The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry

Having married Rukmini, Krishna has now the full status of a grown prince. But he is nothing if not supernormal; and just as earlier in his career he has showered his affection...

It is as an actor in this tangled drama that Krishna appears. Alongside the Pandavas and the Kauravas in Northern India is a powerful people, the Yadavas. They live by grazing c...

Vasudeva now instructs his family priest, Garga the sage, to go to Gokula, meet Nanda and give Krishna and Balarama proper names. Rohini, he points out, has had a son, Balarama,...

Having humbled the Brahmans, Krishna now turns to the gods, choosing Indra, their chief, for attack. The moment is his annual worship when the cowherds offer sweets, rice, saffr...

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 an...

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 freel...

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 rece...

Games with cowherds, Krishna's, 31-35, 45, pls. 4-9 Gandhi, Mahatma, 15 Gangoly, O.C., 104, 119, 121 Garga, sage, 30, 31 Garhwal, Punjab Hills, 107-110, pl. 38 _Garhwal Painting...

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...

Despite the Indian delight in sensuous charm, the nude was only rarely depicted in Indian painting--feelings of reverence and delicacy forbidding too unabashed a portrayal of th...

Next day, Krishna and the cowherds enter Mathura to attend the sports. Krishna is obstructed by a giant elephant, attacks it and after a great fight kills it. He and Balarama th...

I am deeply indebted to Dr. A.L. Basham for generous guidance throughout the preparation of this book, to George Keyt for permitting me to quote extensively from his brilliant t...

[Footnote 115: B.H. Baden Powell, _Handbook of the Manufactures and Arts of the Punjab_ (Lahore, 1872), 355. Purkhu must now, most probably, be connected with the first of the t...

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 J...

A poem celebrating one of the main modes of Indian music is here represented by Radha and Krishna seated on a swing. The mode itself is called 'the swinging music' but since swi...