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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