ID Number

Title

Item Name

Culture

Date Made

Place Made

Date Collected

Date Owned

Owner

Acquisition Date

Source

Measurements

Item Classes

Condition

Accession Number

Cultural Context

popular religious art

Description

Rectangular lithograph of seven black line-drawn scenes, fitted together into two horizontal rows separated by lines; on yellowed paper matted on a coarse, fibrous, yellow-brown piece of paper. The print depicts a dramatic episode of patricide and devotion between Demon Kinf Hiranyakashyap, son Prahlad and the God Vishnu and draws from the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana (800-1000 CE). Top row, left to right: two males face each other, one with a long-necked stringed instrument; a standing male with a moustache faces mourning people; a four-headed male stands beside a fasting male kneeling on a mat; a male carrying a bow, arrows and quiver is on the left, a group of running male archers are on the right, and a male with a long-necked, stringed instrument stands at the upper centre. Base row, left to right: two males, with three males behind each of them, are seated facing each other and holding a boy standing between them; a male carrying a saber strides towards the same boy, with a crowd of males at the left; a lion seated on a throne is tearing out the entrails of a male splayed across its lap. There are captions in script for each scene.

History Of Use

Indian popular religious prints have been published for nearly a century, first by German presses, later by Indian ones. This print is one of the earliest Indian lithographs.The Bhagavata Purana is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (Mahapuranas); it consists of twelve books, totalling 335 chapters and 18,000 verses.