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 great series as Plate 3, here attributed to the Kangra artist Purkhu.

The young Krishna, tied to a mortar to keep him out of mischief, has dragged it between two trees and thereby uprooted them.  The cowherds, led by the bearded Nanda, Krishna’s foster-father, have hurried to the scene and Balarama, Krishna’s half-brother, is excitedly pointing out that Krishna is safe.  In the foreground, emerging from the earth are two crowned figures—­Nala and Kuvara, the sons of the yaksha king, Kubera, who, as a consequence of a curse had been turned into the two trees.  Doomed to await Krishna’s intervention, they have now been released.  Reclining on the trunks, still tied to the mortar, the young Krishna surveys the scene with pert satisfaction.

[Illustration]

PLATE 6

The Road to Brindaban

Illustration to the Bhagavata Purana
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
National Museum, New Delhi

With Plates 3 and 5, part of the series attributed to Purkhu.

Led by Nanda, the majestic figure in the front bullock-cart, the cowherds are moving a day’s march across the River Jumna to enjoy the larger freedom of Brindaban.  Their possessions—­bundles of clothes, spinning-wheels, baskets of grain and pitchers—­are being taken with them and mounted with Yasoda on a second cart go the children, Balarama and Krishna.  With its great variety of stances, simple naturalism and air of innocent calm, the picture exactly expresses the terms of tender familiarity on which the cowherds lived with Krishna.