Cremation of the demon Putana, from a Krishna-Lila (c. 1790): Art, History and Details

Cremation of the demon Putana, from a Krishna-Lila (c. 1790) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In the foreground, men of Vraj, the cowherd village where the Hindu god Krishna lived as a child, cut up the oversized corpse of the demon Putana. Already, they carry her forearms and hands to the burning pyre at the upper left. Putana arrived in the form of a wet nurse with secretly poisoned breasts. When she began to feed Krishna, he sucked the life out of her, at which point she resumed her true form. At the right, shocked cowherd women bathe baby Krishna.

Object facts

• Title: Cremation of the demon Putana, from a Krishna-Lila
• Date: c. 1790
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.9 x 31.2 cm (8 1/4 x 12 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1984.4

A detail from the museum

Lila means “divine play” in Sanskrit.

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.