The Goddess Bhairavi Devi with Shiva

'The Goddess Bhairavi Devi with Shiva', ca. 1630-35, attributed to Payag (ca. 1591-1658). The painting, executed in opaque watercolor and gold on paper, is described with precise detail: cinnabar rendered into the goddess's flesh, lamp-black coiling into pillars of smoke, azurite wash for the sky, all on a tiny (7¼ × 10⅜ inches) surface smaller than a book page but filled with a whole cosmos. It's enclosed by a broad cream border of gold monochrome, not a silent backdrop, but filled with a variety of life forms and otherworldly beings like jackals on the left margin, a lion on the right, rakshasas salute from the corners, birds whirl above under the Devanagari inscription 'Shri Bhairavi Devi' inscribed in thick black ink on the top. The border doesn't frame the painting, it expands the painting, drained of all its color, as if the cremation ground has spilled out beyond its edges. The top inscription announces exactly what we are looking at, as nakedly as the label on a vessel of something deadly. The ground inside the gold border is a sandy ochre, covered with bones, cut off hands, skulls and a minimum of one full skeleton; it all has the same fine forensic care that Payag shows in his battle scenes. Seven funeral pyres blaze on the horizon, sending up columns of grey-blue smoke that Payag orchestrates masterfully; each wisp of smoke has a particular density and each a unique shadow falling across the light blue sky. It is a chiaroscuro not drawn from European light sources but from fire. At the center, Maa Bhairavi sits in lotus pose (padma-asana) on a headless corpse; she is blood red in color, achieved with cinnabar; she is four-armed; her hair falls to her waist; her forehead has horn-like projections; she holds a sword, a severed head, and a trident; the fourth hand is raised in a gesture of protection(the abhaya mudra). Her hand and body represent both blessing and destruction that's the entire theology of this painting. To her left Shiva, in the lotus position and colored ash grey, wears a skull necklace and sends a stream of flame from his mouth, mantra made manifest, or prana, the divinity in breath; he only has a minimal halo; hers is concentric rings of gold. Historically, this painting is unusual; such strong Hindu, Shaivite subjects were not commonly found in the court of Shah Jahan. Welch suggested it might have been a diplomatic gift to Rana Jagat Singh I of Mewar who was particularly devoted to Bhairavi (indicated inscription on the back); it is not a royal album painting; it belongs to a relationship, a theology. Payag is not recording history for the court, he is painting another world that underlies everything – the marble of the court, the marble beneath, the cool, controlled beauty of the reign of Shah Jahan – the world that burns.

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