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.