Deity, devotion, and divine dance

In the middle of the first floor of the Rasa Lila exhibition at the Nepal Art Council is a model of Patan’s Krishna Temple made of Jenga blocks (pictured above). Inside the temple is a red holographic Radha, dancing.

The temple here represents Vraja, a realm that lies far away from the universe in the heights of paradise. This mystical place is the setting of the Rasa Lila: a long lyric poem in the 10th book of the Bhagavata Purana that describes Krishna’s circular dance of love with his female devotees.

So the choice of material makes sense: Vraja, much like buildings made out of Jenga, is more an impermanent zone where players dance with focus and balance. 

Read also: My Sweet Lord, Sewa Bhattarai

Rasa Lila is put together by Priyam Pradhan and team and is made up of various media, including paintings, sculptures, songs, and films. 

The exhibit spans two floors of the Bagmati Art Gallery atop the Nepal Art Council in Baber Mahal. The first floor is about the Rasa Lila (Rasa: divine dance, Lila: divine play). The start of the exhibit plays with the story of Shiva being stopped from entering the Rasa Lila, because he is nine feet tall and not a woman. So he takes a dip into the Yamuna River and emerges a beautiful lass ready to take part. 

Referring to this story is Gopeshwar Mahadev, a sculpture made out of concrete hands and feet joined by rods of carbon steel. The pre-dip hands are masculine, and the post-dip feet, adorned with ghungroo beads, are feminine. 

Next is a river of letters that represents the Yamuna River and contains the initials of the team who worked on the project. Explains Pradhan: “I want visitors to the exhibit to feel like Mahadev, crossing the river into Vraja." A description reads, "The Yamuna is a bridge spanning the celestial and physical realms, and bathing in its waters is the final act after which the Gopis return to everyday life."

Read also: Swasthani lecture

Next to this piece are two large wiry structures of Gopis in dance. They have black metal rod skeletons and wire bodies: one red, and one yellow. 

Inside an alcove in the gallery is a five minute film on loop titled ‘There is no perfection, only life’ made by Urza Acharya. It depicts the life of a Gopi after participating in the Rasa Lila. She is initially struck by depression and lethargy, but slowly finds the motivation to dance and be creative again. 

The short movie describes the fleeting nature of transcendental moments of pure creativity, and how most other moments are boring and mundane. Reads the description: ‘The banality of everyday, in fact, is what fuels those exceptional moments.’  

While the first floor was about the Rasa Lila, the second floor depicts scenes from the Mahabharata, especially ones where Krishna features heavily. Vastraharan (pictured above) is a striking piece of a female figure in a white dress in the middle of a gambling board. Rectangular dice lie on the board and instead of a head the sculpture has a red light.

The story depicted is from the Mahabharata of a game of chance between the Pandavas and the Kauravas where Duryodhana cheats the Pandavas out of all that they have, to the point where Yudhishthira puts up the Pandavas' wife Draupadi, promptly losing her too. 

Duryodhana orders his Kaurava brother to disrobe Draupadi in the court, and although the game has clearly gone too far, nobody in the court, not even Bhishma and Drona, intervene. The clear identical masks represent their shared passivity. 

As her sari is being unravelled, Draupadi has no other option but to pray to Krishna, who saves her by extending her sari infintiely. Yet she is still ashamed and angry, represented by the red light. 

Read also: The violence of violation, Sewa Bhattarai

In the next room is a blue angular metal sculpture of Krishna waking up on a bed of coins. 

“Coins represent Lakshmi, who is present wherever Krishna is,” explains Pradhan. “To make the sculpture we first 3-D printed a mould, then laser cut metal sheets and welded them together.”

The last piece in the exhibit is a large painting of Krishna’s mother Devaki, a divine, pure figure who kept giving birth to divine incarnations even when locked up in a dark murky jail by her brother Kansa. 

The exhibition follows a cohesive theme overall and is well timed for the upcoming Krishnashtami festival which this year falls on 27 August.  

Rasa Lila

Nepal Art Council

Baber Mahal

10AM-5PM, until 3 August