- Krishna carried to safety by Vasudeva -

This picture shows the scene just after Krishna's birth where he is being smuggled out of prison in a basket on the head of his father Vasudeva. Krishna was the 8th avatar of Vishnu, the preserver in the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu manifests in the world whenever the forces of evil threaten to overwhelm those of good and Krishna's task was to restore the balance of good and evil by combating Kansa, the evil son of the demon Drumalika conceived by raping Pavanarekha, queen of the peace- loving Yadevas.

After a childhood during which he had shown the full range of his evil nature, Kansa became the all-powerful ruler of the world, whose countless crimes had created unimaginable suffering. The Earth beseeched the gods to intervene and Vishnu decided to descend to the world to defeat Kansa . The demon king, however, had been warned about the birth of a child who would bring about his downfall and he had murdered the first six sons of Vasudeva and Devaki, the couple destined to be the child's parents. Their seventh son (Balarama) was saved when Vishnu had the child transferred from Devaki's womb to that of Rohani, another of Vasudeva's wives who had been sent to live with Nanda, Vasudeva's best friend. Kansa was led to believe that Devaki had miscarried but when she once again became pregnant, he imprisoned both her and Vasudeva until the birth of their child. On the night of Krishna's birth, however, all the guards miraculously fell into a deep sleep and the prison gates swung open. Krishna told his father to carry him to Nanda's home where his wife, Yasoda, had just given birth to a baby girl. The children were changed and Krishna grew up as the " adopted " son of Yasoda and Nanda. Aware that somehow he had been tricked, Kansa ordered his hordes of demons to attack and kill all the children of Krishna's age but Krishna and his brother Balarama overcame the various demonic forces sent to kill them and Krishna grew up to finally accomplish his task in the world by destroying Kansa in a terrible battle which marked the end of the demon's evil reign of terror.

The story of Krishna being carried to safety is one of Anuragi Jha's favourite themes and it is an image she returns to over and over again in her paintings. Known locally as a master story- teller, Anuragi is a living link in the great chain of transmission of the myths and legends of the Hindu tradition and in her paintings and stories, she constantly reworks episodes in the lives of Rama and Krishna, Vishnu's 7th and 8th avatars. Janakpur, her home town, as well as being a busy, bustling commercial centre near the Indian border, built around the main road linking Nepal to its powerful neighbour in the south is also, and perhaps above all, a mythical site where Rama married Sita (daughter of the King of Janak), forming a couple whose example represents the Hindu ideal of marriage. With its shrines, alters and temples dedicated to Rama and Sita dotted all over the town, Janakpur is a pilgrimage centre that every year draws thousands of devout Hindus to its places of worship. A deeply religious woman herself, Anuragi grew up in this atmosphere of devotion and she sees her own work as a celebration of the gods that have always been a central part of her life. Trained by her grandmother to paint the traditional decorations on the walls of their mud huts, Anuragi was one of the first painters to be invited to participate in a project which has since become the Janakpur Women's Development Centre. Behind the walls of this magnificent project, women of all castes and social conditions come together to explore new ways expressing the rich artistic traditions of the region and are responsible for the emergence of a new " school " of painting that is gaining a reputation far beyond the borders of Nepal. Whereas many of the artists at the centre have innovated by painting scenes of everyday life (buses, bicycles, family planning sessions), Anuragi Jha has chosen to devote herself exclusively to illustrating the exploits of the seventh and eighth avatars of Vishnu and in this painting of Krishna, she is celebrating one of the most popular, most deeply loved, playful and " human " manifestations of the divine in the Hindu tradition.