PLATE 8
The Quelling of the Snake Kaliya
Illustration to the Bhagavata Purana
Kangra, Punjab Hills, c. 1790
J.K. Mody collection, Bombay
With Plates [3], [5] and [6], an example of Kangra painting in its most serene form.
Krishna, having defied the hydra-headed snake whose poison has befouled the River Jumna, is dancing in triumph on its sagging heads. The snake's consorts plead for mercy—one of them holding out bunches of lotus flowers, the others folding their hands or stretching out their arms in mute entreaty. The river is once again depicted as a surging flood but it is the master-artist's command of sinuous line and power of suffusing a scene of turmoil with majestic calm which gives the picture greatness.
Although the present study is true to the Bhagavata Purana where the snake is explicitly described as vacating the water and meeting its end on dry land, other pictures, notably those from Garhwal[129] follow the Vishnu Purana and show the final struggle taking place in the river itself.
Reproduced A.K. Coomaraswamy, Rajput Painting (Oxford, 1916), Vol. II, Plates 53 and 54.