Plate 33
Radha and Krishna swinging
Illustration to the musical mode. Hindola Raga
(‘the swinging music’)
Malwa, Middle India, c. 1750
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A poem celebrating one of the main modes of Indian music is here represented by Radha and Krishna seated on a swing. The mode itself is called ‘the swinging music’ but since swinging was symbolical of love-making and also took place during the rains, the season of longing, its spirit was sometimes impersonated not by an ordinary prince but by Krishna himself. In the picture, peacocks, which were common symbols for the lover, are shown against a storm-tossed sky—the battered clouds and writhing lightning being symbolic references to ‘the strife of love.’ At the foot, lotus plants, their flowers symbolizing the male, their leaves the female, rise from a rain-filled river.
The picture represents one of the more poetic traditions of Indian painting but at a comparatively late stage of its development. During the sixteenth century the Malwa style had played a decisive part in the evolution of Rajput painting, but by the eighteenth century had shed something of its early ardour.