Observe the image and answer the following question.
This sixteenth-century folio from Mewar illustrates which text?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Gita Govinda
Option (1) Gita Govinda — Correct. The folio is Krishna and gopis in the forest, from a Gita Govinda painted at Mewar in 1550.
Option (2) Rasamanjari — Incorrect. Bhanu Datta’s Rasamanjari is a treatise on rasa that classifies heroes and heroines. The Mewar folio of 1550 shown here is from a Gita Govinda.
Option (3) Rasikapriya — Incorrect. Keshav Das composed Rasikapriya only in 1591, so a folio of 1550 cannot illustrate it.
Option (4) Bhagvata Purana — Incorrect. The Bhagvata Purana folio of this chapter is a Malwa painting of Krishna and the cart demon, laid out in compartments.
NCERT (2026-27): “Themes of Paintings – An Overview …Krishna was perceived as the creator from whom all creation was a sportive emanation, and Radha, the human soul who led to offer herself to God. The soul’s devotion to the deity is pictured by Radha’s self-abandonment to her beloved Krishna epitomised in Gita Govinda paintings.”
Krishna and gopis in the forest, Gita Govinda, Mewar, 1550, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai |
