_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]