This painting illustrates a passage from the Satsai (Seven Hundred [Verses]), one of the four great jewels of Hindi literature. The standard Satsai is an anthology of 713 poetic verses, but numerous manuscripts vary in verse number and content. The poem primarily celebrates of the romance of Radha and Krishna, and also describes male lovers (nayakas) and female lovers (nayikas), and the romantic sentiments associated with the six seasons of the Indian climate. It was written in “Braj-Bhasha,” a dialect of Hindi, by Bihari Lal Chaube (1595–1664), who was born in Govindpur, near Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, and later lived in Mathura, the home of Krishna. Bihari Lal subsequently worked at the court of Amber under Jai Singh I (r. 1625–67), for whom the Satsai was reportedly composed in 1662. Illustrations of the Satsai were popular in Pahari painting, especially in Kangra during the reign of Sansar Chand (r. 1775–1823), under whose patronage this work was produced.
Here, while Radha waits anxiously in her bedchamber in the upper right corner, in the palace courtyard near the kitchen her handmaid (sakhi) delivers an imploring message to Krishna on her behalf. A label in the border identifies the scene as Upapati (Paramour) 194 and an inscription on the back of the painting states, “having entangled her eyes with mine and [coyly] turning her face, she smiled and expressed her love a little; thus having come to fetch fire, she set fire in my heart.” (Translated by Naval Krishna.)
