Artwork · 17th century

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Krishna and Balarama Fight the Evil King Kamsa’s Wrestlers: Page from a Dispersed Bhagavata Purana

Unknown artist · India (Madhya Pradesh, Malwa)ca. 1650Ink and opaque watercolor on paper16.5 × 19.7 cm

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At a glance

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Blue-skinned Krishna and his fair-skinned older brother Balarama grapple with two burly wrestlers.
An unnamed artist painted this book page on paper around 1650 in Malwa, central India.
On a sheet about the size of two palms, the painter caught the tensest moment of the story.

Reading the picture

4 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the yellow band at the top. Black letters spell मल्लवध, mallavadha, which means the slaying of the wrestlers. It works as a caption for the scene. The dark strip below it, streaked with white lines, is the sky.
Look at the two faces on the left. A balding wrestler with a heavy mustache glares at Krishna. Krishna has a blue face and a gold crown topped with a fan of peacock feathers. They have locked their arms around each other's backs and are testing their strength.
Now zoom in on the right. Balarama has trapped his opponent's head under his arm and is bearing down. The wrestler's neck is bent, and his eyes stare wide. Balarama's face stays perfectly calm, and that calm makes it look like the match is already decided.
Look down at Krishna's feet. Below his yellow trousers, one blue foot is planted firmly on the ground. Over it flares a thin, see-through outer robe. The wrestler's ankle wears a dark anklet.

When it was painted

In seventeenth-century north India, devotion to Krishna, known as bhakti, had spread widely. The tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana tells his life from his childhood to his showdown in Mathura. People heard these stories read aloud and sung, often together.

This page shows the turning point. King Kamsa of Mathura had been warned by a prophecy that his sister's son would kill him, so he set out to destroy his nephew Krishna. He invited Krishna and his older brother Balarama to a wrestling festival, and even posted a fierce elephant, Kuvalayapida, at the arena gate. The brothers brought down the elephant and walked in. Krishna beat Chanura, and Balarama beat Mushtika.

Then Krishna pulled Kamsa down from his high seat and killed him. He freed his own parents, Vasudeva and Devaki, whom Kamsa had kept imprisoned.

This page comes from Malwa, a plateau region in the heart of India that was then a province of the Mughal empire. We know neither the painter nor the patron. The Met notes that the deep brown ground, with the action lit up beneath a night sky, is typical of the mature Malwa style.

The sheet was once a page in a bound, illustrated Bhagavata Purana. The pages have since been scattered, and another page from the same book is also at the Met. This one was given to the museum in 1973 by Mr. and Mrs. Alvin N. Haas.

Look again at the two brothers' faces. With Kamsa's fate only moments away, they stay calm, without a drop of sweat.

Questions to think about

Look for itOf the four figures, how can you tell which ones are Krishna and Balarama?
Why?Why do you think the painter left out the crowd and the king, keeping only a plain red background?
What about you?When powerful people rig a contest to bring someone down, how can a society today stop that from happening?

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