire.

  O make him enjoy me, my friend, that Krishna so fickle,
  Me whose masses of curls were like loose-slipping flowers, whose
    amorous words
  Were vague as of doves, that Krishna whose bosom is marked
  With scratches, surpassing all in his love that the science of love
    could teach.

  O make him enjoy me, my friend, that Krishna so fickle,
  To whose act of desire accomplished the anklets upon my feet bejewelled
  Vibrated sounding, who gave his kisses seizing the hair of the head,
  And to whom in his passionate love my girdle sounded in eloquence
    sweet.

As Radha sits longing for him in lonely sadness, Krishna suddenly
repents, is filled with remorse and abruptly goes in quest of her. He does
not know, however, where to find her and as he wanders, he expresses his
sorrow.

  Radha so deeply wronged, troubled to see me surrounded by women,
  She went, and I, in fear of my guilt, made no attempt to stop her,
  Alas, alas, she is gone in anger, her love destroyed.

  O my slender one, I imagine your heart is dejected,
  I cannot console you kneeling in homage, I know not where to find
    you.
  If you pardon me now I shall never repeat this neglect of you ever--
  O beautiful, give me your pleasure again. I burn with desire.

As Krishna searches unavailingly, Radha's friend lights upon him and
conveys news of her love-tormented state.

  Armour she makes of tender lotus garlands to hide her bosom from
    you,
  Large garlands, as if to protect you from heavy showers of shafts from
    the god of love.
  She fears an attack of Love upon you, and lies away hidden;
  She wastes away, Krishna, parted from you.

As he hears this, Krishna is torn with longing. He does not, however, go
immediately to Radha but instead asks the friend to bring Radha to him.
The girl departs, meets Radha and gives her Krishna's message. She then
describes Krishna's love-lorn state:

  When he hears the noise of swarms of bees, he covers his ears from their
    humming;
  Pain he feels, night after night, of a heart in love that is parted.
  He droops, separated from you, O friend, the wearer of garlands.

The girl assures Radha that Krishna is contrite and urges her to delay no
longer.

  He has gone into the trysting place, full of all desired bliss, O you
    with lovely hips delay no more
  O go forth now and seek him out, him the master of your heart, him
    endowed with passion's lovely form.

  On fallen feathers of the birds, on leaves about the forest floor, he
    lies excited making there his bed,
  And he gazes out upon the path, looks about with trembling eyes, anxious,
    looking out for your approach.

  There on that bed of tender leaves, O lotus-eyed, embrace his hips, his
    naked hips from whence the girdle drops,
  Those hips from whence the garment falls, those loins which are a
    treasure heap, the fountain and the source of all delight.

Radha would willingly go but she is now so sick with love that she can no
longer move. The girl has, therefore, to go once more to Krishna and
describe Radha's state.

  In secret on every side she sees you
  Drinking the honied sweet of her lips.
  Where Radha stays now she wilts away,
  She may live no longer without your skill,
  Again and again she keeps telling her friend,
  'O why must Krishna delay to come?'

  Of her jewels abundant her limbs she adorns and spreads out her bed--
  Imagining you on her fluttering couch of leaves--
  And so to indulge, in a hundred ways, in the sport of love
  She is fully resolved, arranging her bed with every adornment;
  Not another night may that beautiful girl endure without you.
  Why so much apathy, Krishna, beside the fig tree?
  O brother, why not go to the pasture of eyes, the abode of bliss?

Despite this message, however, Krishna still delays and Radha, who has
half expected him, endures still greater anguish.

  My lover has failed to come to the trysting place,
  It is perhaps that his mind is dazed, or perhaps that he went to another
    woman
  Or lured perhaps by festive folk, that he delays,
  Or perhaps along the dark fringe of the forest he wanders lost.

She imagines him toying with another cowgirl.

  A certain girl, excelling in her charms unrivalled, dallies with the
    sportive Krishna
  Her face, a moon, is fondled by the fluttering petals in her hair,
  The exciting moisture of his lips induces langour in her limbs,
  Her earrings bruise her cheeks while dancing with the motion of her
    head,
  Her girdle by the tremor of her moving hips is made to tinkle,
  She utters senseless sounds, through fever of her love,
  He decorates with crimson flowers her curly tresses, curls which are
    upon her lively face a mass of clouds,
  Flowers with crimson flashings lovely in the forest of her tresses, haunt
    of that wild creature love's desire.

And thinking of her own hapless state, Radha contrasts it bitterly with
that of the fortunate girl.

  She who with the wearer of the garland lies in dalliance.
  With him whose lovely mouth is like a lotus that is opening,
  With him whose words are nectar in their sweetness and their tenderness,
  With him who wears a garment streaked with gold, all white and
    beautiful
  Not made to sigh is she, my friend, derided by her girls!

Next morning Radha is standing with her girls when Krishna tries to
approach her. Now, however, he has come too late. Radha has suffered too
greatly. Her patience is at an end and although Krishna implores her to
forgive him, she rounds on him in anger, ordering him to return to the
other girl whom he has just left.[57]

  Your mouth, O Krishna, darkened, enhances the crimson beauty of
    your lovely body,
  Enhances with a, darkness, a blackness that arises from the kissing of
    eyes coloured with black unguent.
  Go, Krishna, go. Desist from uttering these deceitful words.
  Follow her, you lotus-eyed, she who can dispel your trouble, go to
    her.

  I who follow you devoted--how can you deceive me, so tortured by
    love's fever as I am?
  O Krishna, like the look of you, your body which appears so black,
    that heart of yours a blackness shall assume.
  Follow her, you lotus-eyed, she who can dispel your trouble, go to her.

Faced with these reproaches, Krishna slinks away. Radha's friend knows,
however, that despite her bitter anger, Radha desires nothing more than
his love. She attempts, therefore, to instil in her a calmer frame of
mind, urging her to end her pride and take Krishna back. She goes to look
for Krishna and while she is absent, Krishna returns. Standing before
Radha, he implores her once again to end her anger.

  If you speak but a little the moon-like gleam of your teeth will destroy
    the darkness frightful, so very terrible, come over me;
  Your moon of a face which glitters upon my eye, the moon-bird's eye,
    now makes me long for the sweet of your lips.
  O loved one, O beautiful, give up that baseless pride against me,
  My heart is burnt by the fire of longing; give me that drink so sweet
    of your lotus face.
  O you with beautiful teeth, if you are in anger against me, strike me
    then with your finger nails, sharp and like arrows,
  Bind me, entwining, with the cords of your arms, and bite me then
    with your teeth, and feel happy punishing.
  O loved one, O beautiful, give up that baseless pride against me.

At these words, Radha's anger leaves her; and when Krishna withdraws, it
is to go to the forest and await her coming. Radha's joy returns. She
decks herself in the loveliest of her ornaments and then, accompanied by
her maids, moves slowly to the tryst.[58] As they reach the bower which
Krishna has constructed, her friend urges her to enter.

  O you who bear on your face the smile that comes of the ardour of
    passion
  Sport with him whose love-abode is the floor of the beautiful bower.

Radha approaches and their love strains to its height.

  She looked at Krishna who desired only her, on him who for long
    wanted dalliance,
  Whose face with his pleasure was overwhelmed and who was possessed
    with desire
  After embracing her long and ardently, Krishna with his necklace of
    pearls
  Krishna like the Jumna in a mighty flood with its necklace of specks of
    foam.[59]

The cowgirls go and Krishna speaks to Radha.

  O woman with desire, place on this patch of flower-strewn floor your
    lotus foot,
  And let your foot through beauty win,
  To me who am the Lord of All, O be attached, now always yours.
  O follow me, my little Radha.

  O lovely woman, give me now the nectar of your lips, infuse new life
    into this slave of yours, so dead,
  This slave, whose heart is placed in you, whose body burned in
    separation, this slave denied the pleasure of your love.

Radha yields and as the night passes they achieve height upon height of
sexual bliss.

  Their love play grown great was very delightful, the love play where
    thrills were a hindrance to firm embraces,
  Where their helpless closing of eyes was a hindrance to longing looks
    at each other, and their secret talk to their drinking of each the
    other's nectar of lips, and where the skill of their love was
    hindered by boundless delight.

  She loved as never before throughout the course of the conflict of love,
    to win, lying over his beautiful body, to triumph over her lover;
  And so through taking the active part her thighs grew lifeless, and
    languid her vine-like arms, and her heart beat fast, and her eyes
    grew heavy and closed.

  In the morning most wondrous, the heart of her lord was smitten with
    arrows of Love, arrows which went through his eyes,
  Arrows which were her nailed-scratched bosom, her reddened sleep-denied
    eyes, her crimson lips from a bath of kisses, her hair disarranged
    with the flowers awry, and her girdle all loose and slipping.
  With hair knot loosened and stray locks waving, her cheeks perspiring,
    her glitter of lips impaired,
  And the necklace of pearls not appearing fair because of her jar-shaped
    breast being denuded,
  And her belt, her glittering girdle, dimmed in beauty,
  The happy one drank of the face where the lips were washed with the
    juice of his mouth,
  His mouth half open uttering amorous noises, vague and delirious, the
    rows of teeth in the breath of an indrawn sigh delightedly chattering.
  Drank of the face of that deer-eyed woman whose body lay helpless,
    released of excessive delight, the thrilling delight of embraces.

When their passion is at last ended, Radha begs Krishna to help her with
her toilet.

  She said to the joy of her heart,
  Adorn the curl on my brow which puts the lotus to shame, my spotless
    brow,
  Make a beautiful spot on my forehead, a spot with the paste of the
    sandal,
  O giver of pride, on my tresses, untidy now on account of desire, place
    flowers,
  Place on my hips the girdle, the clothes and the jewels,
  Cover my beautiful loins, luscious and firm, the cavern of Love to be
    feared.
  Make a pattern upon my breasts and a picture on my cheeks and fasten over
    my loins a girdle,
  Bind my masses of hair with a beautiful garland and place many bracelets
    upon my hands and jewelled anklets upon my feet.

Krishna does so and with a final celebration of Krishna as God and of the
song itself--its words 'sweeter than sugar, like love's own glorious
flavour'--the poem ends.

[Footnote 51: Note 18.]

[Footnote 52: Plate 20.]

[Footnote 53: Plates 21 and 22.]

[Footnote 54: Note 19.]

[Footnote 55: Plate 23.]

[Footnote 56: Plate 24.]

[Footnote 57: Plate 25.]

[Footnote 58: Plate 26.]

[Footnote 59: Plate 27.]



(iii) Later Poetry


Jayadeva's poem quickly achieved renown in Northern and Western India and
from the early thirteenth century became a leading model for all poets who
were enthralled by Krishna as God and lover. In Western India,
Bilvamangala, a poet of Malabar, composed a whole galaxy of Krishna songs,
his poem, the _Balagopala Stuti_ (The Childhood of Krishna) earning for
him the title 'the Jayadeva of the South.' But it is during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries that the most important developments occurred. In
Bengal, the poets Vidyapati and Chandi Das flourished in about the year
1420, while in Western India, Mira Bai, a local princess, began a
wide-spread popular movement. Mira Bai was followed by Vallabhacharya
(born 1478) who in turn inspired four poet disciples--Krishna Das, Sur
Das, Parmanand Das and Kumbhan Das. All these were at their height in the
middle of the sixteenth century, writing Hindi poems in which Radha's
adventures with Krishna and their rapturous love-making were devotedly
described.[60]

The work of Sur Das was of special importance for in one of his
compositions he took each of the thirty-six traditional modes of Indian
music-the _Ragas_ and _Raginis_--but instead of celebrating them as
separate 'musical characters,' appended to each a love-poem about Krishna.
Sur Das was followed by Keshav Das of Orchha (fl. 1580), Govind Das (fl.
1590), Bihari Lai (fl. 1650) and Kali Das (fl. 1700)--all poets in whom
religious ecstasy was blended with a feeling for passionate romance. Of
these poets Bihari Lai is famous for the _Sat Sai_ in which he celebrated
Krishna's romance in seven hundred verses.

All this later poetry differed from the _Gita Govinda_ in one important
respect. Instead of dwelling on the temporary rupture in Radha and
Krishna's relationship, it roved freely over the many phases of their
love-making, subjecting every incident to delighted analysis. A poet
thought and felt himself into Radha's mind when as a young girl about to
become a woman she discovered for the first time the exquisite sensations
of awakening love. Or he imagined he was Krishna stumbling on Radha by
accident and being stirred to ecstasy by his first glimpse of her glowing
charms. Sometimes he even became the unseen viewer of their rapturous
exchanges, comforting Radha with sage remarks or egging her on to appease
her hungry lover. In this way many incidents not recorded of any cowgirl
in the _Bhagavata Purana_, though possibly preserved in oral tradition,
came gradually into prominence, thereby confirming Radha as Krishna's
greatest love.

The following incidents will illustrate this process. Radha would be
described as one day taking her curds and milk to a village the farther
side of the river Jumma. Krishna hears of her expedition and along with
other cowherd boys waylays Radha and her friends and claims a toll. Radha
refuses to pay but at last offers to make a token gift provided he ferries
them over. Meanwhile a cowherd boy has hidden the boat and night is coming
on. It is now too late to return so the girls have no alternative but to
stay with Krishna. They lie down by the bank but in the darkness give
Krishna not only the toll but also their souls and bodies.

In another poem, Krishna is shown pestering the cowgirls for curds. Radha
decides to stand this no longer and partly in jest dresses herself up as a
constable. When Krishna next teases the girls, she descends upon him,
catches him by the wrist and 'arrests' him as a thief.[61]

It is in the poems of Chandi Das, however, that Krishna's most daring
ruses are described. Having once gained admittance to Radha's house by
dressing himself as a cowgirl, he is shown pretending to be a
flower-seller. He strings some flowers into a bunch of garlands, dangles
them on his arm and strolls blandly down the village street. When he
reaches Radha's house, he goes boldly in and is taken by Radha into a
corner where she starts to bargain. Krishna asks her to let him first
adorn her with a garland and then she can pay him. Radha agrees and as he
slips a garland over her head, Krishna kisses her. Radha suddenly sees who
it is and holds his hand.

On another occasion, Radha is ill from love and is lying at home on her
bed. Krishna thereupon becomes a doctor and goes from house to house
curing the sick. So successful are his cures that Radha also is tempted to
consult the new doctor and sends a maid to call him, Krishna comes but
before entering adopts a wild disguise--putting his clothes on inside out,
matting his hair with mud, and slinging a bag of roots and plants over his
shoulder. As he enters, he sits on Radha's bed, lifts her veil, gazes
intently at her face and declares that certainly she is very ill indeed.
He then takes her pulse and says, 'it is the water of love that is rotting
her heart like a poison.' Radha is elated at this diagnosis, rouses
herself and stretches her limbs. 'You have understood my trouble,' she
says. 'Now tell me what I am to do.' 'I feel somewhat diffident at
explaining my remedy,' replies the doctor, 'But if I had the time and
place, I could ease your fever and cure you utterly.' As he says this,
Radha knows that he is Krishna and this is only another of his reckless
wiles designed to bring him near her.

But it was less in the recording of new incidents than in lyrical
descriptions of Radha and Krishna, their physical charms and ecstatic
meetings, that the poets excelled.

  i

  Krishna is dancing in a medley of moods and poses.
  His crown sways, his eye-brows move,
  Displaying the arts of a clever dancer.
  The swing of his waist makes his girdle sing
  And the anklets jingle.
  One fancies one is listening to the sweet voice of a pair of geese as
    they touch each other in dalliance.
  The bangles glitter and the rings and armlets shoot their rays.
  When with passion he moves his arms, what grace the movements bless!
  Now he dances after the gait of ladies and now in a manner of his own.
  The poet's lord is the jewel of the passionate
  And builds his dance in the depths of ecstasy.[62]

  (Sur Das)

  ii

  With Krishna in their midst the cowherds come to their homes.
  The calves and cows are ahead, frisking and playing as they go.
  All the pipes and horns go forth, each his own notes playing.
  The sound of the flute moves the cows to low as they raise a cloud of
    dust.
  The crown of peacocks' feathers glistens on the head like a young moon.
  The cowherd boys frolic on the path and Krishna in the centre sings his
    song.
  Ravished by the sight, the cowgirls pour out their minds and bodies,
  Gazing on Krishna, quenching their heart's desire.

  (Sur Das)

  iii

  Radha's glances dart from side to side.
  Her restless body and clothes are heavy with dust.
  Her glistening smile shines again and again.
  Shy, she raises her skirt to her lips.
  Startled, she stirs and once again is calm,
  As now she enters the ways of love.
  Sometimes she gazes at her blossoming breasts
  Hiding them quickly, then forgetting they are there.
  Childhood and girlhood melt in one
  And young and old are both forgotten.
  Says Vidyapati: O Lord of life,
  Do you not know the signs of youth?[63]

  (Vidyapati)

  iv

  Each day the breasts of Radha swelled.
  Her hips grew shapely, her waist more slender.
  Love's secrets stole upon her eyes.
  Startled her childhood sought escape.
  Her plum-like breasts grew large,
  Harder and crisper, aching for love.
  Krishna soon saw her as she bathed
  Her filmy dress still clinging to her breasts,
  Her tangled tresses falling on her heart,
  A golden image swathed in yak's tail plumes.
  Says Vidyapati: O wonder of women,
  Only a handsome man can long for her.

  (Vidyapati)

  v

  There was a shudder in her whispering voice.
  She was shy to frame her words.
  What has happened tonight to lovely Radha?
  Now she consents, now she is scared.
  When asked for love, she closes up her eyes,
  Eager to reach the ocean of desire.
  He begs her for a kiss.
  She turns her mouth away
  And then, like a night lily, the moon seized her.
  She felt his touch startling her girdle.
  She knew her love treasure was being robbed.
  With her dress she covered up her breasts.
  The treasure was left uncovered.
  Vidyapati wonders at the neglected bed.
  Lovers are busy in each other's arms.

  (Vidyapati)

  vi

  Awake, Radha, awake
  Calls the parrot and its love
  For how long must you sleep,
  Clasped to the heart of your Dark-stone?
  Listen. The dawn has come
  And the red shafts of the sun
  Are making us shudder.

  (Vidyapati)

  vii

  Startled, the parrot calls.
  See those young lovers are still asleep.
  On a bed of tender leaves
  His dark figure is lying still.
  She, the fair one,
  Looks like a piece of jewelled gold.
  They have emptied their quivers.
  All their flower-arrows are discharged,
  Drowning each other in the joy of love.
  O lovely Radha, awake.
  Your friends are going to the temple.
  Asks Govind Das:
  Whose business is it
  To interrupt the ways of love?

