represents a blend of early Mughal naturalism
with later Hindu sentiment. The style founded by him influenced members of
his own family, including his nephew Kushala and ultimately spread to
Kangra and Garhwal where it reached its greatest heights. The present
picture, together with Plates 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 16, is possibly by the
Kangra artist Purkhu and with others of the series illustrates perhaps the
greatest interpretation of the _Bhagavata Purana_ ever produced in Indian
painting.

In the picture, the tyrant ruler Kansa is sleeping on a bed as a courtier
prepares to break the fateful news of Krishna's birth. To the right,
Devaki, Krishna's mother, nurses the baby girl whom her husband, Vasudeva,
has substituted for the infant Krishna. Kansa is wresting the baby from
her in order to dash its head against a boulder. As he does so, she eludes
his grasp and ascends to heaven in a flash, being, in fact, the
eight-armed goddess Devi.

[Illustration]

PLATE 4

_Krishna stealing Butter_

Illustration to an incident from the _Bhagavata Purana_
Basohli, Punjab Hills, c. 1700
N.C. Mehta collection, Bombay

Besides illustrating the tenth book of the _Bhagavata Purana_ as a whole,
Indian artists sometimes chose isolated episodes and composed their
pictures around them. The present picture is an instance of this practice,
its subject being the baby Krishna pilfering butter. As Yasoda, Krishna's
foster-mother, goes inside the house, Krishna and the cowherd children
stage an impudent raid. A cowherd boy mounts a wooden mortar and then,
balanced on his shoulders, the young Krishna helps himself to the butter
which is kept stored in a pot suspended by strings from the roof. A second
cowherd boy reaches up to lift the butter down while edging in from the
right, a monkey, emblematic of mischievous thieving, shares in the spoil.

The picture illustrates the wild and vehemently expressive style of
painting which suddenly appeared at Basohli, a tiny State in the Punjab
Hills, towards the end of the seventeenth century. The jagged form of
Yasoda, cut in two by the lintel of the doorway, the stabbing lines of the
churning pole, grazing sticks and cords, as well as the sharp angles of
the house and its furniture, all contribute to a state of taut excitement.

[Illustration]

PLATE 5

_The Felling of the Trees_

Illustration to the _Bhagavata Purana_
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
State Museum, Lucknow

From the same g