Visualizing the Sursagar

This luscious scene depicts a poem about the love between Radha and the deity Krishna.

How Do You Paint a Poem?

The poem by Surdas is from the Sursagar, or “Ocean of Sur,” which gained great popularity in the Mewar courts in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of his poems became the subjects of paintings. But how do you paint a poem?

Journey through Painting and Poem

Let us go on a journey through the painting, taking the poem line by line.
The lines of the poem are in italics.

The poem begins:

Darling, just a little, let me play your flute.

Radha, the human lover of the blue-skinned god Krishna, is our narrator.

The poem continues:

The notes that you’ve been singing out, my dear,

Take notice of the clothes that Radha and Krishna are wearing; something unusual is about to happen…

The poem continues:

let me produce them all.

Radha asked to play Krishna’s flute and now they’ve gone a step further. On the left, the blue-skinned Krishna wears Radha’s clothes and, in the center, Radha wears Krishna’s clothes and plays his flute. On the right, Radha appears simultaneously in her own clothes; the painter is showing us that we are in Radha’s mind.

The poem continues:

The jewelry you’ve been wearing, I’ll put on—

The poem continues:

and dress you up in mine.

The poem continues:

You’ll sit aloof, a woman angry with her lover;
I’ll come and plead with you, I’ll touch your feet.

The artist translates these lines into side-by-side scenes of the same action—a lover begging for an angry woman’s forgiveness. At left, they play their standard roles; at right, they take on each other’s roles.

The poem continues:

You’ll retreat to a hut in the forest;

On the right, Radha and Krishna stand in their own clothes as Radha tells Krishna how she imagines their role-playing adventure.

The poem continues:

I’ll tug at the edge of your clothes to lure you out.

The poem continues:

I’ll pull back the veil from the love of my life
and hold you close, take you in my arms.

The poem continues:

You’ll be Radha. I’ll be Madhav, Madhav—

Again, here we see the couple twice: on the left, in their own clothes, and on the right, in each other’s.

The poem continues:

everything upside down.

The poem continues:

Lord of Surdas…

Now, in the last lines, we meet the poet Surdas, who is believed to have been blind, as he is shown here. Surdas takes on Radha’s voice to convey that his love for Krishna is like Radha’s.

The poem continues:

… you defeat the three worlds

The painter chose episodes from Krishna’s life where he defeats various enemies as a symbolic representation of victory over the three worlds (of heaven, earth, and hell).

Radha speaks:

And I, in turn…

Radha creates one last image for us…

Radha defeats Krishna:

…defeat you.

Krishna touches her feet, a gesture indicating that Radha, who usually feels she is struggling to obtain Krishna’s undivided love and attention, has fully won him over.