  (Govind Das)

In another kind of poem, Radha and Krishna are themselves made to
speak--Krishna, for example, describing his first glimpses of Radha and
Radha struggling to evoke in words the ecstasies of their love.

  viii

  Like stilled lightning her fair face.
  I saw her by the river,
  Her hair dressed with jasmine,
  Plaited like a coiled snake.
  O friend, I will tell you
  The secret of my heart.
  With her darting glances
  And gentle smiles
  She made me wild with love.
  Throwing and catching a ball of flowers,
  She showed me to the full
  Her youthful form.
  Uptilted breasts
  Peeped from her dress.
  Her face was bright
  With taunting smiles.
  With anklet bells
  Her feet shone red.
  Says Chandi Das:
  Will you see her again?

  (Chandi Das)

  ix

  Listen, O lovely darling,
  Cease your anger.
  I promise by the golden pitchers of your breasts
  And by your necklace-snake,
  Which now I gather in my hands,
  If ever I touch anyone but you
  May your necklace-snake bite me;
  And if my words do not ring true,
  Punish me as I deserve.
  Bind me in your arms, hit me with your thighs,
  Choke my heart with your milk-swollen breasts,
  Lock me day and night in the prison of your heart.

  (Vidyapati)

  x

  Never have I seen such love nor heard of it.
  Even the eyelids' flutter
  Holds eternity.
  Clasped to my breasts, you are far from me.
  I would keep you as a veil close to my face.
  I shudder with fright when you turn your eyes away,
  As one body, we spend the night,
  Sinking in the deeps of delight.
  As dawn comes, we see with anxious hearts
  Life desert us.
  The very thought breaks my heart.
  Says Chandi Das:
  O sweet girl, how I understand.

  (Chandi Das)

  xi

  O friend, I cannot tell you
  Whether he was near or far, real or a dream.
  Like a vine of lightning,
  As I chained the dark one,
  felt a river flooding in my heart.
  Like a shining moon,
  I devoured that liquid face.
  I felt stars shooting around me.
  The sky fell with my dress
  Leaving my ravished breasts.
  I was rocking like the earth.
  In my storming breath
  I could hear my ankle-bells,
  Sounding like bees.
  Drowned in the last-waters of dissolution
  I knew that this was not the end.
  Says Vidyapati:
  How can I possibly believe such nonsense?

  (Vidyapati)

[Footnote 60: Plate 29.]

[Footnote 61: Plate 35.]

[Footnote 62: Note 20.]

[Footnote 63: Note 20.]



(iv) The Rasika Priya


It is a third development, however, which reveals the insistent
attractions of Krishna the divine lover. From about the seventh century
onwards Indian thinkers had been fascinated by the great variety of
possible romantic experiences. Writers had classified feminine beauty and
codified the different situations which might arise in the course of a
romance. A woman, for example, would be catalogued according as she was
'one's own, another's or anyone's' and whether she was young, adolescent
or adult. Beauties with adult physiques were divided into unmarried and
married, while cutting across such divisions was yet another based on the
particular circumstances in which a woman might find herself. Such
circumstances were normally eight in number--when her husband or lover was
on the point of coming and she was ready to receive him; when she was
parted from him and was filled with longing; when he was constant and she
was thus enjoying the calm happiness of stable love; when, for the time
being, she was estranged due to some quarrel or tiff; when she had been
deceived; when she had gone to meet her lover but had waited in vain,
thereby being jilted; when her husband or lover had gone abroad and she
was faced with days of lonely waiting; and finally, when she had left the
house and gone to meet him. Ladies in situations such as these were known
as _nayikas_ and the text embodying the standard classification was the
Sanskrit treatise, the _Bharatiya Natya Sastra_. A similar analysis was
made of men--lovers or _nayakas_ being sometimes divided into fourteen
different types.

Until the fourteenth century, such writings were studies in erotics
rather than in literature--the actual situations rather than their
literary treatment being the authors' prime concern. During the fourteenth
century, however, questions of literary taste began to be discussed and
there arose a new type of Sanskrit treatise, showing how different kinds
of lover should be treated in poetry and illustrating the correct
attitudes by carefully chosen verses. In all these writings the standard
of reference was human passion. The lovers of poetry might bear only a
slight relation to lovers in real life. Many of the situations envisaged
might rarely, if ever, occur. It was sufficient that granted some
favourable accident, some chance suspension of normal circumstances,
lovers could be imagined as acting in these special ways.

It is out of this critical literature that our new development springs. As
vernacular languages were used for poetry, problems of Hindi composition
began to dwarf those of Sanskrit. It was necessary to discuss how best to
treat each _nayika_ and _nayaka_ not only in Sanskrit but in Hindi poetry
also, and to meet this situation Keshav Das, the poet of Orchha in
Bundelkhand, produced in 1591 his _Rasika Priya_. Here all the standard
situations were once again examined, _nayikas_ and _nayakas_ were newly
distinguished and verses illustrating their appropriate treatments were
systematically included. The book differed, however, in two important ways
from any of its predecessors. It was written in Hindi, Keshav Das himself
supplying both poems and commentary and what was even more significant,
the _nayaka_ or lover was portrayed not as any ordinary well-bred young
man but as Krishna himself.[64] As a girl waits at the tryst it is not for
an ordinary lover but for Krishna that Keshav Das depicts her as longing.

'Is he detained by work? Is he loath to leave his friends? Has he had a
quarrel? Is his body uneasy? Is he afraid when he sees the rainy dark? O
Krishna, Giver of Bliss, why do you not come?'[65]

As a girl waits by her bed looking out through her door, it is the
prospect of Krishna's arrival--not of an ordinary lover's--that makes her
happy.

'As she runs, her blue dress hides her limbs. She hears the wind ruffling
the trees and the birds shifting in the night. She thinks it must be he.
How she longs for love, watching for Krishna like a bird in a cage.'

When the lover arrives at dawn, having failed to come in the night, the
girl (another _nayika_, 'one who has been deceived') upbraids Krishna for
wandering about like a crow, picking up worthless grains of rice, wasting
his hours in bad company and ruining houses by squatting in them like an
owl.

Similarly when a married girl sits longing for her husband's return, her
companion comments not on an ordinary husband's conduct but on that of
Krishna. 'He said he would not be long. "I shall be back," he said, "as
soon as I have had my meal." But now it is hours since he went. Why does
he sit beside them and no one urge him to go? Does he know that her eyes
are wet with tears, that she is crying her heart out because he does not
come?'

Krishna, in fact, is here regarded as resuming in himself all possible
romantic experiences. He is no longer merely the cowherd lover or the hero
prince, the central figure of a sacred narrative. Neither is he merely or
only the lover of Radha. He is deemed to know love from every angle and
thus to sanctify all modes of passionate behaviour. He is love itself.

Such a development concludes the varied phases through which the character
of Krishna has passed. The cowherd lover supersedes the hero prince. Radha
becomes all in all, yet touches of Krishna's princely majesty remain
throughout. Even as a cowherd Krishna shows an elegance and poise which
betrays his different origin. And in the _Rasika Priya_ it is once again
his courtly aura which determines his new role. A blend of prince and
cowherd, Krishna ousts from poetry the courtly lovers who previously had
seemed the acme of romance. Adoration of God acquires the grace and charm
of courtly loving, passionate sensuality all the refinement and nobility
of a spiritual religion. It is out of all these varied texts that the
Krishna of Indian painting now emerges.

[Footnote 64: Plate 28.]

[Footnote 65: Note 21.]




VI


THE KRISHNA OF PAINTING

Indian pictures of Krishna confront us with a series of difficult
problems. The most exalted expressions of the theme are mainly from
Kangra, a large Hindu state within the Punjab Hills.[66] It was here that
Krishna, the cowherd lover, was most fully celebrated. Pictures were
produced in large numbers and the Kangra style with its delicate
refinement exactly mirrored the enraptured poetry of the later cult. This
painting was due entirely to a particular Kangra ruler, Raja Sansar Chand
(1775-1823)--his delight in painting causing him to spare no cost in
re-creating the Krishna idyll in exquisite terms. Elsewhere, however,
conditions varied. At the end of the sixteenth century, it was not a Hindu
but a Muslim ruler who commissioned the greatest illustrations of the
story. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Hindu patrons were the
rule but in certain states it was junior members of the ruling family
rather than the Raja himself who worshipped Krishna. Sometimes it was not
the ruling family but members of the merchant community who sponsored the
artists and, occasionally, it was even a pious lady or devout princess who
served as patron. Such differences of stimulus had vital effects and, as a
consequence, while the cult of Krishna came increasingly to enthrall the
northern half of India, its expression in art was the reverse of neat and
orderly. Where a patron was so imbued with love for Krishna that adoration
of the cowherd lover preceded all, the intensity of his feeling itself
evoked a new style. There then resulted the Indian equivalent of pictures
by El Greco, Grunewald or Altdorfer--paintings in which the artist's own
religious emotions were the direct occasion of a new manner. In other
cases, the patron might adhere to Krishna, pay him nominal respect or take
a moderate pleasure in his story but not evince a burning enthusiasm. In
such cases, paintings of Krishna would still be produced but the style
would merely repeat existing conventions. The pictures which resulted
would then resemble German paintings of the Danube or Cologne
schools--pictures in which the artist applied an already mature style to a
religious theme but did not originate a fresh mode of expression. Whether
the greatest art resulted from the first or second method was
problematical for the outcome depended as much on the nature of the styles
as on the artist's powers. In considering Indian pictures of Krishna,
then, we must be prepared for sudden fluctuations in expression and abrupt
differences of style and quality. Adoration of Krishna was to prove one of
the most vital elements in village and courtly life. It was to capture the
imagination of Rajput princes and to lead to some of the most intimate
revelations of the Indian mind. Yet in art its expression was to hover
between the crude and the sensitive, the savage and the exquisite. It was
to stimulate some of the most delicate Indian pictures ever painted and,
at the same time, some of the most forceful.

The first pictures of Krishna to be painted in India fall within this
second category. In about 1450, one version of the _Gita Govinda_ and two
of the _Balagopala Stuti_ were produced in Western India.[67] They were
doubtless made for middle-class patrons and were executed in Western India
for one important reason. Dwarka, the scene of Krishna's life as a prince,
and Prabhasa, the scene of the final slaughter, were both in Western
India. Both had already become centres of pilgrimage and although Jayadeva
had written his great poem far to the East, on the other side of India,
pilgrims had brought copies with them while journeying from Bengal on
visits to the sites. The _Gita Govinda_ of Jayadeva had become in fact as
much a Western Indian text as the _Balagopala Stuti_ of Bilvamangala. With
manuscript illustrations being already produced in Western India--but not,
so far as we know, elsewhere--it was not unnatural that the first
illustrated versions of these poems should be painted here. And it is
these circumstances which determined their style. Until the fifteenth
century the chief manuscripts illustrated in Western India were Jain
scriptures commissioned by members of the merchant community. Jainism had
originated in the sixth century B.C. as a parallel movement to Buddhism.
It had proved more accommodating to Hinduism, and when Buddhism had
collapsed in Western India in the ninth century A.D., Jainism had
continued as a local variant of Hinduism proper. Jain manuscripts had at
first consisted of long rectangular strips made of palm-leaves on which
the scriptures were written in heavy black letters. Each slip was roughly
three inches wide and ten long and into the text had been inserted lean
diagrammatic paintings either portraying Mahavira, the founder of the
cult, or illustrating episodes in his earthly career.

About 1400, palm-leaf was superseded by paper and from then onwards
manuscripts were given slightly larger pages. Owing partly to their
association with the same religious order and partly to their constant
duplication, Jain manuscripts had early conformed to a certain rigid type.
The painting was marked by lean and wiry outlines, brilliant red and blue
and above all by an air of savage ferocity expressed through the idiom of
faces shown three-quarter view with the farther eye detached and
projecting into space. This style was exercised almost exclusively on Jain
subjects and in the year 1400 it was the main style of painting in Western
India and Raj as than.

During the fifteenth century, this exclusive character gradually weakened.
There arose the idea that besides Jain scriptures, secular poetry might
also be illustrated and along with the growing devotion to Krishna as God
came the demand for illustrated versions of Krishna texts. The three texts
we have just mentioned are due to this tendency. All three are illustrated
in the prevailing Jain style with its spiky angular idioms and all three
have the same somewhat sinister air of barbarous frenzy. At the same time,
all disclose a partial loosening of the rigid wiry convention, a more
boisterous rhythm and a slightly softer treatment of trees and animals;
and, although no very close correlation is possible, the theme itself may
well have helped to precipitate these important changes.

Between 1450 and 1575, Western Indian painting continued to focus on Jain
themes, adulterated to only a very slight extent by subjects drawn from
poetry. It is possible that the Krishna story was also illustrated, but no
examples have survived; and it is not until the very end of the sixteenth
century that the Krishna theme again appears in painting and then in two
distinct forms. The first is represented by a group of three
manuscripts--two of them dated respectively 1598[68] and 1610[69] and
consisting of the tenth book of the _Bhagavata Purana_, the third being
yet another illustration of the _Gita Govinda[70]_. All three sets of
illustrations are in a closely similar style--a style which, while
possessing roots in Jain painting is now considerably laxer and more
sprawling. The faces are no longer shown three-quarter view, the detached
obtruding eye has gone and in place of the early sharpness there is now a
certain slovenly crudity. We do not know for whom these manuscripts were
made nor even in what particular part of Western India or Rajasthan they
were executed. They were clearly not produced in any great centre of
painting and can hardly have been commissioned by a prince or merchant of
much aesthetic sensibility. They prove, however, that a demand for
illustrated versions of the Krishna story was persisting and suggest that
even prosperous traders may perhaps have acted as patrons.

The second type is obviously the product of far more sophisticated
influences. It is once again a copy of the _Gita Govinda_ and was probably
executed in about 1590 in or near Jaunpur in Eastern India. As early as
1465, a manuscript of the leading Jain scripture, the _Kalpasutra_, had
been executed at Jaunpur for a wealthy merchant.[71] Its style was
basically Western Indian, yet being executed in an area so far to the
east, it also possessed certain novelties of manner. The heads were more
squarely shaped, the eyes larger in proportion to the face, the ladies'
drapery fanning out in great angular swirls. The bodies' contours were
also delineated with exquisitely sharp precision. The court at the time
was that of Hussain Shah, a member of the marauding Muslim dynasties which
since the twelfth century had enveloped Northern India; and it is possibly
due to persistent Muslim influence that painting revived in the last two
decades of the sixteenth century. Illustrated versions of passionate love
poetry were executed[72] and as part of the same vogue for poetic romance,
the _Gita Govinda_ may once again have been illustrated.[73] Between the
style of these later pictures and that of the Jain text of 1465, there are
such clear affinities that the same local tradition is obviously
responsible. Yet the new group of paintings has a distinctive elegance all
its own. As in the previous group, the detached projecting eye has gone.
Each situation is treated with a slashing boldness. There is no longer a
sense of cramping detail and the flat red backgrounds of Western Indian
painting infuse the settings with hot passion. But it is the treatment of
the feminine form which charges the pictures with sophisticated charm. The
large breasts, the sweeping dip in the back, the proud curve of the
haunches, the agitated jutting-out of the skirts, all these convey an air
of vivid sensual charm. That Radha and Krishna should be portrayed in so
civilized a manner is evidence of the power which the Krishna story had
come to exercise on courtly minds. Krishna is portrayed not as God but as
the most elegant of lovers, Radha and the cowgirls as the very embodiment
of fashionable women.

Jaunpur painting does not seem to have survived the sixteenth century and
for our next illustrations of the theme, we must turn to the school of
painting fostered by the Mughals. During the sixteenth century at least
three Muslim states other than Jaunpur itself had possessed schools of
painting--Malwa in Central India and Bijapur and Ahmadnagar in the Deccan.
Their styles can best be regarded as Indian offshoots of a Persian mode of
painting which was current in the Persian province of Shiraz in about the
year 1500. In this style, known as Turkman, the flat figures of previous
Persian painting were set in landscapes of rich and glowing herbage,
plants and trees being rendered with wild and primitive vigour. In each
case the style was probably brought to India by Persian artists who
communicated it to Indian painters or themselves adjusted it to local
conditions. And it is this process which was repeated but on an altogether
grander scale by the Muslim dynasty of the Mughals. Under the emperor
Akbar (1556-1605), the Mughals absorbed the greater part of Northern
India, concentrating in one imperial court more power and wealth than had
probably been amassed at any previous time in India. Among Akbar's
cultural institutions was a great imperial library for which a colony of
artists was employed in illustrating manuscripts in Persian. The founders
of this colony were Persian and it is once again a local style of Persian
painting which forms the starting point. This style is no longer the
Turkman style of Shiraz but a later style--a local version of Safavid
painting as current in Khurasan. With its lively and delicate naturalism
it not only corresponded to certain predilections of the emperor Akbar
himself, but seems also to have appealed to Indian artists recruited to
the colony. Its representational finesse made it an ideal medium for
transcribing the Indian scene and the appearance at the court of European
miniatures, themselves highly naturalistic, stimulated this character
still further. The result was the sudden rise in India, between 1570 and
1605, of a huge new school of painting, exquisitely representational in
manner and committed to a new kind of Indian naturalism. Such a school,
the creation of an alien Muslim dynasty, would at first sight seem
unlikely to produce illustrations of Hindu religion. Its main function was
to illustrate works of literature, science and contemporary history--a
function which resulted in such grandiose productions as the _Akbarnama_
or Annals of Akbar, now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[74]
None the less there are two ways in which Mughal painting, as developed
under Akbar, contributed to the Krishna story. Akbar, although a Muslim by
birth, was keenly interested in all religions and in his dealings with the
Rajputs had shown himself markedly tolerant. He desired to minimise the
hatred of Muslims for Hindus and believing it to arise from mutual
ignorance, ordained that certain Hindu texts should be translated into
Persian and thus rendered more accessible. The texts chosen were the two
epics, the _Ramayana_ and the _Mahabharata_, and of these Persian
abridgements were duly prepared. The abridgement of the _Mahabharata_,
known as the _Razmnama_, was probably completed in 1588 but illustrated
copies, including the great folios now in the palace library at Jaipur,
were probably not completed before 1595. As part of the project, its
appendix, the _Harivansa_ was also summarized and a separate volume with
fourteen illustrations all concerned with Krishna is part of the great
version now at Jaipur.[75] In these illustrations, it is Krishna the
prince who is chiefly shown, all the pictures illustrating his career
after he has left the cowherds. There is no attempt to stress his romantic
qualities or to present him as a lover. He appears rather as the great
fighter, the slayer of demons. Such a portrayal is what we might perhaps
expect from a Mughal edition. None the less the paintings are remarkable
interpretations, investing Krishna with an air of effortless composure,
and exalting his princely grace. The style is notable for its use of
smoothly flowing outlines and gentle shading, and although there is no
direct connection, it is these characteristics which were later to be
embodied in the Hindu art of the Punjab Hills.

