- Provenance
- Provenance research underway.
- Label
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The Bhagavata Purana (Song of the Lord), possibly first compiled in Sanskrit about 1200 and later translated into regional vernaculars, was the product of a long oral tradition. It is an immense work, comprising 18,000 verses in 11 books. Book ten remains the most popular of these, for it deals with the life of Krishna, the young cowherd and prince who was the god Vishnu incarnate.
This Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important pre-Mughal Hindu manuscripts. The artist combined several events from one narrative to convey successive events within a single composition. On the first floor of a palace surrounded by water, Satadhanva gains possession of the fabulous Syamantaka jewel by decapitating Shatrajit. Shatrajit's daughter preserves his corpse in a trough of oil (visible above the decapitation scene) and hastens to inform her betrothed Krishna of the murder. The women of the family wail in sorrow in the upper storey of the palace.
- Published References
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- Milo Cleveland Beach. The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court., 2nd ed. Washington and Ahmedabad, India, 2012. cat. 4A, p. 49.
- Milo Cleveland Beach. The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court. Exh. cat. Washington, 1981. cat. 3b, p. 49.
- Collection Area(s)
- South Asian and Himalayan Art
- Web Resources
- Google Cultural Institute
- SI Usage Statement
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Usage Conditions Apply
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
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CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)
This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
Usage Conditions Apply
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.
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International Image Interoperability Framework
FS-7692_27