The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry Part 18

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PLATE 26

_The last Tryst_

Ill.u.s.tration to the _Gita Govinda_ Basohli. Punjab Hills, c. 1730 State Museum, Lah.o.r.e

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

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

Radha succ.u.mbs to her advice and slowly approaches Krishna's forest bower.

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

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PLATE 27

_The closing Scene_

Ill.u.s.tration to the _Gita Govinda_ Basohli, Punjab Hills. c. 1730 Art Gallery, Chandigarh, East Punjab

From the same series as Plate 26.

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

'She looked on Krishna who desired only her, on him who for long wanted dalliance, Whose face with his pleasure was overwhelmed and who was possessed with Desire, Who engendered pa.s.sion with his face made lovely through tremblings of glancing eyes, Like a pond in autumn with a pair of wagtails at play in a fullblown lotus.

Like the gus.h.i.+ng of the shower of sweat in the effort of her travel to come to his hearing, Radha's eyes let fall a shower of tears when she met her beloved, Tears of delight which went to the ends of her eyes and fell on her flawless necklace.

When she went near the couch and her friends left the bower, scratching their faces to hide their smiles, And she looked on the mouth of her loved one, lovely with longing, under the power of love, The modest shame of that deer-eyed one departed.'

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

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PLATE 28

_Krishna awaiting Radha_

Ill.u.s.tration to the _Rasika Priya_ of Keshav Das Bundi (Rajasthan), c. 1700 National Museum, New Delhi

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

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PLATE 29

_Radha and Krishna making Love_

Ill.u.s.tration to the _Sursagar_ of Sur Das Udaipur, Rajasthan, c. 1650 G.K. Kanoria collection, Calcutta

Like Plate 28, an ill.u.s.tration to a Hindi poem a.n.a.lysing Krishna's conduct as ideal lover.

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

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

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PLATE 30

_The Lover approaching_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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PLATE 31

_Radha extinguis.h.i.+ng the Lamp_

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

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

With its air of violent frenzy, the picture is typical of Basohli painting at the end of the seventeenth century--the girl's wide-flung legs and rus.h.i.+ng movements symbolizing the frantic nature of pa.s.sionate desire.

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PLATE 32