Such interest by the Emperor may well have spurred Hindu members of the
court to have other texts illustrated for, ten to fifteen years later, in
perhaps 1615, a manuscript of the _Gita Govinda_ was produced, its
illustrations possessing a certain fairy-like refinement.[76] Krishna in a
flowing dhoti wanders in meadows gay with feathered trees while Radha and
her confidante appear in Mughal garb. Romance is hardly evident for it is
the scene itself with its rustic prettiness which is chiefly stressed. Yet
the patron by whom this version was commissioned may well have felt that
it was sensitively rendered and within its minor compass expressed to
some extent the magical enchantment distilled by the verses. That the
Emperor's stimulus survived his death is plain; for in about the year
1620, two manuscripts of the _Bhagavata Purana_ appeared--both in a style
of awkward crudity in which the idioms of Akbar's school of artists were
consciously aped.[77] The manuscripts in question are at Bikaner and it is
possible that one or two inferior Mughal artists, deprived of work at the
central court, travelled out to this northerly Rajput state, daring the
desert, and there produced these vapid works. It is likely that in the
early years of the seventeenth century, many areas of India possessed no
artists whatsoever and if a Hindu ruler was to copy Mughal fashion, the
only artists available to him might be those of an inferior rank. And
although exact data are wanting, such circumstances may well explain
another document of Krishna, the first illustrated version of Keshav Das's
_Rasika Priya_.[78] As we have seen, this poem was composed at Orchha in
Bundelkhand in 1591, at a time when both poet and court were in close
association with Akbar. Yet the version in question shows the same
poverty-stricken manner with its crude aping of imperial idioms and utter
lack of sensitive expression. There is no evidence that at this time
Bundelkhand possessed its own school of painting and in consequence the
most likely explanation is that yet another inferior artist trained in the
early Mughal manner, migrated to the court and there produced this crude
prosaic version. In none of these provincial Mughal pictures is there any
feeling for Krishna as God or even as a character. The figures have a
wooden doll-like stiffness, parodying by their evident jerkiness the
exquisite emotions intended by the poet and we can only assume that
impressed by the imperial example minor rulers or nobles encouraged
struggling practitioners but in an atmosphere far removed from that of the
great emperor.

Such paintings in a broken-down Akbari manner characterize the period 1615
to 1630. From then onwards Mughal painting, as it developed under the
emperor Shah Jahan, concentrated on more courtly themes. The early
interest in dramatic action disappeared and the demand for costly
manuscripts, sumptuously illustrated, withered up. Under Aurangzeb,
tolerant understanding gave way to a vicious proselytism and it was only
in remote centres such as Bikaner that later Mughal artists exercised
their style on Krishna themes. It is significant that at Bikaner their
leader was a Muslim, Ruknuddin, and that his chief work was a series of
pictures illustrating the _Rasika Priya_.[79] His figures have a shallow
prettiness of manner, stamping them once again as products of a style
which, in its earliest phases, was admirably suited to recording dramatic
action but which had little relevance to either religion or romance. For
these a more poetic and symbolic manner was necessary and such a style
appeared in the city of Udaipur in the Rajput State of Mewar.

Painting at Udaipur is inseparably associated with the influence of two
great rulers--Rana Jagat Singh (1628-1652) and Rana Raj Singh (1652-1681)
As early as 1605 pictures had been produced at the State's former capital,
Chawand--the artist being a Muhammadan named Nasiruddin. His style was
obviously quite independent of any Mughal influence and it is rather to
the separate tradition of painting which had grown up in Malwa that we
must look for its salient qualities--a tensely rhythmical line, a
flamboyant use of strong emphatic colours, vigorous simplifications and
boldly primitive idioms for plants and trees. It is this style which
thirty or forty years later comes to luxuriant maturity in a series of
illustrations executed at Udaipur.[80] Although the artists responsible
included a Muslim, Shahabaddin, and a Hindu, Manohar, it is the Krishna
theme itself which seems to have evoked this marvellous efflorescence.
Rana Jagat Singh was clearly a devout worshipper whose faithful adhesion
to Rajput standards found exhilarating compensations in Krishna's role as
lover. Keshav Das's _Rasika Priya_ achieved the greatest popularity at his
court--its blend of reverent devotion and ecstatic passion fulfilling some
of the deepest Rajput needs. Between the years 1645 and 1660 there
accordingly occurred a systematic production not only of pictures
illustrating this great poetic text but of the various books in the
_Bhagavata Purana_ most closely connected with Krishna's career. Krishna
is shown as a Rajput princeling dressed in fashionable garb, threading his
way among the cowgirls, pursuing his amorous inclinations and practising
with artless guile the seductive graces of a courtly lover. Each picture
has a passionate intensity--its rich browns and reds, greens and blues
endowing its characters with glowing fervour, while Krishna and the
cowgirls, with their sharp robust forms and great intent eyes, display a
brusque vitality and an eager rapturous vigour. A certain simplification
of structure--each picture possessing one or more rectangular
compartments--enhances this effect while the addition of swirling trees
studded with flowers imbues each wild encounter with a surging vegetative
rhythm. Krishna is no longer the tepid well-groomed youth of Mughal
tradition, but a vigorous Rajput noble expressing with decorous vehemence
all the violent longings denied expression by the Rajput moral code. Such
pictures have a lyrical splendour, a certain wild elation quite distinct
from previous Indian painting and we can only explain these new stylistic
qualities by reference to the cult of Krishna himself. The realization
that Krishna was adorable, that his practice of romantic love was a
sublime revelation of Godhead and that in his worship lay release is the
motive force behind these pictures and the result is a new style
transcending in its rhythmical assurance and glowing ardour all previous
achievements.

Such an outburst of painting could hardly leave other areas unaffected and
in the closing quarter of the seventeenth century, not only Bundi, the
Rajput State immediately adjoining Udaipur to the east, but Malwa, the
wild hilly area farther south east, witnessed a renaissance of painting.
At Bundi, the style was obviously a direct development from that of
Udaipur itself--the idioms for human figures and faces as well as the
glowing colours being clearly based on Udaipur originals. At the same
time, a kind of sumptuous luxuriance, a predilection for greens and
oranges in brilliant juxtaposition, a delight in natural profusion and the
use of recessions, shading and round volumes give each picture a
distinctive aura.[81] In Malwa, on the other hand, the earlier tradition
seems to have undergone a new resuscitation. Following various wars in
Middle India, the former Muslim kingdom had been divided into fiefs--some
being awarded to Rajput nobles of loyalty and valour. The result was yet
another style of painting--comparable in certain ways to that of Bundi and
Udaipur yet markedly original in its total effect. In place of tightly
geometrical compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping,
their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a
soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut
veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied
passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for
passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna,
the divine lover. Although one copy of the _Rasika Priya_ and one of the
_Bhagavata Purana_ were executed at both these centres, their chief
subjects were the _ragas_ and _raginis_ (the thirty-six modes of Indian
music) _nayakas_ and _nayikas_ (the ideal lovers) and _barahmasas_ (the
twelve months) while in the case of Malwa, there was the added theme of
Sanskrit love-poetry. Krishna the god was rarely celebrated and it was
rather as 'the best of lovers' that he was sometimes introduced into
pictures. In a Bundi series depicting the twelve months, courtly lovers
are shown sitting in a balcony watching a series of rustic incidents
proceeding below. The lover, however, is not an ordinary prince but
Krishna himself, his blue skin and royal halo leaving no possible doubt as
to his real identity.[83] Similarly in paintings illustrating the
character and personality of musical modes, Krishna was often introduced
as the perfect embodiment of passionate loving. None of the poems
accompanying the modes make any allusion to him. Indeed, their prime
purpose is to woo the presiding genius of the melody and suggest the
visual scene most likely to evoke its spirit. The musical mode, _Bhairava
Raga_, for example, was actually associated with Siva, yet because the
character of the music suggested furious passion the central figure of the
lover dallying with a lady was depicted as Krishna.[84] In _Hindola Raga_,
a mode connected with swinging, a similar result ensued. Swinging in
Indian sentiment was normally associated with the rains and these in turn
evoked 'memory and desire.' The character of the music was therefore
visualized as that of a young prince swinging in the rain--his very
movements symbolizing the act of love. Since Krishna, however, was the
perfect lover, nothing was easier than to portray _Hindola Raga_ as
Krishna himself. _Hindola_ might be invoked in the poem, but it was
Krishna who appeared seated on the swing.[85] An exactly similar process
occurred in the case of _Megh Mallar Raga_. This was connected with the
rainy season, yet because rain and storm were symbolic of sex, _Megh
Mallar_ was portrayed not as a separate figure, but as Krishna once again
dancing in the rain with ladies accompanying him. Even feminine modes of
music suffered the same kind of transformation. _Vasanta Ragini_, 'the
music of springtime,' was normally apostrophized as a lovely lady, yet
because springtime suggested lovers, she was shown in painting as if she
were Krishna dancing with a vase of flowers, holding a wand in his hand or
celebrating the spring fertility festival. The mode, _Pancham Ragini_, was
also feminine in character and was conceived of as a beauty enjoying her
lover's advances. The lady herself was portrayed, yet once again Krishna
was introduced, this time as her lover. In all these cases the celebration
of Krishna was incidental to the main theme and only in one instance--a
Malwa _Rasika Priya_--is there a trace of undisguised adoration. In this
lovely series,[86] Krishna's enchantment is perfectly suggested by the
flowering trees which wave above him, the style acquiring an even more
intense lyricism on account of its divine subject.

During the eighteenth century, painting in Rajasthan became increasingly
secular, even artists of Udaipur devoting themselves almost exclusively to
scenes of court life. The Ranas and the Mewar nobility were depicted
hunting in the local landscape, watching elephant fights or moving in
procession. Similar fashions prevailed in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner,
Bundi and Kotah. Only, in fact, in two Rajasthan States and then for only
brief periods was there any major celebration of the Krishna theme. At
Kishangarh, a small State midway between Ajmer and Jaipur, a series of
intensely poetic paintings were produced between the years 1750 and
1760--the prime stimulus being the delight of Raja Sawant Singh in
Krishna's romance.[87] Born in 1699, Sawant Singh had ascended the throne
in 1748 and given all his time to three activities, the rapturous
re-living of Krishna's romance with Radha, the composition of ecstatic
poems and the daily worship of Krishna as lover god. So great was his
devotion that in 1757 he abandoned the throne and taking with him his
favourite maid of honour, the beautiful poetess, Bani Thani, retired to
Brindaban where he died in 1764. Sawant Singh's delight seems to have been
shared by a local artist, Nihal Chand, for under the Raja's direction he
produced a number of pictures in which Radha and Krishna sustained the
leading roles. The pictures were mainly illustrations of Sawant Singh's
own poems--the lovers being portrayed at moments of blissful wonder,
drifting on a lake in a scarlet boat, watching fireworks cascading down
the sky or gently dallying in a marble pavilion.

  Here is Love's enchanted zone
  Here Time and the Firmament stand still
  Here the Bride and Bridegroom
  Never can grow old.
  Here the fountains never cease to play
  And the night is ever young.[88]

Nihal Chand's style was eminently fitted to express this mood of sensitive
adoration. Originally trained in the later Mughal style, he was able to
render appearances with exquisite delicacy but was also acutely aware of
rhythmical elegance. And it is this which constantly characterized his
work, his greatest achievement being the creation of a local manner for
portraying Radha and Krishna.[89] Radha was endowed with great arched
eyebrows and long eyes--the end of the eye being tilted so as to join the
downward sweeping line of the eyebrow while Krishna was given a slender
receding forehead and narrow waist. Each was made to seem the acme of
elegance and the result was a conception of Krishna and his love as the
very embodiment of aristocratic breeding.

The same sense of aristocratic loveliness is conveyed by a scene of
dancing figures almost life size in the palace library at Jaipur.[90]
Painted under Raja Pratap Singh (1779-1803) the picture shows ladies of
the palace impersonating Radha and Krishna dancing together attended by
girl musicians.[91] Against a pale green background, the figures, dressed
in greenish yellow, pale greyish blue and the purest white, posture with
calm assured grace, while the pure tones and exquisite line-work invest
the scene with gay and luminous clarity. We do not know the circumstances
in which this great picture was painted but the existence of another
large-scale picture portraying the circular dance--the lines of cowgirls
revolving like flowers, with Radha and Krishna swaying in their
midst--suggests that the Krishna theme had once again inflamed a Rajput
ruler's imagination.[92]

Such groups of paintings are, at most, exquisite exceptions and it is
rather in the Rajput states of the Punjab Hills--an area remote and quite
distinct from Rajasthan--that the theme of Krishna the divine lover
received its most enraptured expression in the eighteenth century. Until
the second half of the seventeenth century this stretch of country
bordering the Western Himalayas seems to have had no kind of painting
whatsoever. In 1678, however, Raja Kirpal Pal inherited the tiny state of
Basohli and almost immediately a new artistic urge became apparent.
Pictures were produced on a scale comparable to that of Udaipur thirty
years earlier and at the same time a local style of great emotional
intensity makes its sudden appearance.[93] This new Basohli style, with
its flat planes of brilliant green, brown, red, blue and orange, its
savage profiles and great intense eyes has obvious connections with
Udaipur paintings of the 1650-60 period. And although exact historical
proof is still wanting, the most likely explanation is that under Rana Raj
Singh some Udaipur artists were persuaded to migrate to Basohli. We know
that Rajput rulers in the Punjab Hills were often connected by marriage
with Rajput families in Rajasthan and it is therefore possible that during
a visit to Udaipur, Raja Kirpal Pal recruited his atelier. Udaipur
painting, however, can hardly have been the only source for even in its
earliest examples Basohli painting has a smooth polish, a savage
sophistication and a command of shading which suggests the influence of
the Mughal style of Delhi. We must assume, in fact, a series of influences
determined to a great extent by Raja Kirpal Pal's political contacts, his
private journeys and individual taste, but perhaps above all by an urge to
express his feelings for Krishna in a novel and personal manner. The
result is not only a new style but a special choice of subject-matter. The
_Rasika Priya_ and the _Bhagavata Purana_, the texts so greatly favoured
at Udaipur, were discarded and in their place Basohli artists produced a
series of isolated scenes from Krishna's life--the child Krishna stealing
butter,[94] Krishna the gallant robbing the cowgirls or exacting toll,
Krishna extinguishing the forest-fire,[95] Krishna the violent lover
devouring Radha with hungry eyes. Their greatest achievements, however,
were two versions of Bhanu Datta's _Rasamanjari_, one of them completed in
1695,[96] shortly after Raja Kirpal Pal's death, the other almost
certainly fifteen years earlier.[97] The text in question is a treatise on
poetics illustrating how romantic situations should best be treated in
Sanskrit poetry--the conduct of mature mistresses, experienced lovers, sly
go-betweens, clowns or jokers being all subjected to analysis.[98] The
subject of the text is secular romantic poetry and Krishna himself is
never mentioned. None the less, in producing their illustrations, the
artists made Krishna the central figure and we can only conclude that
eschewing the obvious _Rasika Priya_, Raja Kirpal Pal had directed his
artists to do for Sanskrit what Keshav Das had done for Hindi poetry--to
celebrate Krishna as the most varied and skilled of lovers and as a
corollary show him in a whole variety of romantic and poetic situations.
As a result Krishna was portrayed in a number of highly conflicting
roles--as husband, rake, seducer, paramour and gallant.

In one picture he is 'a gallant whose word cannot be trusted' and we see
him in the act of delicately disengaging a lady's dress and gazing at her
with passion-haunted eyes. The poem on the reverse runs as follows:

  Showing her a beautiful girdle
  Drawing on a fair panel with red chalk
  Putting a bracelet on her wrists
  And laying a necklace on her breasts
  Winning the confidence of the fawn-eyed lady of fair brows
  He slyly loosens the knot of her skirt
  Below the girdle-stead, with naughty hand.[99]

In another picture, he appears as 'a gallant well versed in the ways of
courtesans,' the dreaded seducer of inexperienced girls. He is now shown
approaching a formal pavilion, set in a lonely field. Inside the pavilion
is the lovely object of his attack, sitting with a companion, knowing that
willy-nilly she must shortly yield yet timidly making show of maidenly
reserve.

  His swollen heart
  Knows neither shame nor pity
  Nor any fear of anger
  How can such a tender bud as I
  Be cast into his hands today?[100]

In yet a third picture, he is portrayed standing outside a house while the
lady, the subject of his passions, sits within. He is once again 'a false
gallant,' his amorous intentions being shown by the orange, a conventional
symbol for the breasts, poised lightly in his hand. As the lady turns to
greet him, she puts a dot in the circle which she has just drawn on the
wall--a gesture which once again contains a hint of sex. On the picture's
reverse the poem records a _conversation galante_.

  'Beloved, what are you doing
  With a golden orange in your hand?'
  So said the moon-faced one
  Placing a dot
  On the bright circles
  Painted in the house. [101]

In other pictures, a clown or jester appears, introducing a witty joking
element into the scene and thus presenting Krishna's attitude to love as
all-inclusive.

