One of the most usual engagements of childhood days, the painting
represents
Krishna along his team of Gopas and Gopis enjoying
Jala-krida : water sport, requiring participants to circumambulate
from over the tree and from under the water the blue-bodied Krishna
holding the central position on the trunk of a massive Kadamba tree.
Though this form of sport does not occur in related texts or even in
medieval paintings with specificity, identical events : racing,
wrestling and ousting an opponent by catching hold of him with eyes
covered by a band of cloth tied over them, have been frequently
alluded to in texts and painted in miniatures. Though not taking place
on a play-ground and not in its usual format with one of the
participants with covered eyes chasing all others usually moving in a
round, the sport represented in the painting seems to be merely a
transform of the usual sport ‘chase, touch and oust’ the opponent.
As seems to be the broad form of the represented sport, the
blue-bodied Krishna occupies the centre of the tree’s trunk symbolic
of the axis – much like a temple’s sanctum. Not merely a crowned
turban revealing great regalia, a halo and golden footwear – his
figure alone wearing in the entire composition, impart to his figure
the presiding deity-like status. The painting represents above this
figure of Krishna the figure of his elder brother Balarama in a
gems-studded golden cap. The eleven of the rest of the twenty-two
figures are males – Gopas, and other eleven, the females, the Gopis.
The Gopis are in ankle-long lower wears, white or red, with upper
halves being either unclad or clad in transparent muslins, and the
Gopas, in stitched loincloths, red, striped, printed with golden dots
and gold-bordered. Except their heads three of the Gopis are submerged
in deep waters, while one on extreme right in the centre of the
canvas, half-covered with tree-leaves.
Unlike the ‘chase, touch and oust’ game the anti-clockwise moving
Gopas and Gopis do not incline to chase, touch or oust anyone but
perhaps reveal eagerness to complete the circle as soon as possible,
some, ready to jump into waters and wade across, and other, by
mounting a branch on the river’s other side after having waded it
across. Three-fourth of the circle they complete by moving along the
tree representing the earth and the sky, and the rest, by wading cross
the river water. The tree with artistically designed leaves and
intricate branches is a stylized form of the mythical Kadamba grown on
a river’s bank, obviously Yamuna. The tree’s multiple branches afford
basis for twenty-one figures for except the three all others ride the
branches of the tree. A peacock and monkey on the tree, cows on the
earth and lotuses in the river water represent nature : birds, animals
and vegetation, that along with humans and Divines complete the vision
of the cosmos.
Though apparently the portrayal of a sport but with Krishna in its
centre it becomes Krishna-lila which even when revealing an earthly
act manifests divine dimensions. The underlying philosophy is
apparent. The entire cosmos rotates round the Supreme Divine Principle
which in the painting Krishna, incarnating the Great Principle,
represents. It suggests that when Krishna is the axis of an activity
even when it is earthly or ephemeral, it elevates into the divine
‘lila’ of Krishna and amounts to entire cosmic activity. With such
divine dimensions in mind the artist has created the entire cosmos :
Divinity, humans, animals, birds, the earth, the sky and water, on his
canvas.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.
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