"The Nightmare Dream of a King: The Fearsome Aftermath of the Battle of Kurukshetra," Folio from the unfinished "Small Guler" Bhagavata Purana (The Ancient Story of God)

This painting illustrates a scene described in Book One of the Bhagavata Purana. After

the fearsome battle that concludes the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, King

Yudhisthira cries out “Shame on me. I have caused to be slain young boys, Brahmanas,

kinsmen, friends, uncles, brothers and the preceptors. My horrible and despicable sin on

account of this will not be fully expatiated even after suffering ten thousand years of hell­fire.” (1)

The tangle of victims, the dead and wounded horses, elephants, chariots, and soldiers,

some dressed in chain mail and others dressed in striped coats, all besmirched with splashes of

blood and arrayed beneath a shower of flying arrows, fills the entire foreground of this harrowing

depiction of the aftermath of Yudhisthira’s battle. The tapestry weave of figures and animals in

the foreground space unfolds against a solid orange background below a narrow strip of white

and blue sky. The shallow space, brightly colored background, and flattened figures with their

sinuous yet firm outlines are characteristic of the earlier work painted by the master artist

Manaku.

For discussion of the artist, see cat. no. 74. For another other work by the same artist,

see cat. no. 67. That drawing is from the same important series as the present work: the so-
called ‘Small Guler Bhagavata Purana’ Series.

. (1) J.M. Sanyal, translator, The Srimad­Bhagavatam, New Delhi, 1970, vol. I, pg. 33.

Inscription: Inscribed on the verso in Sanskrit written in black ink in devanagari script: several lines of text

Terence McInerney 1990

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