From 1693, the year of Raja Kirpal's death, painting at Basohli
concentrated mainly on portraying rulers and on illustrating _ragas_ and
_raginis_--the poems which interpreted the moods and spirit of music. The
style maintained its fierce intensity but there was now a gradual rounding
of faces and figures, leading to a slight softening of the former brusque
vigour. Devotion to Krishna does not seem to have bulked quite so largely
in the minds of later Basohli rulers, although the cult itself may well
have continued to exert a strong emotional appeal. In 1730, a Basohli
princess, the lady Manaku, commissioned a set of illustrations to the
_Gita Govinda_ and Krishna's power to enchant not only the male but also
the female mind was once again demonstrated.[102]

This series of illustrations is in some ways a turning point in Indian
painting for not only was it to serve as a model and inspiration to later
artists but its production brings to a close the most creative phase in
Basohli art. After 1730, painting continued to be practised there but no
longer with the same fervour. Basohli artists seem to have carried the
style to other states--to Guler, Jammu, Chamba, Kulu, Nurpur and
Bilaspur--but it is not until 1770 that the Krishna theme again comes into
prominence. In about this year, artists from Guler migrated to the distant
Garhwal, a large and straggling state at the far south of the Punjab
Hills, taking with them a style of exquisite naturalism which had
gradually reached maturity under the Guler ruler, Raja Govardhan
Singh.[103] During his reign, a family of Kashmiri Brahmans skilled in the
Mughal technique had joined his court and had there absorbed a new
romantic outlook. On at least three occasions they had illustrated scenes
from the _Bhagavata Purana_--Nanda celebrating Krishna's birth,[104]
Krishna rescuing Nanda from the python which had started to devour his
foot,[105] and finally the game of blind man's bluff[106]--but their chief
subject had been the tender enchantments of courtly love. Ladies were
portrayed longing for their lovers. The greatest emphasis was placed on
elegance of pose. Fierce distortions were gradually discarded and the whole
purpose of painting was to dwell on exquisite figures and to suggest a rapt
devotion to the needs of love.

It is this suavely delicate art which now appears in Garhwal. Among the
Guler painters was a master-artist and although his first Garhwal pictures
are concerned with passionate romance, devotion to Krishna quickly
becomes apparent.[107] The great Alaknanda River which roared through
Srinagar, the capital, had a special fascination for him and just as
Leonardo da Vinci evinced at one time a passionate interest in springing
curls, the Guler artist found a special excitement in winding eddies and
dashing water. The result was a sudden new interpretation of the Krishna
theme. In two pictures where Krishna is shown quelling the snake
Kaliya,[108] all the Guler qualities of elegant naturalism are abundantly
present. Each figure has a smooth suavity and in every face there appears
a look of calm adoration. It is the swirling, curling water, however,
which gives the pictures their special Garhwal quality. The play of water
evokes a melody of line and the result is a sense of upsurging joy. A
similar religious exaltation marks other pictures by this master. At some
time he appears to have been commissioned to illustrate the tale of Sudama
the poor Brahman whose tattered hovel is changed by Krishna into a golden
palace. He was evidently assisted by a weaker painter but in the pictures
which are clearly his own work, the same quality of lyrical incantation
appears. As Sudama journeys to Dwarka Krishna's golden city, his heart
swoons with adoration, the hills, trees and ocean appear to dance about
him and once again, the linear music of the composition engenders a
feeling of supreme ecstasy.[109] We do not know which member of the Garhwal
court acted as his patron--it is even possible that it was not the ruler
himself but his consort, the Guler princess whom he had married in about
the year 1770. What, at any rate, is clear is that at least one lively
adorer of Krishna existed at the Garhwal court and that until the Gurkha
invasions of 1803, there were other painters, besides the master-artist,
who were similarly encouraged to interpret the Krishna theme.[110] Their
style was clearly influenced by that of the master but in their use of
slender leafless branches and towering spikes of blossom, they developed a
special Garhwal imagery designed to suggest the slender beauty of
love-enchanted girls. After the expulsion of the Gurkhas in 1816, a new
Raja revived Garhwal painting. Krishna the lover was once again portrayed
and until the middle of the nineteenth century, pictures continued to be
produced blending the delights of courtly passion with adoration of God.

It was in the state of Kangra, however, that the greatest developments
occurred. In 1775, the young Sansar Chand became Raja, and despite his
extreme youth, quickly acquired mastery of the Kangra court. It is
unlikely that artists were immediately summoned, but certainly by 1780 a
flourishing school of painters had come into existence.[111] As at Garhwal,
the artists of Kangra came originally from Guler and thus a similar
phenomenon arises--the Guler manner providing the basis for yet a second
great style. Sansar Chand was obviously quite exceptional, for not only
was he successful in politics and war, but from his early manhood was
devoted to Krishna as lover god. And it is this all-absorbing interest
which explains the vast expansion of painting which now occurred. Under
Sansar Chand's stimulus artists began to portray every situation involving
Krishna, the cowherd. He was shown as a baby crying for the moon, being
washed by his foster-mother, Yasoda, or mischievously breaking pitchers
full of curds. He would be painted strolling with the cowherds, playing on
his flute, or bringing the cattle home at evening. But the main theme to
which the artists constantly returned was his main cowgirl love. Radha
would be shown standing with Krishna in the forest, gazing trustfully into
his eyes, seeking shelter with him from the rain or sitting with him by a
stream.[112] Sometimes she and the cowgirls were shown celebrating the
spring festival of Holi, Krishna syringing them with tinted water while
they themselves strove to return his onslaughts by throwing red
powder.[113] Often the scene would shift from the forest to the village,
and Krishna would then be shown gazing at Radha as she dried herself after
bathing or squatted in a courtyard cooking food. At other times he
appeared assisting her at her toilet, helping her to dress her hair or
applying a beauty mark to her forehead. If the scene was night itself,
Radha would be shown sitting in her chamber, while far away across the
courtyards and gardens would loom the small figure of Krishna waiting
lonely on a bed. Occasionally the lovers would be portrayed expressing
their rapture by means of simple gestures. Krishna's arm would be shown
placed lovingly around Radha's shoulders, or Radha herself would be
portrayed hiding her head on Krishna's breast.[114] In all these pictures,
the style had an innocent and exquisite clarity, suggesting by its simple
unaffected naturalism the artists' delight in Krishna's character, their
appreciation of the feminine mind, their sense of sex as inherently noble
and their association of romance with God himself.

It is in a series of illustrations to certain texts, however, that Kangra
painting reaches its greatest heights. Among the many artists employed by
Sansar Chand, a certain Purkhu was notable for his 'remarkable clearness
of tone and delicacy of handling,'[115] and though none of his pictures are
signed it is these qualities which characterize one of the two most famous
sets of illustrations executed in Kangra. The subject was the tenth book
of the _Bhagavata Purana_ and the scenes illustrated ranged from Krishna's
birth and adventures with demons to his frolics with the cowgirls and
final slaughter of Kansa. Purkhu's style--if Purkhu is indeed the master
responsible--is remarkable for its luminous clarity, its faint suggestions
of modelling, and above all for its natural use of rhythm. In every
scene,[116] cowherds appear engaged in different tasks, yet throughout
there is a sense of oneness with Krishna himself. Krishna is shown
delighting all by his simple friendliness and dignified charm and the
style itself endows each scene with gentle harmony.

Purkhu was clearly one of the greatest artists ever to practise in the
Punjab Hills, but it is a certain Kushala who is supposed to have been
Sansar Chand's special favourite. We do not know which pictures are by his
hand but there exist two series of illustrations of such distinctive
quality that Kushala may well have been responsible.[117] One is a series
of paintings illustrating part of Bihari's _Sat Sai_--the seven-hundred
poems in which he extolled Krishna's love-making.[118] The other is yet
another version of the _Gita Govinda_ where Krishna is shown consorting
with the cowgirls in blissful abandon.[119] In both these series, the
inherent loveliness of Radha and the cowgirls is expressed by supple
flowing line, a flair for natural posture and the inclusion of poetic
images. The scarlet of a cowgirl's skirt is echoed by the redness of a
gathering storm, the insertion of Krishna into the background suggesting
the passionate nature of their imminent embraces.[120] In a similar way,
the forest itself is 'threaded with phases of passion' and slender trees
in flower parallel the slim romantic girls who long for Krishna's love.

One other Kangra master remains to be mentioned. Besides the pictures
already noted, there exists a further series illustrating the tenth book
of the _Bhagavata Purana_. The artist's identity is once again uncertain,
but just as the Garhwal master was fascinated by the swirl of curling
water, the Kangra artist in question delighted in the blonde pallor of
the Indian moon.[121] Each incident in the text is rendered as if in
moonlight--a full moon riding in the sky, its pale reflection shining in
water, the countryside itself bathed throughout in frosty whiteness. As a
result the figures of Radha and the cowgirls seem imbued with pallid
glamour, their love for Krishna with an almost unearthly radiance.

Kangra painting continued throughout the nineteenth century but it was
only during Sansar Chand's own reign (1775-1823) that the style achieved
great lyrical glory. Similarly it was only towards the end of the
eighteenth century that other states in the Punjab Hills developed their
own interpretations of the great impassioned theme. At Nurpur, Chamba,
Kulu and Bilaspur[122] pictures of Krishna had temporary vogues and at all
these places artists created new modes of expression. None of the local
styles, however, possessed the same prestige as that of Kangra and all
were subsequently obliterated by the general Kangra manner. By the
mid-nineteenth century, the Rajput order in the Punjab Hills foundered
before the British and while lesser nobles and merchants continued to
purchase pictures of Krishna the cult as a whole declined in princely
favour. Only in Eastern India and then mainly in the villages did delight
in Krishna continue to evoke new painting. From the twelfth century
onwards Bengal had constantly celebrated the loves of Krishna--the poets
Jayadeva, Chandi Das and Vidyapati being all natives of this part of
India. Hymns to Krishna were sung in the villages and as part of this
fervid adhesion, local manuscripts of the _Bhagavata Purana_ and the _Gita
Govinda_ were often produced. Such manuscripts were normally not
illustrated but were preserved between wooden covers, on which scenes of
Krishna dancing with the cowgirls or with male devotees were painted.[123]
Book covers of this kind were produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and the resulting pictures have something of the savage elation
associated with the Basohli style and its derivatives. During the
nineteenth century, painted book-covers ceased to be produced but three
other kinds of painting continued to celebrate the Krishna theme. Frescoes
of Hindu gods and goddesses including Krishna were often executed on the
mud walls of village houses in Mithila, the birthplace of the poet
Vidyapati, and the style of painting with its brilliant colours and
brusque distortions testified to the great excitement still engendered by
Krishna's name.[124] At Kalighat near Calcutta, a special type of
water-colour picture was mass-produced for sale to pilgrims and although
the stock subjects included almost every Hindu god, many incidents from
Krishna's life were boldly portrayed.[125] The style with its curving
sumptuous forms is more a clue to general Bengali interests than to any
special attitudes to Krishna, but the pictures, strangely parallel in
style to the work of the modern artist Fernand Léger, have a robust gaiety
and bounding vigour, not inappropriate to the Krishna theme. The third
type of painting is the work of professional village minstrels known as
_jadupatuas_. As a means of livelihood, _jadupatuas_ travel from village
to village in West Bengal, entertaining the people by singing ballads and
illustrating their songs with long painted scrolls. As each ballad
proceeds, the scroll is slowly unwound, one scene leading to another until
the whole is concluded. Among the ballads thus intoned, the romance of
Krishna is among the most common and the style of painting with its crude
exuberance suggests the strength of popular devotion.[126]

There remains one last form of painting. During the twentieth century, the
modern movement in Indian art has produced at least four major
artists--Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy and George Keyt.
Of these four, the first two did not illustrate the Krishna theme. Jamini
Roy, on the other hand, has often painted Krishna as flute-player and
dancer.[127] It would be unrealistic to suggest that these pictures spring
from a lively sense of Krishna as God--Jamini Roy has, in fact, resorted
to themes of Christ with equal, if not greater, frequency but has shown no
signs of becoming a Christian. It is rather that in painting these
pictures, he has treated Krishna as a symbol of rural vitality, a figure
whose boisterous career among the cowherds is an exact reflection of his
own attitudes and enthusiasms. To Jamini Roy, the Bengali village with its
sense of rude health is infinitely to be preferred to a city such as
Calcutta with its artificiality and disease and in a style of bold
simplifications, he has constantly celebrated the natural vigour and
inherent dignity of simple unsophisticated men.

Such pictures stress a comparatively unimportant side of Krishna's
character and it is rather in the paintings of George Keyt that Krishna
the lover is proudly portrayed. Born in Ceylon of mixed ancestry, Keyt
has, for many years, been acutely responsive to Indian poetry. In 1947,
he published the translation of the _Gita Govinda,_ excerpts from which
have been quoted in the text, and throughout his career his work has been
distinguished by a poet's delight in feminine form and sensuous rapture.
To Keyt such a delight is a vital component of adult minds and in the
romance of Radha and Krishna he found a subject subtly expressive of his
own most intimate beliefs. His paintings and line-drawings of Radha,
Krishna and the cowgirls--at once modern yet vitally Indian in
spirit--have the same qualities as those in the _Gita Govinda_.[128] Radha
and Krishna are shown luxuriating in each other's elegance, a certain
ineffable tenderness characterizing their gestures and movements. Their
love is gentle rather than brusque, an air of glamorous wonder broods
above them and we meet once more that blend of romantic sensuality and
loving innocence which is perhaps the chief Indian contribution to
cultured living. It is this quality which gives to Indian paintings of
Krishna and his loves their incomparable fervour, and makes them enduring
expressions of Indian religion.

[Footnote 66: Plates 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13-17, 21 and 36.]

[Footnote 67: M.R. Mazumdar, 'The Gujarati School of Painting,' _Journal of
the Indian Society of Oriental Art_, 1942, Vol. X, plates 3 and 4.]

[Footnote 68: Collection Maharaja of Jaipur, Pothikhana, Jaipur.]

[Footnote 69: Collection Maharaja of Jodhpur, Pustakaprakash, Jodhpur
Fort.]

[Footnote 70: Plate 22. Collection N.C. Mehta, Bombay. For reproductions of
2 and 3, see Karl Khandalavala, 'Leaves from Rajasthan,' _Marg_, Vol. IV,
No. 3. Figs. 8 and 10.]

[Footnote 71: Moti Chandra, _Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India_
(Ahmedabad, 1949), Figs. 99-105.]

[Footnote 72: Khandalavala, op. cit., Fig. 14; _The Art of India and
Pakistan_, Pls. 81 and 82.]

[Footnote 73: Plates 23 and 24.]

[Footnote 74: For reproductions, see E. Wellesz, _Akbar's Religious Thought
reflected in Mogul Painting_ (London, 1952), Pls. 1-37.]

[Footnote 75: Reproduced Hendley, _Memorials, The Razm Namah_; see also
Plates 1 and 2 below.]

[Footnote 76: _The Art of India and Pakistan_, Plate 88.]

[Footnote 77: H. Goetz, _The Art and Architecture of Bikaner State_
(Oxford, 1950), Fig. 91.]

[Footnote 78: Coomaraswamy, _Boston Catalogue, VI, Mughal Painting_,
Plates 8-19.]

[Footnote 79: Goetz, op. cit., Figs. 78 and 93.]

[Footnote 80: Plate 29. See also B. Gray, _Treasures of Indian Miniatures
from the Bikaner Palace Collection_ (Oxford, 1951), Plate 6.]

[Footnote 81: Plates 28 and 32. See also Archer, _Indian Painting_, Plate
7.]

[Footnote 82: _The Art of India and Pakistan_, Plate 85.]

[Footnote 83: Plate 32.]

[Footnote 84: Plate 34.]

[Footnote 85: Plate 33.]

[Footnote 86: Bharat Kala Bhawan, Banaras.]

[Footnote 87: Eric Dickinson, 'The Way of Pleasure: the Kishangarh
Paintings', 2 _Marg_, Vol. III, No. 4, 29-35.]

[Footnote 88: Ibid., 31.]

[Footnote 89: Plate 39.]

[Footnote 90: For cartoons of this picture, see A.K. Coomaraswamy, _Indian
Drawings_ (London, 1912), Vol. II, Plate 2 and _Rajput Painting_, Vol. II,
Plates 9 and 10.]

[Footnote 91: Note 22.]

[Footnote 92: Gangoly, _Masterpieces of Rajput Painting_, Plate 10.]

[Footnote 93: Plates 4, 10, 26, 27, 30 and 31. _The Art of India and
Pakistan_, Plates 100-102.]

[Footnote 94: Plate 4.]

[Footnote 95: Plate 10.]

[Footnote 96: Archer, _Indian Painting in the Punjab Hills_, Fig. 6.]

[Footnote 97: Plate 30. Coomaraswamy, _Boston Catalogue, V, Rajput
Painting_, Plates 92-95.]

[Footnote 98: Note 23.]

[Footnote 99: Coomaraswamy, _Boston Catalogue, V, Rajput Painting, 171_.]

[Footnote 100: Ibid., 172.]

[Footnote 101: Ibid., 173.]

[Footnote 102: Plates 26 and 27. _The Art of India and Pakistan_, Plate
102.]

[Footnote 103: Archer, _Garhwal Painting_, 1-4.]

[Footnote 104: Gangoly, op. cit., Plate 35.]

[Footnote 105: Archer, _Indian Painting in the Punjab Hills_, Fig. 23.]

[Footnote 106: Mehta, _Studies in Indian Painting_, Plate 21.]

[Footnote 107: Plates 19, 20 and 35.]

[Footnote 108: Coomaraswamy, _Rajput Painting_, Plates 53 and 54.]

[Footnote 109: Archer, _Garhwal Painting_, Plate 1.]

[Footnote 110: Plates 7, 12 and 25.]

[Footnote 111: Archer, _Kangra Painting_, 2-5.]

[Footnote 112: Ibid., Plate 2.]

[Footnote 113: Ibid., Plate 1.]

[Footnote 114: Ibid., Plate 2.]

[Footnote 115: B.H. Baden Powell, _Handbook of the Manufactures and Arts
of the Punjab_ (Lahore, 1872), 355. Purkhu must now, most probably, be
connected with the first of the two Kangra masters described in _Kangra
Painting_ (p. 4)--Plates 3 and 4 being examples of his work.]

[Footnote 116: Plates 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 16.]

[Footnote 117: Archer, _Kangra Painting_, Plates 1 and 2; also p. 4 where
the second of the two Kangra masters is described.]

[Footnote 118: Plate 36; Mehta, op. cit., Plates 25 and 26.]

[Footnote 119: Plate 21.]

[Footnote 120: Mehta, op. cit., Plate 22.]

[Footnote 121: Plates 13-15.]

[Footnote 122: Plate 18.]

[Footnote 123: _The Art of India and Pakistan_, Plate 79]

[Footnote 124: W.G. Archer, 'Maithil Painting,' _Marg_, Vol. III, No. 2.]

[Footnote 125: W.G. Archer, _Bazaar Paintings of Calcutta_ (London, 1953),
Plates 8, 9, 14, 19, 30, 31 and 41.]

[Footnote 126: Ajit Mookerjee, _Art of India_, (Calcutta, 1952) Fig. 94.]

