Krishna: Lover and Hero
Paintings in this section are organized into three groups that relate stories of
Krishna as a lover and as a hero. Click on the following links to learn more.
Stealing Hearts
Krishna's idyllic childhood was spent with other cowherd boys (gopas) and girls
(gopis) playing in the dusty earth, bathing in the River Jumna, and tending the cows in
the luxuriant forest. The "butter thief" matured into a young man who came to be known
instead as the "thief of hearts." Young gopis felt their youthful crushes on Krishna
ripen into passionate, inconsolable desire.
Lover and Beloved
Krishna is beyond all rules and laws and evokes every shade of love from his worshippers.
When he is a child, he is our mischievous child; as a boy, he is our dearest friend. As
he matures, he becomes the lover who enflames us with jealousy or bliss. Pictures on the
theme s of lover and beloved are favorites among court painters who have both religious
texts and secular poetry to draw from. This section focuses on Krishna's passion for two
particular women and theirs for him: Radha, a cowherdess married to another man, and
Rukmini, a favorite among his eight queens and sixteen thousand wives.
Hero and God
In the legends of Krishna's youth, he is a spirited cowherd from a humble village,
recognized for his beauty and miraculous powers. In the legends of his mature years, he
is the ruler of his people, the Yadu clan. The transition takes place after Krishna has
fulfilled the mission for which he was born on earth as an avatar of Vishnu—that is
to kill the demon Kamsa. He returns to his people to find them beset by would-be
conquerors. He moves the Yadu clan from the north-central part of India, near Mathura, to
a new capital city surrounded by the sea at Dvaraka on the western tip of Gujarat.
There he marries, rules, and dies. He has eight queens and 16,000 wives. This section of
the exhibition draws on stories from the Mahabharata, a text many ceturies earlier than
the medieval literature of devotion.
