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
1695,[96] shortly after Raja Kirpal Pal's death, the other almost
certainly fifteen years earlier.[97] The text in question is a treatise on
poetics illustrating how romantic situations should best be treated in
Sanskrit poetry--the conduct of mature mistresses, experienced lovers, sly
go-betweens, clowns or jokers being all subjected to analysis.[98] The
subject of the text is secular romantic poetry and Krishna himself is
never mentioned. None the less, in producing their illustrations, the
artists made Krishna the central figure and we can only conclude that
eschewing the obvious _Rasika Priya_, Raja Kirpal Pal had directed his
artists to do for Sanskrit what Keshav Das had done for Hindi poetry--to
celebrate Krishna as the most varied and skilled of lovers and as a
corollary show him in a whole variety of romantic and poetic situations.
As a result Krishna was portrayed in a number of highly conflicting
roles--as husband, rake, seducer, paramour and gallant.

In one picture he is 'a gallant whose word cannot be trusted' and we see
him in the act of delicatel