[Footnote 127: B. Dey and J. Irwin, 'Jamini Roy,' _Journal of the Indian
Society of Oriental Art_ (1944), Vol. XII, Plate 6.]

[Footnote 128: For reproductions of Keyt's work, see Martin Russell,
_George Keyt_ (Bombay, 1950), Plates 1-101.]




NOTES


Note 1, p. 13.

For a further discussion of these two main kinds of Indian expression, see
my _Indian Painting_ (Iris, Batsford, London, 1956).


Note 2, p. 14.

In Indian painting, Krishna is normally blue or mauve in colour, though
cases occur in which he is black, green or dark brown. Black would seem
to follow from Krishna's name--the word 'Krishna' meaning 'black'--and may
have been applied either because he sprang from a black hair of Vishnu
or because he was born at midnight, 'black as a thundercloud.' It has
been suggested that his dark complexion proves a Dravidian or even an
aboriginal origin since both the Dravidian races and the aboriginal tribes
are dark brown in colour in contrast to the paler Aryans. None of the
texts, however, appears to corroborate this theory. So far as 'blue' and
'mauve' are concerned, 'blue' is the colour of Vishnu and characterizes
most of his incarnations. As the colour of the sky, it is appropriate to
a deity who was originally associated with the sun--the sun with its
life-giving rays according well with Vishnu's role as loving protector.
'Blue' is also supposed to be the colour of the ocean on which Vishnu is
said to recline at the commencement of each age. In view of the variations
in colour in the pictures, it is perhaps significant that 'blue,' 'mauve'
and 'green' are commonly regarded in village India as variants of
'black'--many Indians making no distinction between them. In Indian
painting, the fact that Krishna is blue makes it easy to identify him, his
only serious rival being another and earlier incarnation of Vishnu, the
princely Rama. The latter can usually be distinguished from Krishna by the
fact that he carries a bow (never a cowherd's stick) and is often
accompanied by Hanuman, the monkey leader.


Note 3, p. 17.

For a comparison of Ghora Angirasa's teaching in the _Chandogya Upanishad_
with Krishna's precepts in the _Gita_, see Mazumdar, _The Age of Imperial
Unity_ (432-4) and Basham, _The Wonder that was India_ (242-7, 304-5)


Note 4, p. 17.

Although the actual date of the _Mahabharata_ war has been variously
assessed--'between 1400 and 1000 B.C.' (M.A. Mehendale in _The Age of
Imperial Unity_, 251) 'the beginning of the ninth century B.C. (Basham,
op. cit., 39)--the epic itself is generally recognized as being a product
of many centuries of compilation. The portions relating to Krishna the
hero may well date from the third century B.C. The _Gita_, on the other
hand, was possibly composed in the second century B.C. 'but assumed the
form in which it appears in the _Mahabharata_ today in the early centuries
A.D.' (Mehendale, op. cit., 249).


Note 5, p. 24.

The implication is that the Pandavas have not been granted ultimate
salvation i.e. final release from living but have reached the important
transitional level of 'the heaven of the doers of good deeds.' They have
also been granted the limited status of petty gods.


Note 6, p. 25.

_Harivansa_, 'the Genealogy of Krishna' but more literally, 'the Genealogy
of Hari,' a synonym for Vishnu. For the sake of clearness and to avoid
burdening the text with too much periphrasis, I have throughout referred
to Krishna as such. In the texts themselves, however, he is constantly
invoked under other names--Hari (or Vishnu), Govinda (the cowherd),
Keshava (the hairy or radiant one), Janarddana (the most worshipful),
Damodara ('bound with a rope,' referring to the incident (p. 32) when
having been tied by Yasoda to a mortar, Krishna uproots the two trees),
Murari ('foe of Mura, the arch demon' p. 58) or in phrases such as
'queller of Kaliya the snake,' 'destroyer of Kesi, the demon horse,'
'slayer of Madhu--the demon who sprang from the ear of Vishnu and was
killed by him.' A similar use of periphrasis occurs in Anglo-Saxon
kennings ('world-candle' for sun, 'battle-adders' for arrows). In the same
way, Abul Fazl's chronicle, the _Akbarnama_, never names the emperor Akbar
but refers to him in terms such as 'His Majesty,' 'the holy soul,' 'lord
of the age,' 'fountain of generosity,' 'the sacred heart,' 'the
world-adorning mind,' 'the decorated mansion of sports.'


Note 7, p. 26, 34, 46, 68, 69.

In Chapters 3 and 4 I have, in the main, strictly followed the _Bhagavata
Purana,_ incorporating, however, a few important details and passages
either not given in this text but included in the _Vishnu Purana_ or if
given, not so vividly expressed. The details and passages in question are
page 27 concerning the white and black hairs of Vishnu, page 34--the
lyrical description of Krishna's life in the forest, page 46--Akrura's
meditation as he goes to visit Krishna, page 68--the drunken brawl and
page 69 the deaths of Balarama and Krishna. All extracts are from H.H.
Wilson, _The Vishnu Purana_ (pages 498, 511, 541-2, 609-612).


Note 8, p. 28.

The resemblance between Kansa's order to kill all male infants and Herod's
slaughter of the innocents has often been remarked.


Note 9, p. 29.

Krishna's constant alterations of role, appearing sometimes as God but
more often as boy or man, have been commented on by Isherwood and
Prabhavananda in connection with Arjuna's dilemma in the _Mahabharata_.
'Krishna is the divine incarnation of Vishnu, Arjuna's chosen deity.
Arjuna knows this--yet, by a merciful ignorance, he sometimes forgets.
Indeed, it is Krishna who makes him forget, since no ordinary man could
bear the strain of constant companionship with God. After the vision of
Krishna's divine aspect, Arjuna is appalled by the realization that he has
been treating the Lord of the universe as 'friend and fellow-mortal.' He
humbly begs Krishna's pardon, but his awe soon leaves him. Again, he has
forgotten. We may infer the same relationship between Jesus and his
disciples after the vision of the transfiguration.' _(The Song of God,
Bhagavad-Gita,_ 29-30).


Note 10, p. 33.

Although part of the supreme Trinity, Brahma was often treated in
literature as an ordinary god who ambled gently about the world, was often
rather absent-minded, sometimes behaved as if he were a priest, and was
prone, as on the present occasion, to act a trifle misguidedly.


Note 12, p. 40.

The scene is illustrated in two Kangra and Guler paintings (Archer,
_Indian Painting in the Punjab Hills_, Figs. 10 and 23).


Note 12, p. 58.

Pragjyotisha--a city situated in the east, in Kamarupa on the borders of
Assam. According to the _Vishnu Purana_ (Wilson, 582), its environs were
defended by 'nooses, constructed by the demon Mura (Naraka's ally), the
edges of which were as sharp as razors.' Mura had seven thousand sons (not
seven, as stated in the _Bhagavata_). All, however, were 'burnt like moths
with the flame of the edge of Krishna's discus.'


Note 13, p. 67.

Basham (op. cit., 305) points out that elements in the Krishna story such
as the destruction of the Yadavas and the death of the god are 'quite
un-Indian in their tragic character. The themes of the drunken brawl
leading to a general slaughter, of the hero slain by an arrow piercing his
one vulnerable spot, and of the great city engulfed by the sea, are
well-known in European epic literature, but do not occur elsewhere in that
of India and are not hinted at in the Vedas. The concept of the dying god,
so widespread in the ancient Near East, is found nowhere else in Indian
mythology.'

It is unfortunate that Krishna's reasons for destroying the Yadava race
are nowhere made very clear. The affront to the Brahmans is the immediate
occasion for the slaughter but hardly its actual cause; and, if it is
argued that the Yadavas must first be destroyed in order to render
Krishna's withdrawal from the world complete, we must then assume that the
Yadavas are in some mysterious way essential parts of Krishna himself.
Such a status, however, does not seem to be claimed for them and none of
the texts suggest that this is so. The slaughter, therefore, remains an
enigma.


Note 14, p. 68.

Wilson (op. cit., 608) summarizing the portents listed in the
_Mahabharata_ but not included in the _Vishnu_ or _Bhagavata Puranas_.


Note 15, p. 72.

From the _Brihadaranyaka_, quoted A. Danielou, 'An Approach to Hindu
Erotic Sculpture,' _Marg_, Vol. II, No. i, 88. For a Western expression of
this point of view, compare Eric Gill, 'Art and Love,' _Rupam_ (Calcutta,
1925), No. 21, 5.

'If the trees and rocks, the thunder and the sea, the frightful avidity of
animal life and the loveliness of flowers are so many hints of the God who
made them, how much more obviously are the things of humanity analogues of
the things of God? And among all such things, the union of man and woman
takes the highest place and is the most potent symbol. Therefore it is
that outside the commercial civilizations of the western world, love and
marriage take their place as types of divine union and everywhere love and
marriage are the subject matter, the theme of religious writers, singers,
painters and sculptors. It is true that love is the theme of western
writers also but with them the idea of love is entirely free from divine
signification. (As a corollary), the more the divine background
disappears, the more the prudishness of the police becomes the standard of
ethics and aesthetics alike. Under such an aegis the arts are necessarily
degraded to the level of the merely sentimental or the merely sensual and
while the sentimental is everywhere applauded, the sensual is a source of
panic.'


Note 16, p. 73.

In later poetry as well as in popular worship, Radha's position is always
that of an adored mistress--never that of a beloved wife. And it is
outside or rather in the teeth of marriage that her romance with Krishna
is prosecuted. Such a position clearly involved a sharp conflict with
conventional morals and in the fourteenth century, an attempt was made,
in the _Brahma Vaivarta Purana_, to re-write the _Bhagavata Purana_,
magnifying Radha as leader of the cow-girls, disguising or rather denying
her adultery and finally presenting her as Krishna's eternal consort. For
this purpose, three hypotheses were adopted. Radha was throughout assumed
to be Krishna's spouse and it is only on account of a curse that she takes
human form as a cowgirl and comes to live in Brindaban. Radha herself does
not marry Ayana the cowherd--his wedding being only with her shadow.
Thirdly, Krishna comes to Brindaban and goes through a secret marriage
with her. Their love-making is, therefore, no longer adulterous but
strictly conjugal. It is not perhaps surprising that the _Brahma Vaivarta
Purana_ failed to capture the Indian imagination and indeed is nowadays
hardly ever heard of. It is of interest mainly on account of the prolific
information given about Radha, the fact that it sets her firmly in the
centre, dethroning the hapless Rukmini, and its baroque descriptions of
sexual union.


Note 17, p. 73.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a parallel situation seems to
have arisen in feudal France and Germany where local love-poetry also
treated adultery as a _sine qua non_ of romance.

'Two things prevented the men of that age from connecting their ideal of
romantic and passionate love with marriage. The first is, of course, the
actual practice of feudal society. Marriages had nothing to do with love
and no 'nonsense' about marriage was tolerated. All marriages were matches
of interest and, worse still, of an interest that was continually
changing. When the alliance which had answered would answer no longer, the
husband's object was to get rid of the lady as quickly as possible.
Marriages were frequently dissolved. The same woman who was the lady and
'the dearest dread' of her vassals was often little better than a piece of
property to her husband. He was master in his own house. So far from being
a natural channel for the new kind of love, marriage was rather the drab
background against which that love stood out in all the contrast of its
new tenderness and delicacy. The situation is indeed a very simple one,
and not peculiar to the Middle Ages. Any idealization of sexual love, in a
society where marriage is purely utilitarian, must begin by being an
idealization of adultery.' (C.S. Lewis, _The Allegory of Love_ (London,
1936), 13.)


Note 18, p. 77.

Much of the _Gita Govinda's_ power arises from the endowment of Nature
with romantic ardour, the forest itself being presented as a highly
sensitive and symbolic setting for the behaviour of lovers. The following
passage from _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ is perhaps the nearest approach
in English to this kind of treatment.

'Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Var Vale, at a season
when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of
fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not
grow passionate. The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by their
surroundings. July passed over their heads and the weather which came in
its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state of
hearts at Talbothays Dairy. The air of the place, so fresh in the spring
and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now. Its heavy scents
weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying in a swoon.
Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the pastures, but there
was still bright herbage here where the water courses purled. And as Clare
was oppressed by the outward heats, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing
fervour of passion for the soft and silent Tess.'


Note 19, p. 77.

The _Gita Govinda_ was one of the first Sanskrit poems to be rendered into
English--Sir William Jones publishing a mellifluous version in _Asiatick
Researches_ in 1792. Later in the nineteenth century it was translated
into Victorian verse by Sir Edwin Arnold. The present translation from
which all the extracts are taken is by George Keyt, the foremost modern
artist of Ceylon. It is greatly to be hoped that the entire translation,
hitherto available only in an Indian edition, will one day be published in
England.


Note 20, p. 86.

Poems 1 and 2 are based on versions by O.C. Gangoly (_Masterpieces of
Rajput Painting_, 29, 58); poems 3-11 are from new translations by Deben
Bhattacharya.





Note 21, p. 91.

For the originals of certain poems in the _Rasika Priya_ and their literal
translation, see Coomaraswamy, 'The Eight Nayikas.'


Note 22, p. 104.

The first scholar to draw attention to this fact, i.e. that the subjects
are not Radha and Krishna but palace ladies impersonating them, is Dr.
Joan van Lohuizen de Leeuw, whose paper on this and kindred problems is
under preparation.


Note 23, p. 105.

For a detailed discussion of Bhanu Datta's _Rasamanjari_ and of similar
treatises by other Sanskrit authors, see V. Raghavan, _Srngaramanjari of
Saint Akbar Shah_ (Hyderabad, 1951).




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INDEX


Abul Fazl, 116, pl. 1 (comment)
Aditi, mother of the gods, 58, 59
_Age of Imperial Unity, The_, 115, 121
Agni, god of fire, 18
Agrawala, V.S., 121
Ahmadnagar, Deccan, 97
Ajmer, Rajasthan, 103
Akbar, Mughal Emperor, 97-99, 116, pl. 1 (comment)
_Akbarnama_, 98, 116
Akrura, chief of the Yadavas, 45-47, 49, 51, 57, 116
_Allegory of Love, The_, 119
Altdorfer, 93
Amaru, Sanskrit poet, 73
Aniruddha, son of Pradyumna and grandson of Krishna, 64
Archer, Mildred, 4, 9
Archer, W.G., 4, 101, 105, 107-112, 115, 117, 121
Arjuna, leading Pandava, husband of Draupadi, husband of Krishna's sister,
  Subhadra, 20-22, 64, 65, 67, 69, 116, 117
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 119
_Art of India and Pakistan, The_, 96, 98, 101, 104, 107, 111, 121
_Asiatick Researches_, 119
Assam, 117
Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor, 99
Ayana, husband of Radha, brother of Yasoda, 72, 118

Baden Powell, B.H., 110
Bakasura, crane demon, 33
_Balagopala Stuti_, poem by Bilvamangala, 84, 94
Balarama, brother of Krishna, 27, 30, 31, 34-36, 44-48, 50-56, 61-64, 66,
  67, 69, 116, pls. 1, 5, 6, 9, 12, 16, 17
Bali, ruler of the underworld, 62
Bani Thani, poetess of Kishangarh, 103
_Barahmasa_, poems of the twelve months, 102, pl. 32
Basawan, Mughal artist, pls. 1, 2 (comment), 3 (comment)
Basham, A.L., 9, 19, 115, 117, 121
Basohli, Punjab Hills, 104, 105, 107, 111, pls. 18 (comment),
  26 (comment), 30 (comment)
Beatty, Sir Chester, pls. 17, 19
_Bhagavad Gita_, 15-17, 24, 67, 115, 117
_Bhagavata Purana_, 11, 25-71, 72, 74, 85, 85, 99, 101, 105, 107,
  110, 111, 116-18, 121, pls. 3-19
_Bhakti_, devotion to God, 19, 24
Bhanu Datta, author of _Rasamanjari_, 9, 105, 120, pls. 30, 31
Bharat Kala Bhawan, Banaras, 103, pl. 37
_Bharatiya Natya Sastra_, Sanskrit treatise, 90
Bhartrihari, Sanskrit poet, 73
Bhattacharya, Deben, 9, 87-90, 119
Bhima, strongest of the five Pandavas, 24, 65, 66
Bihari Lai, poet, 84, 110, pl. 36
Bijapur, Deccan, 97
Bikaner, Rajasthan, 99, 100, 103
Bilaspur, Punjab Hills, 107, 111, pl. 18
Bilvamangala, poet, 84, 94
Blue, colour of Krishna, 14, 115
Book covers, Bengali, 111
Brahma, 17, 27, 28, 33, 34, 58, 59, 65, 67, 117, pl. 2
_Brahma Vaivarta Purana_, 118, 121
Brahmans, 22, 28, 30, 38, 39, 62, 63, 67, 68, 71, 74, 107, 108, 117
  Wives of, 38, 39
Braj, country around Mathura, 26, 28, 40
_Brihadaranyaka_, 117
Brindaban, forest near Gokula, 33, 35, 45, 46, 49, 52, 53, 59-62, 103,
  pl. 6
British Museum, pl. 18
Brough, J., 9
Buddhism, 94
Bull demon, 44
Bundelkhand, 91, 99
Bundi, Rajasthan, 101-103
Burnouf, E., 121

Calcutta, 111, 112
Campbell, Roy, 75
Ceylon, 57, 112
Chamba, Punjab Hills, 107, 111
Chandi Das, Bengali poet, 84, 85, 89, 111
Chandigarh Art Gallery, East Punjab, pl. 27
_Chandogya Upanishad_, 17, 24, 115
Chanura, wrestler, 45, 48
Chawand, Mewar, 100
Christ, 14, 112, 117
Clothes, stealing of cowgirls', 37, 38, 74, 75, pl. 11
Coomaraswamy, A.K., 99, 104-6, 108, 120, 121, pl. 8 (comment)
Cowgirls, loves of the, 29, 36-38, 41-44, 46, 49, 50, 52, 53, 58, 60-62,
  66, 70-82, 85, 86, 109, 110, 113, pls. 11, 13-15, 20-23.
Cowherds, abandonment of, by Krishna,
  Krishna's life with, 49-53, 61, 62

