- Title
- Krishna's Dance of Delight (Rasa Lila)
- Date Made
- 1952
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor on cloth
- Dimensions
- 27 1/4 x 32 1/2 in. (69.22 x 82.55 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2006.180.3
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
According to religious belief, the Hindu god Krishna’s hypnotic fluting drew the milkmaids (gopis) of Vrindavan to the forest during the Indian month of Ashvin (September-October), where under the light of the full moon Krishna led the lovesick women in the dance of delight (rasa lila) on his final idyllic night in Braj before returning to Mathura to overthrow the evil King Kamsa. During the divine dance Krishna manifested himself innumerably to be able to dance with each gopi individually and supernaturally caused the blissful night to last for an aeon. The rasa lila is a metaphor for the human soul's ecstatic spiritual love of Krishna. Here, in the center of a mandalic composition, Krishna embraces his beloved Radha with their limbs intertwined. Female attendants wave a fan and an honorific fly whisk. In the outer band of the mandala, eight gopis each dance with their own Krishna. Circular blossoms populate the surrounding field of decoration, with stylized quarter-lotuses filling the corners. The composition is unusual in that representations of the rasa lila are more typically set in a forest clearing than envisioned in a mandala (see M.75.66).
This exuberant work epitomizes the paintings made as souvenirs for Hindu worshippers returning home from pilgrimages to the renowned Jagannatha temple in Puri, Odisha (formerly Orissa). See also M.82.107 and M.2003.215.