Posted on: 31 July 2013

Painting on paper depicting Arjuna perched on a high platform aims his arrow at a large boar which rushes towards him. The green-complexioned hero kneels on a tiger skin, an allusion to his penance in the jungle. A quiver hangs from his right shoulder and his stance expresses his concentration in aiming at the animal. Behind the platform on which Arjuna kneels is yet another, smaller and covered with fronds. Some diminutive trees in the foreground among which the dark complexioned Kirata appears suggest the forest. The Kirata wears the typical headgear adorned with feathers(?). He is dressed in a loose lower garment tied at the waist by a sash, and wears sandals. He stealthily proceeds towards the raging animal and aims at it from behind. To the right of the page, in the background, Shiva followed, by the green-complexioned Parvati, emerges from the earth, as it were. Shiva carries in this upper right and left hands the damaru and the mriga. In his lower hands he carries the magical pashupata astra, the weapon which will enable Arjuna to defeat the Kauravas.

Company School
1820
Andhra Pradesh

© The Trustees of the British Museum


 View Post on Facebook

Comments from Facebook

Pannriku Nandri solli. Kundrin methu yari ninral. Ventridalam kulasekaranai. Athu enna..???

Kiraatarjuniyam...........

Well the trustees at the museum didn't do a good job of telling the story although they got the identification of each figure correct. The kirata is also Shiva who has come to test Arjuna. It's a beautiful story.