"The Devi, in the Form of Bhadrakali, Standing on the Corpse of a Giant Brahmin," Illustrated folio from a dispersed "Tantric Devi" series

In style, the great series to which this painting and the preceding painting (no. 38) once
belonged, a dispersed Tantric Devi series, is thought to represent the earliest known painting
from Basohli, and therefore from the entire Punjab Hills, an area of fundamental importance in
the history of Indian painting. In the words of F.S. Aijazzudin, “like some introductory libation”
early Basohli painting begins with this series. (1)
Approximately half the paintings from the original series, once comprising about 70
paintings or more, have survived. Of the 35 recorded and surviving folios, thirteen are now in
museums in India and Pakistan, ten in museums in Europe and the United States, and twelve in
various private collections in the United States and elsewhere. (2) It is assumed the remaining
folios of the Tantric Devi Series are either lost, or have not survived. Since examples from the
Series have been known from about 1912, it is doubtful whether the missing folios will ever
reappear.
The Series is devoted to depictions of the various forms, or incarnations, of the Devi, the
Great Goddess, who is worshipped by many in India as the supreme god, the great energy or
life force from whom all of the lesser, male gods (Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma etc.) are manifest.
Consequently the Great Goddess appears in this Series, presiding at the center of each picture,
in any one of her many forms. She is Bhagavati, Bhuvaneshvari, Indrakshi, Siddha Lakshmi, or
Varahi. In this painting, and in cat. no. 38, she is Bhadrakali, the Blessed Dark One. At times,
the Devi is accompanied by retainers and attending deities (as in cat. no. 38), or she may stand
or sit, as here, on the corpse of a dead Brahmin. Otherwise in this Series there are very few
“props” to distract one’s attention from the figure of the Great Goddess: only a narrow strip of
sky along the top of the painting, or a narrow strip of sky and water along the bottom. The Devi
stands against a plain, colored background: either brown, as here, mustard yellow (cat. no. 38),
dark green, light green, or light yellow, the background colors co­ordinated with the rather wide
red or orange borders. This modular format, with its repeated framing device and tight adhesion
of the flattened figures to the shallow ground, results in a Series of almost incantatory power.
In this painting from the Series, Bhadrakali stands on the giant corpse of a naked
Brahmin. (3) This inert figure, symbolizing the spirit of the dead (preta) , associates Bhadrakali
with the cremation ground, her favorite haunt and the location for some of her most extreme
rites. Bhadrakali’s protruding fangs and third eye, are additional tantric, or non­conventional,
attributes.
B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer were the first to recognize that the artist of the
Early Rasamanjari Series and the artist of the Tantric Devi Series were the same man. (4) To
the same highly inventive artist one can attribute the work formerly in the Archer collection, now
on loan to the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. (5)
l.
2. All of the surviving paintings have a number on the front border as well as on the
reverse. For a discussion of the Tantric Devi Series, see Terence McInerney, “Mysterious
Origins: The Tantric Devi Series from Basohli” in Vidya Dehejia, Devi, The Great Goddess
(Washington: The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1999), pp. 118­35 and 390­91. See also W.G.
Archer, Indian Painting from the Punjab Hills (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1973), Vol. I, pp.
33­34; and Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.B. Goswamy, eds., Masters of Indian
Painting (Zürich: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 2011), Vol. I, pp. 439­58.
3. Stella Kramrisch, Manifestations of Shiva (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art,
1981), pp. 216­17 and Archer, op. cit., Vol. I, pg. 34 and Vol. II, pg. 16.
4. Brijendra Nath Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of
Northern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press,, 1992), pp. 30, 35.
5.
William George Archer, Visions of Courtly India: The Archer Collection of Pahari
Miniatures (Washington, D.C.: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1976), no. 5.

Inscription: Inscribed on the front along the red border written in takri script with the name “Bhadrakali” and the number “70.” Inscribed on the reverse in black ink in Sanskrit written in devanagari script: a poem in praise of the Devi

Colnaghi

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.