3 - Becoming the Prince’s Concubine

Summary

Chapter 3 reveals clues as to how Bani Thani became the prince’s concubine, through careful intertextual analysis of paintings and poetry, both his and hers. First, it studies the interocular connections of Kishangarh paintings said to portray the prince and his concubine rather than Krishna and Radha. The dialogic interchange thus discovered points to a transgressive romance that could not be openly expressed. Next, through analysis of Nāgarīdās’ poetic works, more intimations emerge of how he subtly conveyed to the young performer his incipient infatuation, which is also reflected in the visual record. Further confirmation of their clandestine relation is found in veiled responses in her poetry, based on her newly discovered poetry notebook. This seems to confirm the theory of earlier scholars that the prince and the slave girl encountered adversity by virtue of her position in his father’s zanana, but a happy resolution materialized from under the wraps of veiled allusions: Eventually, she did attain the official status of concubine.