Description

A man in an ornate headdress lies on the ground while on top of him crouches a wild-haired female figure biting his throat. Blood gushes from his wound. Behind them another woman totters.

Queen Amṛtamati, disloyal wife of King Yaśodhara, has served some delicacies to her husband and his mother, which, she says, have been sent by her own mother. Yaśodhara and Candramatī eat them and faint. They call the doctor, but in vain.

Yaśodhara falls to the ground, helpless. Amṛtamati rushes over and attacks his throat with her teeth until he is dead. Candramatī also dies, from the poisoned food.

In the picture Amṛtamati is depicted more like an ogress than a human being. She is savaging her husband’s throat, covering his chest with blood.

Candramatī, on the right, is standing at an angle, unsteady, which is a way of showing that she is fainting and about to die.

The long protruding eye is a typical feature of western Indian painting. Its origin is unclear.

Other visual elements

This is a good example of an average manuscript. A red background is used for the painting but there is no use of gold, intricate design elements or elaborate script.

The bottom of the right margin contains the number 4, which is the folio number.

In the upper and lower margins there are syllables missing from the main text, or corrections. The number before them is the line number where they should be inserted.

Script

The script used for the main text is the Jaina Devanāgarī script. It is used for writing numerous Indian languages, here Apabhraṃśa Prakrit.