being awarded to Rajput nobles of loyalty and valour.  The result was yet another style of painting—­comparable in certain ways to that of Bundi and Udaipur yet markedly original in its total effect.  In place of tightly geometrical compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping, their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna, the divine lover.  Although one copy of the Rasika Priya and one of the Bhagavata Purana were executed at both these centres, their chief subjects were the ragas and raginis (the thirty-six modes of Indian music) nayakas and nayikas (the ideal lovers) and barahmasas (the twelve months) while in the case of Malwa, there was the added theme of Sanskrit love-poetry.  Krishna the god was rarely celebrated and it was rather as ‘the best of lovers’ that he was sometimes introduced into pictures.  In a Bundi series depicting the twelve months, courtly lovers are shown sitting in a balcony watching a series of rustic incidents proceeding below.  The lover, however, is not an ordinary prince but Krishna himself, his blue skin and royal halo leaving no possible doubt as to his real identity.[83] Similarly in paintings illustrating the character and personality of musical modes, Krishna was often introduced as the perfect embodiment of passionate loving.  None of the poems accompanying the modes make any allusion to him.  Indeed, their prime purpose is to woo the presiding genius of the melody and suggest the visual scene most likely to evoke its spirit.  The musical mode, Bhairava Raga, for example, was actually associated with Siva, yet because the character of the music suggested furious passion the central figure of the lover dallying with a lady was depicted as Krishna.[84] In Hindola Raga, a mode connected with swinging, a similar result ensued.  Swinging in Indian sentiment was normally associated with the rains and these in turn evoked ‘memory and desire.’  The character of the music was therefore visualized as that of a young prince swinging in the rain—­his very movements symbolizing the act of love.  Since Krishna, however, was the perfect lover, nothing was easier than to portray Hindola Raga as Krishna himself. Hindola might be invoked in the poem, but it was Krishna who appeared seated on the swing.[85] An exactly similar process occurred in the case of Megh Mallar Raga.  This was connected with the rainy season, yet because rain and storm were symbolic of sex, Megh Mallar was portrayed not as a separate figure, but as Krishna once again dancing in the rain with ladies accompanying him.  Even feminine modes of music suffered the