Abstract
This paper examines the depiction of battle scenes in a singular dated and undispersed illustrated manuscript of the Latter Half of the Tenth Book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (1688), inscribed with an action-oriented Brajbhāṣā text. While certain conventions and compositional devices are consistently used throughout the manuscript to evoke the drama and chaos of warfare, each battle is nevertheless individualized with the narrative unfolding along a distinctive trajectory. The broader goal is to understand how the narrative is transformed as it is translated.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dehejia, Vidya. 1990. “On Modes of Visual Narration in Early Buddhist Art.” The Art Bulletin 72, 3: 374–92.
Dehejia, Vidya. 1996. “The Treatment of Narrative in Jagat Singh’s Rāmāyaṇa: A Preliminary Study.” Artibus Asiae 56, 3–4: 303–24.
Del Bontà, Robert J. 2000. “See Kṛṣṇa Run: Narrative Painting for Mummaḍi Kṛṣṇarāja Woḍeyar.’ Ars Orientalis Supplement 1 (Chāchājī: Professor Walter M. Spink Felicitation Volume): 99–113.
Ehnbom, Daniel. 2011. “The Masters of the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana.” In Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B. N. Goswamy, eds., Masters of Indian Painting, 1: 77–88. Zürich: Artibus Asiae Publishers.
Goswami, C. L. trans. 2006 [1971]. Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahāpurāṇa (with Sanskrit Text and English Translation). Part II. Gorakhpur: Gita Press.
Haberman, David L. 1988. Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Rāgānuga Bhakti Sādhana. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hein, Norvin.. 1986. “A Revolution in Kṛṣṇaism: The Cult of Gopāla.” History of Religions 25, 4: 296–317.
Niemann, Grahame Ralph. 1981. “Critical Edition of the Bhāgavat Daśam Skandh of Bhūpati.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge University.
Poddar, Neeraja. 2014. “Krishna in His Myriad Forms: Narration, Translation and Variation in Illustrated Manuscripts of the Latter Half of the Tenth Book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York.
Ramanujan, A. K. 1991. “Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation.” In Paula Richman, ed., Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, 21–49. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schapiro, Meyer. 1973. Words and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text. The Hague: Mouton.
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Pika Ghosh for her close reading of many drafts of this article and for her invaluable suggestions and comments and to Monika Horstmann for reviewing my translations.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Poddar, N. Kṛṣṇa Goes to War: Translating The Bhāgavata’s Battle Scenes. Hindu Studies 22, 105–122 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-018-9224-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-018-9224-6