As identified by the devanagari inscriptions in the upper red border, the subjects of this double portrait are Raja Pandu and Matakunti, who were the father and stepmother of the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva in the epic Mahabharata ([War of the] Great Bharatas). Pandu was a king of the northern Indian Kuru Kingdom in the 12th-10th centuries BCE. Pandu was married to Kunti, who used a divine mantra to bear him the three eldest Pandava brothers, Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna. Pandu’s second wife was Madri, princess of Madra. Kunti shared her mantra with Madri, who bore the twins Nakula and Sahadeva (see M.83.1.9). After Pandu died during intercourse with Madri due to a curse, and Madri then self-immolated, Kunti adopted Nakula and Sahadeva and moved with her children to the Kuru capital of Hastinapura in present-day Uttar Pradesh.
This painting may belong to a group of early Mankot portraits dating from the reigns of Raja Mahipat Dev (r. circa 1660-1690) and Raja Dhota Dev (r. circa 1690-1710). Mankot was exceptional in producing portraits of diverse subjects, including rajas, palace servants, astrological deities, and dream portraits. Known as dream visions (svapna-darshana), dream portraits were illustrations of various texts, such as the Svapna-chintamani, Svapna-pariksha, Svapna-darshana, and Svapna-phalaphala. Dream portraits were stand-alone images that were considered auspicious or inauspicious, and were thus interpreted as foretelling good or bad events to follow.
