Early Indian artists imagined her as a beautiful goddess with typical attributes – with her kachchhap-vahana (tortoise-mount) and kalash (vase of water). Often paired with Ganga on temple doorframes from early 5th c. CE, the feminine imagery of these twin rivers honours their divine beneficence, but also represents control, lordship and protection of their waters by gods and kings.
An inscription of the early western Chalukya rulers (696 CE), for example, records their victory over northern regions, a feat that resulted in carrying back Ganga and Yamuna pali-dhvaja (insignia-banner) to the Deccan. And Krishna’s brother Balarama is known to have forcefully diverted the course of Yamuna with his plough.
Yamuna’s intimate association with Krishna is best explored in the resplendent world of miniature paintings inspired by the Harivamsa, Bhagavata-purana and Vallabhacharya’s Pushti Marg. Krishna-bhakti, as experienced in their verbal and visual imageries, conveys an inseparable and perennial reciprocity between nature, natural rhythms, human existence and emotions.
As Sugata Ray argues in his 2019 book, Climate Change and the Art of Devotion: Geoaesthetics in the Land of Krishna, 1550-1850, natural phenomena over the centuries have had considerable bearing on artistic expression.The earliest set of miniatures to offer a visual equivalent of the 9th-10th c. Bhagavata-purana text is an exquisitely detailed but dispersed group known as the ‘Palam Bhagavata’. The series was illustrated by anonymous, highly accomplished artists during circa 1520-40 CE and includes Bhagavata-purana verses written on the rear side (verso). Painted in the early ‘Rajput School’ of Indian miniature painting, they first came together as a series in art historian Daniel Ehnbom’s impressive 1984 University of Chicago doctoral thesis, ‘An Analysis and Reconstruction of the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana from the Caurapancasika Group.’
The Yamuna appears prominently in these painted folios (photo). She is portrayed in her natural riverine state, not as a beautiful maiden. The 10th part of the Bhagavata includes a vivid description of the time when her waters were poisoned by the lethal venom of the serpent Kaliya, resulting in the death of those who drank from the river.
The artist adheres to the text faithfully, but without compromising artistic imagination and creativity. Yamuna is the site where the leela of the Kaliya-Krishna duel unfolds. The flowing, bluish-green waters of the Yamuna are delicately embellished with finely painted white arcs that conjure her rhythmic fluidity.
The sole kadamba tree to have survived Kaliya’s toxic assault acts as a connecting link between the river and other participants in the narrative. Three registers painted with a solid red background reveal the devastating impact of the ensuing duel on Yashoda, Nanda and the gopas (cowherds) of Braj. A gopa clinging to the tree-trunk, his torso twisted towards the people of Braj appears to communicate to them every turn of event. Near the wavy skyline, the tree leads the eye to the celestial world that celebrates Krishna’s eventual victory.
Krishna and Kaliya appear thrice each. First, Krishna jumps into the Yamuna as Kaliya spews venom so toxic that even the air above had turned deadly. Next, he allows Kaliya to wrap himself tightly as though suffocating the blue god. Finally, triumphant Krishna dances on Kaliya’s hoods before releasing him and his wives to leave the river.
Acute nature sympathies of an entire community lie at the heart of this narrative in the land of Krishna nourished by the Yamuna. Today, faith in Yamuna’s efficacy can scarcely afford to be blind to a river’s lament, yet expect deliverance in her polluted waters.