Damodara, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
Dance, circular, 38, 41, 43, 46, 74, 75, p. 13 (comment)
Danielou, A., 117
Daruka, charioteer to Krishna, 68, 69
Demons, combats with, 29, 30, 33-36, 44, 45, 54, 55, 58, 64, 116, 117,
  pl. 9
  role of, 18, 19
Devaka, younger brother of King Ugrasena, 27
Devaki, mother of Krishna, 17, 27, 28, 44, 46, 48-50, 52, 63, 69, pl. 3
Devi, goddess, Earth Mother, 28, 40, 56, pls. 3, 18
Dey, B., 112
_Dharma_, 18, 23
Dhenuka, ass demon, 34
Dhritarashtra, blind son of Kuru, father of Kauravas, 20, 21, 51, 66
Dice, contest by, 21
Dickinson, Eric, 103
Draupadi, daughter of King of Panchal, common wife of the five Pandavas,
  20-23, 64, 67
Drumalika, demon, 26
Duryodhana, leading Kaurava and son of Dhritarashtra, 23, 51, 66, 67
Dwarka, Krishna's capital in Western India, 21, 22, 54-59, 61-64, 66-70,
  94, 108, pls. 2 (comment), 19

Earth, 27, 49, 58, 67
_Eastern Love_, 121
El Greco, 93

Flute playing, 15, 36, 37, 41, 61, 78, 86, 109, 112, pl. 21
Forest fires, 35, 36, pl. 10
France, feudal, 118

Games with cowherds, Krishna's, 31-35, 45, pls. 4-9
Gandhi, Mahatma, 15
Gangoly, O.C., 104, 119, 121
Garga, sage, 30, 31
Garhwal, Punjab Hills, 107-110, pl. 38
_Garhwal Painting_, 107, 108, 121
Germany, feudal, 118
Ghora Angirasa, 17, 115
Gill, Eric, 118
_Gita Govinda_, Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva, 9, 11, 76-84, 94-96, 98,
  110, 111, 113, 119, 121, pls. 20-27
Gods, role of, 18, 19
Goetz, H., 99, 100
Gokula, district near Mathura, 26, 30, 33, 44
Govardhan Singh, Raja of Guler, 107
Govardhana, greatest of the hills, 39, 40, 42, 59, pl. 12
Govind Das, poet, 84, 88
Govinda, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
Gray, Basil, 100, 121
Grierson, Sir G.A., 121
Grunewald, 93
_Gujarati Painting in the Fifteenth Century_, 121
Guler, Punjab Hills, 107-109, pl. 18 (comment)

Hari, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
_Harivansa_, appendix to _Mahabharata_ epic, 25, 32, 98, 116
Hendley, T.H., 98, 121
Herod, 116
Holi festival, 109
Hollings, W., 121
Hunter, slayer of Krishna, see Jara.
Hussain Shah, ruler of Jaunpur, 96

India Office Library, London, pl. 34 (comment)
Indian Museum, Calcutta, pl. 35
_Indian Painting_, 115, 121
_Indian Painting in the Punjab Hills_, 105, 107
Indra, king of the gods, lord of the clouds, 18, 24, 39, 40, 46, 58, 59,
  65, 66, pls. 2, 12
Irwin, J., 112
Isherwood, Christopher, 15, 24, 116

Jadupatuas, minstrel artists of Bengal, 112
Jaipur, Rajasthan, 95, 98, 103, 104, pls. 1 (comment), 2 (comment)
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, 103
Jambhavati, a queen of Krishna, 56, 57, 60
Jammu, Punjab Hills, 107
Janarddana, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
Japan, 13
Jara, Bhil hunter, slayer of Krishna, 24, 67, 69, pl. 2
Jarasandha, demon king of Magadha, 26, 54-56, 65
Jaunpur, Eastern India, 96, 97
Jayadeva, Sanskrit poet, 76, 77, 84, 94, 111, 121
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 95, 103
Jones, Sir William, 119, 121
Jumna, river, 22, 28, 35, 37, 41, 43, 47, 48, 61, 74, 82, 85, pls. 8,
  13-15

Kalidasa, Sanskrit poet, 73
Kalindi, a queen of Krishna, 57, 60, 64
Kaliya, giant hydra-headed snake, 35, 42, 46, 108, 116, pls. 8,
  10 (comment)
Kaliyavana, 54
_Kalpasutra_, Jain Scripture, 96
Kama, god of passion, 18, 64
Kamalavati, mother of Radha, 72
Kangra, Punjab Hills, 93, 108-11, pl. 3 (comment)
_Kangra Painting_, 109, 110, 121
_Kangra Valley Painting_, 121
Kanoria, Gopi Krishna, 9, pls. 7, 29, 39
Kansa, tyrant king of Mathura, son of Pavanarekha by the demon
  Drumalika, 26-9, 31, 33, 43-50, 54, 55, 57, 62, 110, 116, pls. 3,
  9 (comment), 16 (comment), 17, 35 (comment)
Karna, leading Kaurava killed by Arjuna at Kurukshetra, 23
Kauravas, the 100 sons of Dhritarashtra, rivals of the Pandavas
  (vide _Mahabharata_) 20, 21, 23, 26, 51, 62, 66, 67
Kennings, Anglo-Saxon, 116
Keshav Das, poet, 84, 91, 99, 100, 105, pls. 28, 30 (comment)
Keshava, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
Kesi, horse demon, 44, 45, 115
Keyt, George, artist and translator of the _Gita Govinda_, 9, 76-83,
  112, 113, 119, 121, pls. 21-27 (comments)
Khandalawala, Karl, 95, 96, pls. 10, 23 (comment)
Khurasan, 97, pl. 1 (comment)
Kirpal Pal, Raja of Basohli, 104, 105, 107, pl. 10 (comment)
Kishangarh, Rajasthan, 103, pl. 39
Kotah, Rajasthan, 103
Krishna Das, poet, 84
Kubera, yaksha king, pl. 5 (comment)
Kubja, hunchback girl, 47, 53, 54
Kulu, Punjab Hills, 107, 111
Kumbhan Das, poet, 84
Kundulpur, 56
  Raja of, father of Rukmini, 55
Kunti, wife of Pandu, mother of the Pandavas, sister of Vasudeva
  (Krishna's father), 20, 21, 51, 57, 62, 64
Kuru, common ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas, 20
Kurukshetra, battle-field of, 15, 21, 26, 61
Kushala, Kangra artist, 110, pls. 3, 21, 36
Kuvara, brother of Nala, 32, pl. 5.

Lahore, State Museum, pl. 26
Lanka, modern Ceylon, 57
Léger, F., 112
Lewis, C.S., 119
Lohuizen, Dr. Joan van, de Leeuw, 120
_Love Songs of Asia_, 121
Lucknow, State Museum, pl. 5

MacNeice, Louis, 15
Madhu, demon, 116
Magadha, 26, 54, 55
_Mahabharata_, 11, 17, 19-25, 51, 70, 98, 115
Mahavira, founder of Jainism, 94
Malabar, 84
Malwa, Central India, 97, 100-2
Manaku, Basohli princess, patron of painting, 107, pl. 26 (comment)
Manohar, Mewar artist, 100
_Marg_, Indian art journal, 95, 103, 111, 117
_Masterpieces of Rajput Painting_, 104, 119, 121
Mathers, E. Powys, 121
Mathura, town in Northern India, 26, 29, 30, 38, 39, 44-55, 61, 74, 76,
  pls. 16 (comment), 17 (comment)
Mazumdar, M.R., 94
  R.C., 115, 121
Mehendale, M.A., 115, 116
Mehta, N.C., 95, 107, 110, 121, pls. 4, 21, 22, 36
Mewar, Rajasthan, 100, 103
Mira Bai, poetess, 84
Mithila, 111
_Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan, The_, 121
Mody, J.K., pls. 3, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16
Monkey demon, 64
Mookerjee, A., 112
Moonlight, master of the, pls. 13-5
Moti Chandra, 96
Mukund, Mughal artist, pl. 2
Murari, pseudonym for Krishna, 116
Muru (or Mura), arch demon, 58, 117
Muslim artists, 99, 100
  invasions, 73
  rulers, 93, 96, 98
  states, 97, 101
Mustaka, wrestler, 48

Nainsukh, Guler artist, pls. 3 (comment), 21 (comment)
Nala, brother of Kuvara, 32, pl. 5
Nanda, wealthy herdsman, foster-father of Krishna, 27-32, 35-41, 44-53,
  61, 62, 77, 107, pls. 5, 10, 12, 20
Narada, sage, 60
Naraka, demon son of Earth, 58, 117
Nasiruddin, Mewar artist, 100
_Nayikas_ and _Nayakas_, 90, 91, 102, pl. 28
New Delhi, National Museum, pls. 5, 9, 12, 14, 20, 28
New Testament, 15
Nihal Chand, Kishangarh artist, 103
Nude, the, pl. 11
Nurpur, Punjab Hills, 107, 111

Ocean, 69
Orchha, Central India, 84, 91, 99

Painting, Basohli, 104-7, pls. 4, 10, 18 (comment), 26 (comment), 27,
  30, 31
  Bengali, 111, 112
  Bikaner, 99, 100
  Bilaspur, 107, 111, pl. 18
  Bundi, 101, 102, pls. 28, 32
  Deccani, 97, pl. 34
  European, pl. 1 (comment)
  Flemish, 14
  Garhwal, 107, 108, pls. 3 (comment), 7, 8 (comment), 12, 19, 20, 25, 35,
    38 (comment)
German, 93
  Gujarati, 94, 121
  Guler, 107, 108, 117, 121, pls. 3 (comment), 21 (comment), 37
  Italian, 14
  Jain, 94-96, pl. 22 (comment)
  Jaipur, 104, 120
  Jaunpur, 96, pls. 23-24
  Kalighat, 111, 112
  Kangra, 93, 103-111, 117, 121, pls. 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13-17, 21, 36
  Kishangarh, 103, 104, pl. 39
  Maithil, 111
  Malwa, 97, 101, 102, pl. 33
  Mughal, 13, 97-99, 103, 105, 107, 121, pls. 1, 2, 3 (comment)
  Nahan, pl. 38
  Persian, 97
  Udaipur, Mewar, 100, 101, 103-105, pl. 28 (comment), 29
  Western Indian, 94-96, pl. 22 (comment)
  Western Rajasthani, pl. 22
Panchala, kingdom of, 20, 21
Pandavas, five sons of Pandu, rivals of the Kauravas (vide _Mahabharata_),
  20-26, 51, 57, 62-66, 70, 116
Pandu, second son of Kuru, father of the Pandavas, 20
Parasurama, 'Rama with the Axe,' incarnation of Vishnu, 20
Parikshit, great-grandson of Krishna, 69
Parmanand Das, poet, 84
Parvati, consort of Siva, 37
Pavanarekha, wife of King Ugrasena, 26
Prabhasa, town near Dwarka, 68, 94, pl. 1 (comment)
Prabhavananda, Swami, 15, 24, 116, 121
Pradyumna, Krishna's son by Rukmini, 64
Pragjyotisha, city of the demon, Naraka, 58, 117
Pralamba, demon in human form, 35, pls. 9, 10 (comment)
Pratap Singh, Raja of Jaipur, 104
Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, pls. 23, 24, 32
Punjab Hills, 4, 13, 93, 98, 104, 105, 107, 111
Purkhu, Kangra artist, 109, 110, pls. 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 16
Putana, ogress, 29, 42

Radha, Krishna's chief cowgirl love, 15, 16, 72-90, 96, 98, 103-105,
  109-111, 113, 117, pls. 13 (comment). 20-29, 31-39
_Ragas_ and _Raginis_, modes of Indian music, 84, 101, 102, 107,
  pls. 33, 34
_Ragas and Raginis_, 121
Raghavan, V., 120
Rajasthan, 13, 95, 96, 99-105
_Rajput Painting_ (Coomaraswamy), 104, 108, 121, pl. 8 (comment)
  (Gray), 121
Ram Gopal, 15
Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, 20, 57, 115
_Ramayana_, 98
Rana Jagat Singh, ruler of Mewar, 100
Rana Raj Singh, ruler of Mewar, 100, 105
Randhawa, M.S., 121
_Rasamanjari_, Sanskrit treatise by Bhanu Datta, 9, 105, 106, 120,
  pls. 30, 31
_Rasika Priya_, Hindi treatise by Keshav Das (comment), 11, 90-92,
  99-102, 105, 120, pls. 28, 30 (comment)
_Razmnama_, Persian abridgement of the _Mahabharata_, 98, Pls. 1, 2
Re-birth, theory of, 17-19
Revati, wife of Balarama, 55
Rohini, a wife of Vasudeva, mother of Balarama, 27-31, 35, 44, 53, 99
_Roopa-lekha_, Indian art journal, 121
Roy, Jamini, 112
Roy, P.C., 121
Rukma, brother of Rukmini, 56, 64
Rukmini, Krishna's first queen, 15, 55, 56, 59, 60, 64, 66, 69-72, 118,
  pl. 18
Ruknuddin, Bikaner artist, 99
_Rupam_, Indian art journal, 118
Russell, M., 113

Saktasura, demon, 30
Sankhasura, yaksha demon, 44
Sansar Chand, Raja of Kangra, 13, 108-111
_Sat Sat_, poems by Bihari Lal, 110, pl. 36
Sattrajit, father of Satyabhama, 56, 57
Satyabhama, a queen of Krishna, 56, 57, 59, 60
Sawant Singh, Raja of Kishangarh, 103
Scroll paintings, 112
Sen, D.C., 121
Sen, R.N., 121
Sesha, serpent of eternity, a part of Vishnu, 27, 69, pl. 1
Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor, 99
Shahabaddin, Mewar artist, 100
Sher-Gil, Amrita, 112
Shiraz, 97
Sirmur, Punjab Hills, pl. 38 (comment)
Sisupala, claimant to Rukmini, rival of Krishna, 22, 56, 59, 66,
  pl. 18 (comment)
Sitwell, Sacheverell, 14
Siva, 17, 18, 37, 44, 58, 59, 64, 65, 67, pl. 2
Srinagar, Garhwal, 108
St. John of the Cross, 74, 75
Stchoukine, I, 121
_Studies in Indian Painting_, 121
Subhadra, sister of Krishna, 22, 64, 65
Sudama, brahman, early friend of Krishna, 62, 63, 108, pl. 19
Sudarsana, Celestial dancer, 40, 41
Sur Das, poet, 84, 86, pl. 29
Surabhi, cow of plenty, 40
Sursagar, Hindi poem, pl. 29
Surya, sun god, 18

Tagore, Rabindranath, 112
_Taking of Toll, The_, 121
_Ten Burnt Offerings_, 15
_Tess of the D'Urbervilles,_ 119
Trinavarta, whirlwind demon, 30

Udaipur, chief city, Mewar, 100, 101, 103-105, pl. 29 (comment)
Udho, friend of Krishna, 52-54, 68
Ugrasena, king of Mathura, 26, 48, 54, 57, 67, 69
Ugrasura, snake demon, 33
_Upanishads_, 17
Usa, daughter of demon Vanasura, 64

Vaikuntha, heaven of Vishnu, 18, 59
Vallabhacharya, poet, 84
Vamana, dwarf incarnation of Vishnu, 20
Vanasura, demon with a thousand arms, 64
Varuna, god of water, 18, 38, pl. 1
Vasudeva, Yadava prince, father of Krishna, husband of Devaki, brother of
  Kunti, 21, 27-31, 44, 46, 48-53, 62, 69, pl. 3
Vatsasura, cow demon, 33
Vedas, 39, 46, 56, 117
_Vedic Age, The_, 121
Victoria and Albert Museum, 98, pls. 30, 33, 34
Vidyapati, poet, 84, 87, 90, 111
Vishnu, 17-20, 26-29, 36, 39, 40, 45-47, 49, 56-58, 67, 69, 70, 76, 115,
  116, pl. 2 (comment)
_Vishnu Purana_, 25, 116, 117, pl. 8 (comment)
Visvakarma, divine architect, 54, 63
Vrishabhanu, father of Radha, 72
Vrishnis, kinsmen of Krishna, 23
Vyamasura, wolf demon, 45

Wellesz, E., 98
Williams, R.H.B., pl. 30 (comment)
Wilson, H.H., 116, 117
Winternitz, M., 121
_Wonder that was India, The_, 19, 115, 117, 121
Wrestlers, Krishna's conflict with, 44, 45, 48, pl. 17

Yadavas, pastoral caste, Krishna's castemen, 21, 26, 27, 45, 49-57, 61,
  62, 54, 66-69, 117, pls. 1 (comment), 2 (comment)
Yasoda, wife of Nanda, foster-mother of Krishna, 27-33, 35, 49, 51-53, 61,
  62, 72, 109
Yoga, 19, 23
Yudhisthira, leader of the Pandavas, husband of Draupadi, 21-23, 65, 66




THE PLATES


[Illustration]

PLATE 1

_The Death of Balarama_

Illustration to the Persian abridgement of the
_Mahabharata_, the _Razmnama_ (or Book of the Wars)
By Basawan
Mughal (Akbar period), c. 1595
Collection H.H. the Maharaja of Jaipur, Jaipur

Although illustrations of the Hindu epic, the _Mahabharata_, were rarely
commissioned by Hindu patrons, the gigantic text possessed a unique appeal
to Indian minds and for this reason the Mughal emperor, Akbar, chose it
for translation into Persian. 'Having observed the fanatical hatred
prevailing between Hindus and Muslims,' writes his biographer, Abul Fazl,
'and convinced that it arose only from their mutual ignorance, the
enlightened monarch wished to dispel the same by rendering the books of
the former accessible to the latter.' The work of translation was begun in
1582 and was probably concluded in 1588 when Abul Fazl wrote the preface.
It is unlikely, however, that the illustrations were completed before
1595.

The present picture by one of Akbar's greatest Hindu artists illustrates
the sensitive naturalism which from antecedents in Khurasan came to
elegant maturity in Mughal India between 1585 and 1600. Certain
details--the drapery with its shaded folds, the steeples rising in the
distance--are modelled on the European Renaissance pictures which by 1580
had already reached the court. Other details such as the lithe squirrels
gambolling in the tree, the rearing snakes and dense luxuriant foliage can
only have been painted by an artist devoted to the Indian scene.

In subject, the picture represents what Krishna saw on his return from
destroying the Yadavas at Prabhasa. Balarama, his half-brother, has gone
down to the sea and has there yielded up his spirit. Sesha, the great
serpent, who is part of Vishnu himself, is now issuing from the body
Balarama having been his incarnation. Snakes come to greet him while
Varuna, the god of water, stands as 'an old man of the sea' ready to
escort him to his long home.


[Illustration]

PLATE 2

_The Death of Krishna_

Illustration to the Persian abridgement of the
_Mahabharata_, the _Razmuama_ (or Book of the Wars)
By Mukund
Mughal (Akbar period), c. 1595
Collection H.H. the Maharaja of Jaipur, Jaipur

Following the death of Balarama, Krishna prepares to leave the world. He
sits in meditation and is shot in the sole of his right foot by Jara, a
Bhil hunter--the arrow which kills him being tipped with part of the iron
which has caused the destruction of the Yadavas.

The picture shows Krishna reclining on a platform of the kind still
constructed in India at the base of sacred trees. An arrow transfixes his
right foot while the hunter, dressed as a courtier in Mughal dress, is
shown releasing the bow. In front of Krishna stand four awe-struck
figures, representing the celestial sages and devotees of Vishnu who have
come to attend his passing. In the sky four gods look down. To the right
is Siva. Then, a little to the left, is four-headed Brahma, below him,
Indra, his body spotted with a thousand eyes and finally a fourth god of
uncertain identity. Around the platform surges the snarling sea as if
impatiently awaiting Krishna's death before engulfing the doomed Dwarka.

The painting is by a colleague of Basawan (Plate 1) and illustrates the
same great text.


[Illustration]

PLATE 3

_The Slaughter of an Innocent_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

Following the expansion of Indian miniature painting in the early
seventeenth century, illustrated versions of the tenth book of the
_Bhagavata Purana_ began to be produced in parts of Hindu India. It was in
the Punjab Hills, at the end of the eighteenth century, however, that
romance and religion achieved their most delicate expression. The artist
chiefly responsible was a certain Nainsukh who had arrived at the State of
Guler in about 1740. His way of painting had marked affinities with that
of Basawan (Plate 1) and represents a blend of early Mughal naturalism
with later Hindu sentiment. The style founded by him influenced members of
his own family, including his nephew Kushala and ultimately spread to
Kangra and Garhwal where it reached its greatest heights. The present
picture, together with Plates 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 16, is possibly by the
Kangra artist Purkhu and with others of the series illustrates perhaps the
greatest interpretation of the _Bhagavata Purana_ ever produced in Indian
painting.

In the picture, the tyrant ruler Kansa is sleeping on a bed as a courtier
prepares to break the fateful news of Krishna's birth. To the right,
Devaki, Krishna's mother, nurses the baby girl whom her husband, Vasudeva,
has substituted for the infant Krishna. Kansa is wresting the baby from
her in order to dash its head against a boulder. As he does so, she eludes
his grasp and ascends to heaven in a flash, being, in fact, the
eight-armed goddess Devi.


[Illustration]

PLATE 4

_Krishna stealing Butter_

Illustration to an incident from the _Bhagavata Purana_
Basohli, Punjab Hills, c. 1700
N.C. Mehta collection, Bombay

Besides illustrating the tenth book of the _Bhagavata Purana_ as a whole,
Indian artists sometimes chose isolated episodes and composed their
pictures around them. The present picture is an instance of this practice,
its subject being the baby Krishna pilfering butter. As Yasoda, Krishna's
foster-mother, goes inside the house, Krishna and the cowherd children
stage an impudent raid. A cowherd boy mounts a wooden mortar and then,
balanced on his shoulders, the young Krishna helps himself to the butter
which is kept stored in a pot suspended by strings from the roof. A second
cowherd boy reaches up to lift the butter down while edging in from the
right, a monkey, emblematic of mischievous thieving, shares in the spoil.

The picture illustrates the wild and vehemently expressive style of
painting which suddenly appeared at Basohli, a tiny State in the Punjab
Hills, towards the end of the seventeenth century. The jagged form of
Yasoda, cut in two by the lintel of the doorway, the stabbing lines of the
churning pole, grazing sticks and cords, as well as the sharp angles of
the house and its furniture, all contribute to a state of taut excitement.


[Illustration]

PLATE 5

_The Felling of the Trees_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
State Museum, Lucknow

From the same great series as Plate 3, here attributed to the Kangra
artist Purkhu.

The young Krishna, tied to a mortar to keep him out of mischief, has
dragged it between two trees and thereby uprooted them. The cowherds, led
by the bearded Nanda, Krishna's foster-father, have hurried to the scene
and Balarama, Krishna's half-brother, is excitedly pointing out that
Krishna is safe. In the foreground, emerging from the earth are two
crowned figures--Nala and Kuvara, the sons of the yaksha king, Kubera,
who, as a consequence of a curse had been turned into the two trees.
Doomed to await Krishna's intervention, they have now been released.
Reclining on the trunks, still tied to the mortar, the young Krishna
surveys the scene with pert satisfaction.


[Illustration]

PLATE 6

_The Road to Brindaban_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

With Plates 3 and 5, part of the series attributed to Purkhu.

Led by Nanda, the majestic figure in the front bullock-cart, the cowherds
are moving a day's march across the River Jumna to enjoy the larger
freedom of Brindaban. Their possessions--bundles of clothes,
spinning-wheels, baskets of grain and pitchers--are being taken with them
and mounted with Yasoda on a second cart go the children, Balarama and
Krishna. With its great variety of stances, simple naturalism and air of
innocent calm, the picture exactly expresses the terms of tender
familiarity on which the cowherds lived with Krishna.


[Illustration]

PLATE 7

_Krishna milking_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Garhwal, Punjab Hills, c. 1800
G.K. Kanoria collection, Calcutta

Like Plate 4, an illustration of an isolated episode. Krishna, having
graduated from tending the calves, is milking a cow, his mind filled with
brooding thoughts. A cowgirl restrains the calf by tugging at its string
while the cow licks its restive offspring with tender care. Other
details--the tree clasped by a flowering creeper, the peacock perched in
its branches--suggest the cowgirls' growing love. The image of tree and
creeper was a common symbol in poetry for the lover embraced by his
beloved and peacocks, thirsting for rain, were evocative of desire.

In style, the picture represents the end of the first great phase of
Garhwal painting (c. 1770-1804) when romantic themes were treated with
glowing ardour.


[Illustration]

PLATE 8

_The Quelling of the Snake Kaliya_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

With Plates 3, 5 and 6, an example of Kangra painting in its most serene
form.

Krishna, having defied the hydra-headed snake whose poison has befouled
the River Jumna, is dancing in triumph on its sagging heads. The snake's
consorts plead for mercy--one of them holding out bunches of lotus
flowers, the others folding their hands or stretching out their arms in
mute entreaty. The river is once again depicted as a surging flood but it
is the master-artist's command of sinuous line and power of suffusing a
scene of turmoil with majestic calm which gives the picture greatness.

Although the present study is true to the _Bhagavata Purana_ where the
snake is explicitly described as vacating the water and meeting its end
on dry land, other pictures, notably those from Garhwal[129] follow the
_Vishnu Purana_ and show the final struggle taking place in the river
itself.

[Footnote 129: Reproduced A.K. Coomaraswamy, _Rajput Painting_ (Oxford,
1916), Vol. II, Plates 53 and 54.]


[Illustration]

PLATE 9

_Balarama killing the Demon Pralamba_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

A further example from the Kangra series, here attributed to Purkhu.

As part of his war on Krishna and young boys, the tyrant Kansa sends
various demons to harry and kill them, the present picture showing four
stages in one such attack. To the right, the cowherd children, divided
into two parties, face each other by an ant-hill, Krishna with arms
crossed heading the right-hand group and Balarama the left. Concealed as a
cowherd in Krishna's party, the demon Pralamba awaits an opportunity of
killing Balarama. The second stage, in the right-hand bottom corner, shows
Balarama's party giving the other side 'pick-a-backs,' after having been
vanquished in a game of guessing flowers and fruit. The third stage is
reached in the top left-hand corner. Here Pralamba has regained his demon
form and is hurrying off with Balarama. Balarama's left hand is tightly
clutched but with his right he beats at the demon's head. The fourth and
final stage is illustrated in the bottom left-hand corner where Balarama
has subdued the demon and is about to slay him.

The picture departs from the normal version, as given in the _Bhagavata
Purana,_ by showing Balarama's side, instead of Krishna's, carrying out
the forfeits. According to the _Purana_, it was Krishna's side that lost
and since Pralamba was among the defeated, he was in a position to take
Balarama for a ride. It is likely, however, that in view of the other
episode in the _Purana_ in which Krishna humbles his favourite cowgirl
when she asks to be carried (Plate 14), the artist shrank from showing
Krishna in this servile posture so changed the two sides round.


[Illustration]

PLATE 10

_The Forest Fire_

Illustration to an incident from the _Bhagavata Purana_
Basohli, Punjab Hills, c. 1680
Karl Khandalavala collection, Bombay

Under Raja Kirpal Pal (c. 1680-1693), painting at Basohli attained a
savage intensity of expression--the present picture illustrating the style
in its earliest and greatest phase. Surrounded by a ring of fire and with
cowherd boys and cattle stupefied by smoke, Krishna is putting out the
blaze by sucking the flames into his cheeks. Deer and pig are bounding to
safety while birds and wild bees hover distractedly overhead.

During his life among the cowherds, Krishna was on two occasions
confronted with a forest fire--the first, on the night following his
struggle with Kaliya the snake when Nanda, Yasoda and other cowherds and
cowgirls were also present and the second, following Balarama's encounter
with the demon Pralamba (Plate 10), when only cowherd boys were with him.
Since Nanda and the cowgirls are absent from the present picture, it is
probably the second of these two occasions which is illustrated.

For a reproduction in colour of this passionately glowing picture, see
Karl Khandalavala, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_ (Bombay, 1938) (Plate
10).


[Illustration]

PLATE 11

_The Stealing of the Clothes_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

Despite the Indian delight in sensuous charm, the nude was only rarely
depicted in Indian painting--feelings of reverence and delicacy forbidding
too unabashed a portrayal of the feminine physique. The present picture
with its band of nude girls is therefore an exception--the facts of the
_Purana_ rendering necessary their frank inclusion.

The scene illustrated concerns the efforts of the cowgirls to win
Krishna's love. Bathing naked in the river at dawn in order to rid
themselves of sin, they are surprised by Krishna who takes their clothes
up into a tree. When they beg him to return them, he insists that each
should freely expose herself before him, arguing that only in this way can
they convince him of their love. In the picture, the girls are shyly
advancing while Krishna looks down at them from the tree.


[Illustration]

PLATE 12

_The Raising of Mount Govardhana_

Illustration to an incident from the _Bhagavata Purana_
Garhwal, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

With Plate 7, an example of Garhwal painting and its use of smoothly
curving line.

Krishna is lifting Mount Govardhana on his little finger and Nanda, the
cowherds and cowgirls are sheltering underneath. The occasion is Krishna's
slight to Indra, king of the gods and lord of the clouds, whose worship he
has persuaded the cowherds to abandon. Incensed at Krishna's action, Indra
has retaliated by sending storms of rain.

In the picture, Indra, a tiny figure mounted on a white elephant careers
across the sky, goading the clouds to fall in torrents. Lightning flickers
wildly and on Govardhana itself, the torn and shattered trees bespeak the
gale's havoc. Below all is calm as the cowherds acclaim Krishna's power.


[Illustration]

PLATE 13

_Krishna with his Favourite after leaving the Dance_

Illustration to the _Bhagavala Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

Besides Purkhu, at least two other master-artists worked at Kangra towards
the end of the eighteenth century--one, responsible for the present
picture and Plates 14 and 15, being still unknown. He is here referred to
as 'the master of the moonlight' on account of his special preoccupation
with moonlight effects.

The present picture shows Krishna and a girl standing by an inlet of the
River Jumna. The girl is later to be identified as Radha but in the
_Bhagavata Purana_ she is merely referred to as one who has been
particularly favoured, her actual name being suppressed. The moment is
some time after they have left the circular dance and before their sudden
separation. Krishna, whose hand rests on the girl's shoulder, is urging
her forward but the girl is weary and begs him to carry her. The incident
illustrates one of the vicissitudes in Radha and Krishna's romance and was
later to be endowed with deep religious meaning.


[Illustration]

PLATE 14

_Krishna's Favourite deserted_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

From the same series as Plates 13 and 15 by 'the master of the moonlight.'

The girl's request (Plate 13) that Krishna should carry her brings to a
head the question of Krishna's proper status. To an adoring lover, the
request is not unreasonable. Made to God, it implies an excess of pride.
Despite their impassioned love-making, therefore, the girl must be humbled
and as she puts out her arms and prepares to mount, Krishna vanishes.

In the picture, the great woods overhanging the rolling Jumna are tilting
forward as if to join the girl in her agonized advances while around her
rise the bleak and empty slopes, their eerie loneliness intensified by
frigid moonlight.


[Illustration]

PLATE 15

_The Quest for Krishna_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

By the same 'master of the moonlight' as Plates 13 and 14.

Krishna's favourite, stunned by his brusque desertion, has now been met by
a party of cowgirls. Their plight is similar to her own, for, after
enjoying his enchanting love, they also have been deserted when Krishna
left the dance taking his favourite with him. In the picture, Radha holds
her head in anguish while to the right the cowgirls look at her in mute
distress. Drooping branches echo their stricken love while a tree in the
background, its branches stretching wanly against the sky, suggests their
plaintive yearning.


[Illustration]

PLATE 16

_The Eve of the final Encounter_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay

From the same series as Plates 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11, here attributed to
the Kangra artist Purkhu.

Invited by Kansa, the tyrant king, to attend a festival of arms, Nanda and
the cowherds have arrived at Mathura and pitched their tents outside the
walls. Krishna and Balarama are eating their evening meal by candle-light,
a cowherd, wearing a dark cloak to keep off the night air, is attending to
the bullocks while three cowherd boys, worn out by the day's march, rest
on string-beds under the night sky. In the background, Krishna and
Balarama, having finished their meal, are peacefully sleeping, serenely
indifferent to the struggle which awaits them the next day. The moon
waning in the sky parallels the tyrant's declining fortunes.


[Illustration]

PLATE 17

_The End of the Tyrant_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

In the same style as Plate 16, but perhaps from a different series.

The festival of arms is now in progress but has already taken an
unexpected turn. Set on by the savage elephant, Krishna and Balarama have
killed it and taken out the tusks. They have then engaged two giant
wrestlers, Krishna killing his opponent outright. In the picture Balarama
is about to kill the other wrestler and Krishna, holding an elephant tusk
under his arm, looks at the king with calm defiance. The king's end is now
in sight for a little later Krishna will spring on the platform and hurl
him to his death. Gathered in the wide arena, townspeople from Mathura
await the outcome, while cowherd boys delightedly encourage the two
heroes.


[Illustration]

PLATE 18

_The Rape of Rukmini_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Bilaspur, Punjab Hills, c. 1745
British Museum. London

Compared with Krishna's life among the cowherds, his adventures as a
prince were only scantily illustrated in Indian painting--his consort
Rukmini being totally eclipsed in courtly favour by the adored cowgirl,
Radha. The present picture--one of the very few to represent the
theme--shows Rukmini and her maids worshipping at the shrine to Devi, the
earth mother, on the morning of her wedding. Her proposed husband is
Sisupala and already he and his party have arrived to claim her hand. In
despair Rukmini has apprised Krishna of her fate but does not know that he
will intervene. As she worships, Krishna suddenly appears, places her on
his chariot and, in the teeth of Sisupala's forces, carries her away. The
picture illustrates the dramatic moment when after descending on the
shrine, Krishna effects her rescue.

The picture is in an eighteenth-century style of painting which, from
antecedents in Kashmir and the Punjab Plains, developed at Bilaspur. This
small Rajput State adjoined Guler in the Punjab Hills and shared in the
general revival of painting caused by the diffusion of artists from
Basohli.


[Illustration]

PLATE 19

_Krishna welcoming the Brahman Sudama_

Illustration to the Sudama episode in the _Bhagavata Purana_
Garhwal, Punjab Hills, c. 1785
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

Sudama is a poor Brahman whose devotion leads him to go to Dwarka, and
seek out Krishna. Krishna remembers the time when they had shared the same
preceptor and warmly welcomes him to his princely palace. The picture
shows Sudama in rags seated on a stool while Krishna washes his feet and
hails him as a Brahman. In close attendance are various ladies of the
court, their graceful forms transcribed with sinuous delicacy and suave
poetic charm.

Although an episode in Krishna's later career as a prince and one designed
to buttress the priestly caste of Brahmans, the story--with its emphasis
on loving devotion--is actually in close accord with Krishna's life among
the cowherds. For this reason, it probably continued to excite interest
long after other aspects of his courtly life had been ignored. In this
respect. Sudama's visit to Krishna is as much a parable of divine love as
Krishna's dances with the cowgirls.


[Illustration]

PLATE 20

_The Beginnings of Romance_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Garhwal. Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

The first poem to celebrate Radha as Krishna's supreme love is the _Gita
Govinda_ of Jayadeva, written at the end of the twelfth century. The poem
recounts Radha's anguish at Krishna's fickleness, his subsequent
repentance and finally their passionate re-union.

The present picture with its glamorous interpretation of the forest in
spring illustrates the poem's opening verse and re-creates the setting in
terms of which the drama will proceed. Nanda, the tall figure towering
above the cowherd children, is commanding Radha to take Krishna home. The
evening sky is dark with clouds, the wind has risen and already the
flower-studded branches are swaying and bending in the breeze. Krishna is
still a young boy and Radha a girl a few years older. As Radha takes him
home, they loiter by the river, passion suddenly flares and they fall into
each other's arms. In this way, the verse declares, the loves of Radha and
Krishna began. The left-hand side of the picture shows the two lovers
embracing--the change in their attitudes being reflected in their altered
heights. Krishna who originally was shorter than Radha is now the taller
of the two, the change suggesting the mature character of their passionate
relations.

The picture with its graceful feminine forms and twining lines has the
same quality of rhythmical exaltation as Plates 19 and 35, a quality
typical of the Garwhal master-artist in his greatest phase.


[Illustration]

PLATE 21

_Krishna playing on the Flute_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
N.C. Mehta collection, Bombay

As Radha wilts in lonely anguish, a friend describes how Krishna is
behaving.

  'The wife of a certain herdsman sings as Krishna sounds a tune of love
  Krishna here disports himself with charming women given to love.'

In the picture, Radha sits beneath a flowering tree, conversing with the
friend while, to the right, Krishna plays the flute to a circle of adoring
girls.

The painting is by a Kangra master, perhaps Kushala, the nephew of the
Guler artist, Nainsukh, and illustrates the power of Kangra painters to
imbue with innocent delicacy the most intensely emotional of situations.
It was the investment of passion with dignity which was one of the chief
contributions of Kangra painting to Indian art.


