Asian Art in London 2026: A Mystical Menagerie

Inscribed in Sanskrit on reverse, 'Iti tasya vachah shrutva Naimikharepa vasinah aprichchan rishayah shreshthah katham iyam pranashinim. Nishrutva tu tvanmukhat Devanatha prabho smayam adhuna bruhi tatsamravam Shivasya aradhanam param. Yatha pashcan nidhau proktam yena praradhitah Shivah. Prasanne na Shive naiva kasmai dattam phalam mahat. Parvatyah shrutapurvaiva vivahas tatra nagatah. Suta uvacha: Samyak prishtam hi bhagavan nishchayad bhavito hyasi. Munishvara tadaham te kathayamy aghashantaye. Shrunutam tat shishah shreshthah bhavadbhih prichchhate yadvat. Tatha Vyasena vai pura prishtam Sanatkumara kat. Yathavat tad ghanam tena Vyasena shrutavan aham. Shivapujam akanchanyam tan maya kathyate adhunah. Tat shrutva Lokanathasya kamya kamyena hetuna tam chaiva kathayamy adya mahamune shrinu mattah.’

‘Hearing those words, the sages dwelling at Naimisharanya addressed Shuka “O revered one, please recount to us that sacred story which destroys sin. From your own mouth, O lord among men, we have heard many things already. Now tell us in detail the supreme worship of Shiva, just as it was spoken of in ancient times, by which Shiva was propitiated. For when Shiva is pleased, great fruits are bestowed otherwise, to whom could they possibly be given? We have heard that Parvati performed austerities for Shiva and that their marriage then took place. Please narrate that to us as well.

Shuka replied “O sages, you have asked well, with firm devotion. Therefore I shall recount it to you for the removal of sins. Listen attentively, O best of disciples. Long ago Vyasa himself, the sage, asked Sanatkumara this very question, and from him Vyasa received the full account. From Vyasa I too have heard it, and now I shall narrate it to you. Thus shall I tell you of the worship of Shiva, as it was taught, and how it brings the highest good. Having heard of the lord of the worlds, and for the sake of your desire, I shall now narrate it—listen, O great sages.”’

This folio appears to be from a Shiva Purana series created at Kangra during the reign of Maharaja Sansar Chand (r. 1775–1823). The series is associated with the workshop of Purkhu, the leading painter of the Kangra court (active c. 1780–1820). Purkhu’s early career was taken up mainly with portraits of his young patron and others at court. The years shortly after 1800 were given to personally illustrating, or guiding the workshop production of a group of manuscripts, notably the Harivamsa, Gita Govinda, Rasikapriya, Shiva Purana and Ramayana. The Met describes the workshop manner as clear and legible in its narrative rather than lyrical, which is an apt description of the present folio.

The Sage Shukadeva (or Shuka) was the son of Vyasa, the legendary poet-sage credited with composing the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana and the other seventeen Mahapuranas. The composition illustrates a framing narrative found across the major Puranas. Rather than a scene from the Shiva Purana itself, it shows the Puranic convention of a sage expounding divine knowledge to a gathering of ascetics. The inscription gives the opening exchange, in which the sages of Naimisharanya ask for the supreme worship of Shiva. It names the speaker as Suta, the traditional narrator of the Shiva Purana at Naimisharanya, although the folio’s title identifies the narrator as Shuka.

The scene is a forest hermitage. At right, before a domed thatched hut, the narrator sits on a gilt-footed dais against a coral-pink bolster. He wears a white dhoti and shawl and an orange turban. He holds a manuscript leaf in one raised hand and lifts the other in a teaching gesture. At left a ring of ascetics listens: white-bearded elders, turbaned men and longhaired figures in saffron and pink robes, several holding rosaries. Two ash-grey figures in the foreground sit on leopard skins beside water pots, marking them as Shaiva ascetics. A pothi on a low stand, small cups and a brass vessel lie between teacher and audience.

The attentive audience form an arc that curves towards the narrator, who is anchored by the hut and its dark doorway. A pale terrace carries the eye from the foreground to this exchange, and three beds of red and pink flowers cross the lower edge like a threshold. Beyond, a lotus pond with white cranes and layered hills of green and ochre recede to a second hermitage at upper left, where three figures sit under trees and echo the main scene in miniature. The palette is cool and restrained, with greens, white and ash-grey enlivened by salmon, coral and saffron. A black border with white flowers and gold scrolls sits within a salmon-red margin ruled in red.

A folio from a Shiva Purana series dated to about 1800, offered at Christies Lot 10, 23 July 2020, showing Shiva instructing the sage Bhringisha offers a useful point of comparison. The two paintings share a common Kangra vocabulary: a dark border with white flowers and gold scrolls within a salmon-pink margin ruled in red; a thatched, domed hut with an arched opening beneath a canopy hung with white flowering creepers; overlapping rounded hills of pale green and pink-ochre; and ascetics with bare torsos, beads, animal skins and terracotta vessels, drawn in profile with long eyes. Both convey narrative through speech and gesture, in the direct, journalistic manner that is characteristic of the workshop’s style. The present folio nevertheless appears somewhat later in style. The earlier painting idealises its figures, modelling them softly with smooth profiles, and sets them in a continuous landscape that recedes through overlapping layers of foliage and a finely hatched river. The present painting is more complex in its overall composition and more detailed and descriptive in its presentation of figures and landscape. The figures  differ markedly from each other and retain a greater sense of  individual character than in many lesser folios. The treatment of landscape is likewise more ordered than earlier folios, dividing the composition into distinct zones of flower beds, terrace, pond and hills it is enlivened by patterned detail such as evenly spaced lotus blossoms, a mannered treatment of landscape of the kind the Met observes in Purkhu’s work. Its larger and more formal assembly around a single narrator, and its even distribution of colour, likewise contrast with the intimate exchange and concentrated colour accents of the earlier work. Taken together, these features suggest a later work within the same tradition, consistent with a date around 1820.

Another folio from a Kangra Shiva Purana series, dated c. 1820 and showing Sati casting herself into the sacrificial fire at her father Daksha’s rite after he insults her husband Shiva