The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and PoetryArcher, W. G. (William George)
Religion
The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry
Archer, W. G. (William George)
Hindu gods in art; Hindu painting -- India; Krishna (Hindu deity); Sanskrit poetry -- History and criticism
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_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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