[Illustration]

PLATE 22

_Krishna dancing with the Cowgirls_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Western Rajasthan, c. 1610
N.C. Mehta collection, Bombay

Besides describing Krishna's flute-playing, Radha's friend gives her an
account of his love-making.

  'An artless woman looks with ardour on Krishna's lotus face.'
  'Another on the bank of the Jumna, when Krishna goes to a bamboo
    thicket,
  Pulls at his garment to draw him back, so eager is she for amorous
    play.'
  'Krishna praises another woman, lost with him in the dance of love,
  The dance where the sweet low flute is heard in the clamour of
    bangles on hands that clap. He embraces one woman, he kisses
    another, and fondles another beautiful one.'
  'Krishna here disports himself with charming women given to love.'

The present picture illustrates phases of this glamorous love-making--Krishna
embracing one woman, dancing with another and conversing with a third. The
background is a diagram of the forest as it might appear in spring--the
slack looseness of treatment befitting the freedom of conduct adumbrated
by the verse. The large insects hovering in the branches are the black
bees of Indian love-poetry whose quest for flowers was regarded as
symbolic of urgent lovers pestering their mistresses. In style the picture
illustrates the Jain painting of Western India after its early angular
rigidity had been softened by application to tender and more romantic
themes.


[Illustration]

PLATE 23

_Krishna seated with the Cowgirls_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Jaunpur, Eastern India, c. 1590
Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay

After flute-playing and dancing (Plates 21 and 22), Krishna sits with the
cowgirls.

  'With his limbs, tender and dark like rows of clumps of blue lotus
    flowers.
  By herd girls surrounded, who embrace at pleasure any part of his body,
  Friend, in spring, beautiful Krishna plays like Love's own self
  Conducting the love sport, with love for all, bringing delight into
    being.'

And it is here that Radha finds him.

  'May the smiling captivating Krishna protect you, whom Radha, blinded
    by love,
  Violently kissed as she made as if singing a song of welcome saying,
  "Your face is nectar, excellent," ardently clasping his bosom
  In the presence of the fair-browed herdgirls dazed in the sport of love.'

The picture shows Krishna surrounded by a group of cowgirls, one of whom
is caressing his leg. To the right, Radha and the friend are approaching
through the trees. The style with its sharp curves and luxuriating
smartness illustrates a vital development of the Jain manner in the later
sixteenth century.[130]

[Footnote 130: For a first discussion of this important series, see a
contribution by Karl Khandalavala, 'A _Gita Govinda_ Series in the Prince
of Wales Museum,' _Bulletin of the Prince of Wales Museum. Bombay_ (1956),
No. 4.]


[Illustration]

PLATE 24

_The neglected Radha_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Jaunpur, Eastern India, c. 1590
Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay

Following his revels with the cowgirls, Krishna is smitten with remorse.
He roams the forest, searching for the lovely Radha but finding her
nowhere. As he pursues his quest, he encounters the friend and learns of
Radha's dejected state.

  'Her body is wholly tormented by the heat of the flame of desire;
  But only of you, so loved, she thinks in her langour,
  Your extinguishing body; secluded she waits, all wasted--
  A short while, perhaps, surviving she lives.
  Formerly even a moment when weary she closed her eyes.
  The moment's parting she could not endure, from the sight of you;
  And now in this long separation, O how does she breathe
  Having seen the flowery branch of the mango, the shaft of Love?'

In the picture, Radha is sitting in the forest, lonely and neglected.
Trees surround her, suggesting by their rank luxuriance the upward surge
of spring while cranes, slowly winging their way in pairs across the
blackening sky, poignantly remind her of her former love.


[Illustration]

PLATE 25

_Krishna repentant_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Garhwal, Punjab Hills, c. 1790

Learning of Radha's plight, Krishna longs to comfort her. Before
approaching her, however, he spends a night passionately dallying with
another cowgirl and only in the morning tenders his submission. By this
time, Radha's mood has turned to bitter anger and although Krishna begs to
be forgiven, Radha tells him to return to his latest love.

  'Go, Krishna, go. Desist from uttering these deceitful words.
  Follow her, you lotus-eyed, she who can dispel your trouble, go to her.'

In the picture, Krishna is striving to calm her ruffled feelings while
Radha, 'cruel to one who loves you, unbending to one who bows, angry with
one who desires, averting your face from this your lover,' has none of
him.

According to the poem, the scene of this tense encounter is not a palace
terrace but the forest--the Garhwal artist deeming a courtly setting more
appropriate for Radha's exquisite physique. The suavely curving linear
rhythm, characteristic of Garhwal painting at its best, is once again the
means by which a mood of still adoration is sensitively conveyed.


[Illustration]

PLATE 26

_The last Tryst_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Basohli. Punjab Hills, c. 1730
State Museum, Lahore

Having brusquely dismissed Krishna, Radha is overcome with longing and
when he once again approaches her she showers on him her adoring love. The
friend urges her to delay no longer.

  'Your friends are all aware that you are ready for love's conflict
  Go, your belt aloud with bells, shameless, amorous, to the meeting.'

Radha succumbs to her advice and slowly approaches Krishna's forest bower.

In the picture, Krishna is impatiently awaiting her while Radha, urged
onward by the friend, pauses for a moment to shed her shyness. The picture
is part of an illustrated edition of the poem executed in Basohli in 1730
for a local princess, the lady Manaku. As in other Basohli paintings,
trees are shown as small and summary symbols, the horizon is a streak of
clouds and there is a deliberate shrinkage from physical refinement. The
purpose of the picture is rather to express with the maximum of power the
savagery of passion and the stark nature of lovers' encounters.


[Illustration]

PLATE 27

_The closing Scene_

Illustration to the _Gita Govinda_
Basohli, Punjab Hills. c. 1730
Art Gallery, Chandigarh, East Punjab

From the same series as Plate 26.

After agonies of 'love unsatisfied,' Radha and Krishna are at last
reconciled.

  'She looked on Krishna who desired only her, on him who for long wanted
    dalliance,
  Whose face with his pleasure was overwhelmed and who was possessed with
    Desire,
  Who engendered passion with his face made lovely through tremblings of
    glancing eyes,
  Like a pond in autumn with a pair of wagtails at play in a fullblown
    lotus.
  Like the gushing of the shower of sweat in the effort of her travel to
    come to his hearing,
  Radha's eyes let fall a shower of tears when she met her beloved,
  Tears of delight which went to the ends of her eyes and fell on her
    flawless necklace.
  When she went near the couch and her friends left the bower, scratching
    their faces to hide their smiles,
  And she looked on the mouth of her loved one, lovely with longing, under
    the power of love,
  The modest shame of that deer-eyed one departed.'

In the picture, Radha and Krishna are again united. Krishna has drawn
Radha to him and is caressing her cheek while friends of Radha gossip in
the courtyard. As in Plate 25, the artist has preferred a house to the
forest--the sharp thrust of the angular walls exactly expressing the
fierceness of the lovers' desires.


[Illustration]

PLATE 28

_Krishna awaiting Radha_

Illustration to the _Rasika Priya_ of Keshav Das
Bundi (Rajasthan), c. 1700
National Museum, New Delhi

Following the Sanskrit practice of discussing poetic taste, Keshav Das
produced in 1592 a Hindi manual of poetics. In this book, poems on love
were analysed with special reference to Krishna--Krishna himself
sustaining the role of _nayaka_ or ideal lover. During the seventeenth
century, illustrated versions of the manual were produced--poems appearing
at the top of the picture and the subjects being illustrated beneath. The
present picture treats Radha as the _nayika_ or ideal mistress and shows
her about to visit Krishna, She is, at first, seated on a bed but a little
later, is leaning against a pillar as a maid or friend induces her to
descend. In the left-hand bottom corner, Krishna sits quietly waiting. The
bower is hung with garlands and floored with lotus petals while lightning
twisting in the sky and torches flickering in the courtyard suggest the
storm of love. The figures with their neat line and eager faces are
typical of Bundi painting after it had broken free from the parent style
of Udaipur.


[Illustration]

PLATE 29

_Radha and Krishna making Love_

Illustration to the _Sursagar_ of Sur Das
Udaipur, Rajasthan, c. 1650
G.K. Kanoria collection, Calcutta

Like Plate 28, an illustration to a Hindi poem analysing Krishna's conduct
as ideal lover.

Krishna is here embracing Radha while outside two of Radha's friends await
the outcome. Above them, two girls are watching peacocks--the strained
advances of the birds and the ardent gazes of the girls hinting at the
tense encounter proceeding in the room below.

The Udaipur style of painting with its vehement figures, geometrical
compositions and brilliant colouring was admirably suited to interpreting
scenes of romantic violence.


[Illustration]

PLATE 30

_The Lover approaching_

Illustration to the _Rasamanjari_ of Bhanu Datta
Basohli, Punjab Hills, c. 1680
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (I.S. 52-1953)

Although the _Rasika Priya_ of Keshav Das was the manual of poetry most
frequently illustrated by Indian artists, an earlier Sanskrit treatise,
the _Rasamanjari_ of Bhanu Datta, excited a particular raja's interest and
resulted in the production at Basohli of a vividly illustrated text. The
original poem discusses the conventions of ordinary lovers. Under this
Basohli ruler's stimulus, however, the lover was deemed to be Krishna and
although the verses make no allusion to him, it is Krishna who monopolizes
the illustrations.

In the present instance, Krishna the lover, carrying a lotus-bud, is about
to visit his mistress. The lady sits within, a pair of lotus-leaves
protecting her nude bust, her hair falling in strands across her thighs. A
maid explains to Krishna that her mistress is still at her toilet and
chides him for arriving so abruptly.

The poem expresses the sentiments which a lover, denied early access,
might fittingly address to his mistress.

'Longing to behold your path, my inmost heart--like a lotus-leaf when a
new rain-cloud has appeared--mounts to your neck. My eye, too, takes
wing, soaring in the guise of a lotus-bird, to regard the moon of your
face.'[131]

[Footnote 131: Translation R.H.B. Williams.]

In the picture, the lotus imagery is retained but is given a subtle
twist--the lotus-leaves themselves, rather than the lover's inmost heart,
being shown as mounting to the lady's neck.


[Illustration]

PLATE 31

_Radha extinguishing the Lamp_

Basohli, Punjab Hills, c. 1690
Bharat Kala Bhawan, Benares

Although no inscription has so far been published, it is likely that this
picture is an illustration to the _Rasamanjari_ of Bhanu Datta. The lover
is once again Krishna and the girl most probably Radha. Krishna is
inviting her to extinguish the lamp so that they may better enjoy the
excitements of darkness.

With its air of violent frenzy, the picture is typical of Basohli painting
at the end of the seventeenth century--the girl's wide-flung legs and
rushing movements symbolizing the frantic nature of passionate desire.


[Illustration]

PLATE 32

_The Month of Asarh (June-July)_

Illustration to a _Barahmasa_ (or Cycle of the Months)
Bundi, Rajasthan, c. 1750
Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay

In Hindi poetry, lovers were sometimes described against a background of
the twelve months--each month suggesting a different kind of mood or
behaviour. Such poems known as _Barahmasa_ (barah, twelve; masa, month)
were sometimes illustrated--a princely lover and his lady being shown
seated on a terrace with the sights and scenes appropriate to the month
going on around. When this lover was identified with Krishna, any aspect
of love was regarded as, in some degree, expressive of his character.

The present picture portrays the beginning of the Rains. The sky is black
with clouds. On a lake lovers dally in a tiny pavilion, while in the
background two princes consult a hermit before leaving on their travels.
The rainy season was associated in poetry with love in separation and for
this reason a lonely girl is shown walking in a wood. In a garden pavilion
Krishna dallies with Radha, the approaching rain augmenting their desire.


[Illustration]

PLATE 33

_Radha and Krishna swinging_

Illustration to the musical mode. _Hindola Raga_
('the swinging music')
Malwa, Middle India, c. 1750
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A poem celebrating one of the main modes of Indian music is here
represented by Radha and Krishna seated on a swing. The mode itself is
called 'the swinging music' but since swinging was symbolical of
love-making and also took place during the rains, the season of longing,
its spirit was sometimes impersonated not by an ordinary prince but by
Krishna himself. In the picture, peacocks, which were common symbols for
the lover, are shown against a storm-tossed sky--the battered clouds and
writhing lightning being symbolic references to 'the strife of love.' At
the foot, lotus plants, their flowers symbolizing the male, their leaves
the female, rise from a rain-filled river.

The picture represents one of the more poetic traditions of Indian
painting but at a comparatively late stage of its development. During the
sixteenth century the Malwa style had played a decisive part in the
evolution of Rajput painting, but by the eighteenth century had shed
something of its early ardour.


[Illustration]

PLATE 34

_Krishna attended by Ladies_

Illustration to the musical mode, _Bhairava Raga_
Hyderabad. Deccan, c. 1750
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Like Plate 33, an illustration to a poem accompanying a leading mode of
Indian music. Krishna is sitting on a bed while Radha is rubbing his right
arm with sandal preparatory to making love. In the foreground a maid is
grinding the sandalwood into a paste. Although the poem itself contains no
mention of Krishna, it speaks of Bhairava--a form of Siva--as a raging
lover, 'insensate in a whirlwind of desire.' On this account
Krishna--identified by his blue skin--has been inserted in the picture,
his character as a lover according with the frenzied character of the
poem. In the background a bullock is lifting water from a well and a
gardener is bending over a bed of poppies. Ducks and fishes sport in the
water.

Illustrations to modes of music were common features of the Muslim art of
the Deccan--the association of certain modes with Krishna being carefully
preserved. One of the finest series of _raga_ and _ragini_ pictures
executed at Hyderabad and now in the India Office Library, London,
contains exquisite versions with Krishna themes.


[Illustration]

PLATE 35

_Radha disguised as a Constable arresting Krishna as a Thief_

Garhwal, Punjab Hills, c. 1785
Indian Museum, Calcutta

Tired of Krishna's attempts to waylay the cowgirls, Radha dons a turban,
brandishes a constable's heavy staff and seizes Krishna by the wrist. 'I
am a policeman of Raja Kansa, come to take you to gaol,' she says. The
picture shows the cowgirls standing with their pitchers of curd, while
cowherd boys--Krishna's accomplices--take to their heels. Krishna himself
stands limply by, as if uncertain who the constable is.

The incident is unrecorded in the _Bhagavata Purana_ but appears in later
poetry as an instance of Radha and Krishna's mutual fun--teasing being an
essential part of their love-making.

The picture is by the same master artist as Plate 19.


[Illustration]

PLATE 36

_Krishna meeting Radha_

Illustration to a poem from the _Sat Sai_ of Bihari
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
N.C. Mehta collection. Bombay

An example of Krishna's meetings with Radha. Appearing as if by accident
Krishna is lolling on his cowherd's stick while Radha, encouraged by a
friend, has come to meet him. As she stands, there ensues that idyllic
'meeting of eyes' which Indian sentiment regarded as one of the most
electrifying experiences in romance. In the picture, a tree pushes its
flowering branches across open rolling slopes, suggesting by its fresh
upsurgence the exquisite emotions stirring in Radha's and Krishna's
hearts.

The picture is most probably by the Kangra artist, Kushala, to whom Plate
21 may also be assigned.


[Illustration]

PLATE 37

_Radha's Longing_

Guler, Punjab Hills, c. 1810
Bharat Kala Bhawan, Banaras

In Indian painting and poetry, it was women driven to distraction by
unappeased longing rather than men hungry with desire who formed the chief
subject of romantic art. Pictures focussed on woman in all her varied
moods and flattered the male mind by portraying her wilting with sadness
when deprived of husband or lover.

The present picture shows Radha frenziedly contemplating her lonely state.
Ornaments grown too hot for wearing--from the passion burning in her
heart--are strewn about the bed, while hands tightly clasped suggest her
wild unhappy torment. The vast and barren hills, empty angular buildings,
tiny guttering candles and lonely flowering tree provide a sympathetic
setting.

With its sinuous line and innocent delight in feminine form, the picture
is typical of Guler painting at the start of the nineteenth century.


[Illustration]

PLATE 38

_Radha and Krishna returning in the Rain_

Nahan, Punjab Hills, c. 1820
State Museum, Lahore.

A scene from Radha and Krishna's idyllic life together. Caught by a gale
of wind and rain, the lovers are hurrying to shelter, Krishna carrying a
leaf umbrella while cows and cowherds bend before the storm. In the
distance, small figures wearing hooded cloaks hasten towards the village.
Although keenly evocative of actual landscapes in the Punjab Hills--where
palaces were usually set on rocky hill-tops with nearby villages
clustering at their feet--the picture's main concern is to illustrate and
interpret the lovers' feelings. The black clouds lit by eerie lightning
and the trees tossing and swaying in the wind symbolize the passion raging
in their hearts and suggest its ultimate outcome.

The picture represents a style of painting which is thought to have grown
up at Nahan, the capital of Sirmur, after its neighbour, Garhwal, had been
overrun by Gurkhas in 1804. Garhwal artists probably sought asylum at the
Sirmur court and there developed a distinctive offshoot of the Garhwal
manner.


[Illustration]

PLATE 39

_The Triumph of Radha_

Kishangarh, Rajasthan, c. 1770
C.K. Kanoria collection, Calcutta

During the eighteenth century, Radha was often regarded as Krishna's
permanent consort and was accorded divine honours--the present picture
illustrating her final apotheosis. Seated together, their heads surrounded
by haloes, the two lovers display their courtly charms. Krishna has now
the mannered luxury of a high-born prince and Radha, no longer the simple
cowgirl, is the very embodiment of aristocratic loveliness. As the lovers
sit together, their forms offset by a carpet of lotus petals, Krishna
attempts to put betel-nut in Radha's mouth--the gesture subtly indicating
their loving intimacy.




SOURCES


Frontispiece. By courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and of
Messrs Faber and Faber.

1, 2. Hendley, _Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition, IV, the Razm Namah_.

5. By courtesy of State Museum, Lucknow and of Mr. M.M. Nagar.

6, 12, 20, 28. Archeological Survey of India, New Delhi.

10, 19, 30, 33, 34. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

18. Stchoukine, _La Peinture Indienne_.

22, 26, 31, 38. Messrs. A.C. Cooper Ltd, London.

23, 24. By courtesy of the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay and of Dr. Moti
Chandra.

25. _Journal of Indian Art_, Vol. XVI, 116.

27. By courtesy of Mr. M.S. Randhawa, I.C.S.

39. By courtesy of Mr. Gopi Krishna Kanoria.

3, 4, 7-9, 11, 13-17, 21, 29, 32, 35-37. Author's photographs.