Arjuna and his men attempt to free the white horse from the rock

Arjuna, bare-chested in a yellow dhoti, leans in and grips the head of a white horse that has become fixed to a rocky hillside. A man in orange stands at the horse’s side. Behind them the other Pandavas wait in a row on the right, with soldiers, chariots and two elephants packed along the bottom of the page. Overhead, four gods float on cloud seats, which the British Library identifies as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Indra. The rocks are pink, lilac and grey, and a line of Persian script runs under the picture. A note on the title: “Arjuna and his men attempt to free the white horse from the rock” is the caption on the Wikipedia page. The library’s own catalogue says Arjuna trying to free the horse from the rock watched by the other Pandavas. Both describe the same painting. The story of this horse is to the ashvamedha yagya, this royal horse sacrifice that Yudhishthira performs to declare his rule. It roaming freely while Arjuna and his army follow, and any kingdom it enters must submit or fight. A horse that cannot move halts the whole campaign. A museum note on a related painting from another Razmnama says the horse was lost in the Vindhya mountains and then found again by Arjuna, his four brothers and Krishna. The painting is credited to Banwari Khurd. He also painted f. 95r in the same manuscript. The V&A holds another leaf from the book under the name Banwari the Younger. I found no biography, so his training and family remain unknown to me. The book’s 24 paintings were shared among 21 artists, which points to workshop teamwork. Other leaves from the same manuscript are recorded as opaque watercolour and gold on paper. One picture agency says “vellum”, but the museum records disagree, so I’d go with paper. The Razmnama is a Persian translation of the Mahabharata, and its name means roughly “book of war”. The British Museum says Akbar commissioned it as part of a push to make Persian the court language. The V&A adds that it let Persian-speaking courtiers read Hindu scripture. This copy is classed as sub-imperial, meaning it sits close to the emperor’s workshop without being one of his own books. Meaning: This is my own reading. The stuck horse puts Yudhishthira’s claim to kingship at risk, the gods signal heavenly approval for the Pandavas, and the crowd makes the setback a public one. The sources I found don’t record how Mughal viewers read the scene.