Krishna’s Peaceable Kingdom: A Note on an Unusual Figure in a Dasavatara Indian Miniature Painting: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

The painting—Krishna and Radha with animal devotees—has been assigned by scholars to the Pahari school of the sub-Himalayan Indian area, reaching from Jammu to Almora and Garhwal through Himachal Pradesh. This region was artistically productive in the courts of chiefdoms in the area between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. It is attributed to the principality of Mankot. The artist is unknown (as is the case with most Pahari paintings). The favorite Vaishnava sources for art subjects in this region were the Gita Govinda and the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana, which narrates the exploits of Krishna from babyhood on. Among these inspirations were a series of paintings depicting the ten avataras of Vishnu. The painting under discussion here is said to be from
one such series, with Krishna/Radha as one of Vishnu’s incarnations. (See Czuma, 1975: Fig.104. No paging in this publication.)