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350
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1877.
back view in Moor's Hindu Pantheon (London, with the infant Christ." However, on one hand 1810) on plate 9, figs. 2, 3 (see the third plate the special emblems of both are wanting in part, to this, fig. 6, at p. 351), marked, it is true, as -as, for example, we find on fig. 76 of the same Lakshmi,* but better referred to Devak i and plate in N. Müller (see our third plate, fig. 4) Krishņa: for, as Moor himself does, p. 30, the bow with the line of bees as a string, the we must consider what the mother holds in fish on the banner, the parrot as an animal for ridher hand as a lotus-flower, and recognize in it a ing; then, too, the god of love is not given anysymbol of Lakshmi; then, ought the child to where else ag an infant at his mother's breast (and be regarded as her son Kâma, the god of love? in fig. 7 he is not represented as such at allMoreover, the question is not of a child actually rather as a youth rejoicing over the beauty of drinking at its mother's breast, but only of a his mother). It is much better to take it as child stretching out towards it in its mother's Krishna at the breast of Deva ki, a concuparms. Similar figures in wood or metal are used tion that must have been copied numberless even for purposes of domestic worship. Secondly, times at the yearly festival of Krishna's birth. to this class belongs the painting on plate 58 in The position of the child, too, corresponds here Moor (see accompanying plate I.), which represents exactly with the statement of the text of the ritual Krishna's birth, and the miraculous escape (see above, p. 286), for, if it does not itself of the infant over the Yamuna, conveyed by his "press the point of the breast," it still " looks father, and protected by Sesh at or Immor- up lovingly to its mother," with one hand stroktality; the guards placed by Kansa over hising her face, while the other is occupied with pregnant sister having failed in their vigilance." her other breast. (Moor, p. 197-see before in $ 1, p. 175.)
Far more important, horrever, is the second The other group will detain us much longer. of these pictures, namely, the one given by It is true it also consists of only two pictures, Moor in his Hindu Pantheon, plate 591-a but these furnish abundant material for ques- beautiful painting (see the second plate) of tions of all kinds. The first of these pictures, "Krishna nursed by Devaki," from a highly which certainly represents to us Krishna finished picture, copied, like all the other plates of drinking at the breast of Devaki, is found in that costly work, by “Mr. Haughton of the Royal Niclas Müller's curious book Glauben Kunst Academy," and taken from a collection of "picund Wissenschaft der alten Hindu (Mainz, tures and images" made in India by Moor towards 1822), plate I. fig. 10 (see the plate at p. 351, the end of last centary. Unfortunately, more fig. 3). According to him, p. 553, it is a gift particular accounts of the origin of the painting are made from the hand of a friend, a faithful wanting. In every respect it is a true work of art, copy, but in half-size, and must have come to and we could even imagine that we were occupied Marseilles as an enamelled box-lid, the property not with the work of an Indian but of a Euroof a French merthant's clerk." Niclas Müller, pean artist if we had not in our possession other on his part, agreeably to the French inscription Indian pictures which indicate a similar masterwhich the picture bore, "La Nourriture de l'En- hand : see, for example, in Moor himself, plates fant Camadeva, fils de Maya," refers the re- 17, 18, 22, 62, 63, 67, 88, 96. No direct reference presentation to the god of love and his mother to the special accounts of the manner in which the Mâyâ or Lakshmi (compare Moor, Hindu infant Krishņa is represented at the festival of Pantheon, pp. 134, 447), who is here seated on the Krishmjanmaahtomí is found in it: he is neither the bosom of a lotus "like a Byzantine Madonna represented as "asleep drinking at the breast,"
Compare plate 11, figs. 1, 2, 3, in Moor, where Lakahmi, as Narayana's wife, is resting in his arms, look.
ing meanwhile more like a child than a woman. (See . Moor, p. 81).
t Bee Wilson, Vishnupur. (Svo ed.) p. 503. .
* We must, then, recognize an attribute of Lakshmi in the lotus-flower which the another holds in her hand : compare the remarkajust made above to Moor's plate 9, figo. 2, 3. .
$ This, according to p. 552, is "a miniature done in oopy by the hand of friend (Herr Mallet) from the portfolio of an Indian artist, the legacy of a French officer of marine (one Herr Darris)."
According also to Orenser'. Symbolik, vol. I.
2nd ed. plate rivi. ; 8rd ed. (Leipsic, 1837), plate vi.; and in Gaignisat's translation (Paris, 1825), vol. II. plate xiii. No. 61.
Mr. Haughton may indeed have helped it, as appears from Moor's words (p. 197) :-“The plate is an ennot oultine of the picture, without any addition or alteration whatever, sare perhaps some portion of ease and elegance in the position of the females." The following, from Moor's description, is perhaps of importance :-" The glory that enciroles her head as well as that of the infant is of green edged with gold ... Krishna in the picture is of & dark brown colour, and not, as his name indicates, and as be in generally seen painted, dark asure" (see farther on this subject the notes made below, p. 862).
