Jayadeva, the author of the Gita Govinda, stands to the left in this work, singing his long poem. Dressed in the pure white dress of a Pahari singer, he holds a double-gourd stringed instrument called a vina. The verses on the back of the painting tell us:
His musical skill, his meditation on Vishnu, His vision of reality in the erotic mood, His graceful play in these poems, All show that the master-poet Jayadeva’s soul is in perfect tune with Krishna
Using his gifts, the poet evokes the divine and looks into Krishna’s eyes, a key act of devotion in the Hindu tradition. With one arm around Radha, Krishna holds a flute and stands in an open landscape, accessible to his devotee.
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Title:The Poet and Author of the Gita Govinda, Jayadeva, Visualizes Radha and Krishna, folio from the Tehri Garhwal series of the Gita Govinda
Date:ca. 1775–80
Culture:India, Punjab Hills, kingdom of Kangra or Guler
Medium:Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions:Page: 6 7/8 × 10 5/8 in. (17.5 × 27 cm) Image (painting): 5 3/4 × 9 3/4 in. (14.6 × 24.8 cm) Mat: 14 1/4 in. × 18 in. (36.2 × 45.7 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Promised Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections
Object Number:L.2018.44.18
This serene painting is the last folio in the great Series to which it once belonged, the so- called ‘second’, or ‘Tehri Garhwal’, Gita Govinda, just as cat. nos. 77 and 79 were the first folios. (For other paintings from the same Series, see cat. nos. 78, 8084.) This painting depicts the vision of Jayadeva, author of the long poem the Series illustrates. It has a “cool, slightly distant air”, with none of the lush foliage that fills other paintings from the same set. “There are no beds of fragrant leaves here, no creepers lovingly clinging to tree trunks, no birds that sing in unison with the lovers; even the river Yamuna makes no appearance.” (1) The figure of the singerdevotee Jayadeva, holding a golddecorated vina and wearing a simple white dhoti and a string of beads, stands to the left. Through his meditation the poet has summoned a vision of Radha and Krishna, the main subjects of the many ecstatic verses and songs that he composed for the Gita Govinda. Jayadeva’s intertwined Divine Couple stands beneath the branches of a magnificent, spreading tree, on the right of the painting. The two figures are highlighted by a plain green swarth that seems to glow from within. Apart from some additional greenery along the lower border, the rest of the composition is empty. Jayadeva, the wandering poetsaint of east India, was the court poet of Lakshmanasena, the last Hindu king of Bengal. His greatest work is the Gita Govinda, written in the late twelfth century A.D. as a paean to the great god Vishnu and to his eighth earthly incarnation, the lusty god Krishna. The Gita Govinda has been called a woodland epic, as well as a lyrical, dramatic poem. It is sung every day at the great temple of Jagannatha (a form of Krishna) at Puri, a famous pilgrimage site in Orissa. Jayadeva’s text is divided into 12 Cantos or Parts. It has about 300 slokas (verses comprising two lines of 16 Sanskrit syllables each) and 24 songs. Prefixed to each song is the manner , and the name of the mode, in which it is to be sung. (For ragamala musical classification, see cat. no. __.) Therefore, the songs in Part One, set to Raga Vasanta, are to be performed in the mode yati. Each of the constituent songs is interspersed with recitative portions in the metrical formats of kavya, or ornamental Sanskrit verse. (2) Despite all of the Sanskritic complexity, Jayadeva’s ardent, devotional text is still alive today. (1) B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer 1992. pg. 322 (2) Barbara Stoller Miller 1977, pg. 9
Inscription: Inscribed on the reverse in black ink with four lines of Sanskrit text written in devanagari script (Gita Govinda, part 12, stanzas 22 and 21)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India," December 22, 2018–July 28, 2019.
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Love in Asian Art & Culture. Seattle: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in association with University of Washington Press, 1998, p. 80.
The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
