Krishna Breaks Radha’s Milk-pot

The painting, rendered using red, black and orange, and fractions of lines and nets for creating various forms and spaces, represents Krishna overturning Radha’s pot of milk with his flute. One of the best known episodes from the early life of Krishna, portraying on one hand the delight he took in teasing Radha and other Gopis by breaking the pots filled with milk, which they carried on their heads, and on the other, his determination to hit in every possible way at the interests of his maternal uncle Kansa, Mathura’s demon king, the myth is popularly known in the tradition of miniature painting as the realisation ‘toll’, that is, the levy that Krishna sought to realise from Radha and other Gopis on the milk-products that they carried to Mathura from Brij for sale.

As the Bhagavata Purana has it, the cowherd maidens of Brij used to carry to Mathura everyday the milk, curd and butter for sale in the market there for better price. Krishna considered this ages-long practice as unfair and unethical : unfair, because it deprived those who herded and took care of the cows day and night of their share in the milk that these cows produced, and unethical, because it fed, nourished and made stronger the atrocious Kansa and those whose lives were devoted to evil-doing and in destroying dharma – Law, and social Order. Hence, he ordained that a part of milk and other milk-products carried to Mathura would be given as levy for the rightful people of Brij, especially the young Gopas. However, his appeal went unheard compelling him and his friends for realising it forcibly. Hence, they posted themselves on way to Mathura and whoever of the Gopis passed across they asked her for their share, and broke her pot if she refused.

Besides Krishna, the painting portrays a lone figure of Radha, or one of the Gopis, a symbolic representation them all, carrying milk etc to Mathura. Krishna seems to be hiding behind the tree under which the drama is being enacted. Not only dominating, the tree with its beautifully conceived trunk and branches, ripe balls-like oranges or a fruit of similar specie, pot-shaped beehives, single and in pair, extra large honey-bees perching on some of them, and twinkling leaves rendered in black and white, is quite fascinating also. Unconscious of anyone hiding behind the tree Radha, it seems, was pursuing her way to Mathura along the bank of river Yamuna, which in the painting lotuses define, when Krishna emerged unnoticed from his hiding and struck with his flute from behind the pot of milk she was carrying on her head. Radha raised her hand for supporting it but before her hand reached the pot, it rolled and from it rolled out the milk it was containing. Small fractions of vertical lines rendered in black define milk streaming down from Radha’s head, the same as the fractions of horizontal lines define the waters of Yamuna.

Ensembles and ornaments of the two figures are widely different revealing gender distinction, though barring the length of hair and the relative sizes of eyes, their iconographic features are almost identical. Radha’s nose-ring, bangles and ear-ornaments are essentially feminine in style and character, whereas the style of Krishna’s ear-ornament as well as his wrist-covers, are characteristically masculine. Radha is in a half-sleeve blouse and a diversely designed long skirt with narrower circumference, the lower half conceived with chess-board design, and upper half, with slanting bands in mutually alternating black and red. She has suspending along her waistband a beautiful fish motif considered highly auspicious. Except a band, too narrow for a sash, Krishna is bare-breasted. He is wearing an ‘antariya’ – lower wear, with black and white stripes, adorned with a ‘patta’ – a piece of specially woven or embroidered textile worn in between two legs for decorating the ‘antariya’. Though differently designed, both Radha and Krishna are wearing on their backs an apron-type sheet covering it from neck to feet, usually a component of royal ensemble.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.

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