Important Notice

"...The Mahabharata discloses a rich civilisation and highly evolved society which, though of an older world, strangely resembles the India of our time..." - M F HUSAIN

In the late 1960s, motivated by a desire to rediscover his Indian roots, Husain began painting works based on the Ramayana. This was followed by the Mahabharata series-the first of which he painted as a suite of 27 works when he was invited to... "...The Mahabharata discloses a rich civilisation and highly evolved society which, though of an older world, strangely resembles the India of our time..." - M F HUSAIN

In the late 1960s, motivated by a desire to rediscover his Indian roots, Husain began painting works based on the Ramayana. This was followed by the Mahabharata series-the first of which he painted as a suite of 27 works when he was invited to participate in the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1971-which continued to be a thematic preoccupation in the decades to follow. The present lot, painted in 2002, is an important work in this series and depicts several characters and iconic scenes from the epic.

The conception of the Mahabharata, a founding text in Sanskrit literature and mythology, is attributed to the sage Vyasa. He is believed to have narrated the story to the Hindu god Ganesha, who scribed it as it was dictated. Husain depicts this co-authorship at the centre of the composition of the present lot, and includes pointed details such as the quill in Ganesha's hands and the mudra adopted by Vyasa.

The central theme of the Mahabharata details the many years of conflict between two warring clans, the Pandavas (the protagonists) and the Kauravas (the antagonists), and their struggle for territorial possession of Madhyadesa (North India) resolved through the famous battle of Kurukshetra. Its ultimate thematic sentiment of right versus wrong-influenced by the many complexities of morality, duty, power and fate-is one that has impacted the Hindu Indian psyche on a social and anthropological level. "Husain's concept is intensely poetic: with a stroke of genius, the entire mythic world which has enriched the minds of the common people is brought vividly alive. Past and present, myth and reality are shown to exist simultaneously in the Indian imagination." (E Alkazi, M F Husain: The Modern Artist & Tradition, New Delhi: Art Heritage, 1978, p. 17)

On the lower left of the composition, Husain depicts Gandhari, the wife of the blind king Dhritarashtra, and the mother of the Kauravas. Although considered an act of devotion to her husband, Gandhari's blindfolding of herself can be symbolically seen as turning a blind eye to the actions of her sons and the events that lead to the battle between the two clans. Husain also depicts key scenes from the Kurukshetra battle, including a circular disk and galloping horses, likely indicative of Krishna and his role in the war; the final moments of Bhishma Pitamah, the supreme commander of the Kauravas, on a bed of arrows; silhouetted figures in combat; Arjuna with his bow, and the moment when Karna is struck down by his arrow as the latter steps down to dislodge his chariot wheel from the mud.

Throughout his career, Husain was preoccupied with pictorially engaging ancient Indian epics and to make them "speak again in the light of recent Indian history and contemporary Indian geo-political life. Specifically, he is convinced that themes of fate and of power one finds in the Mahabharata and Ramayana are universally true of the modern world and can be re-enacted on the modern Indian canvas." (Dr Daniel Herwitz, Husain, Bombay: Tata Steel, 1988, p. 22) In contemporising this myth, Husain focuses on the psychological component of the Mahabharata, and the metaphor it represents about the internal moral struggles within an individual self. He explores this concept by quoting Gandhi: "I regard Duryodhana and his party as the baser impulses in man, and Arjuna and his party as the higher impulses. The field of battle is our own body. An eternal battle is going on between two camps and the poet seer has vividly described it." (Quoted in Herwitz, p. 25)

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