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Folio from a Bhagavata Purana manuscript: Dasavatara Varaha rescues the earth from the depths of the waters. Kashmir, 19th century. Gouache and gold on paper. 9 x 14.5cm

Vishnu is Varaha avatara - the boar incarnation.  In this form he is sent by the gods to rescue earth from the primeval waters after a great flood.  Initially thumb-size, he grows into a gigantic boar as he swims the depths and on finding earth, lifts it above the waters with his tusks - but not before the demon Hiranyaksha tries - and fails - to interecept.  In the picture, Varaha has slain the demon, devotees (representing humankind) with their hands in the position of anjali mudra, the gesture of respectful devotion stand at either side.

Pictures such as this would have been around four to a folio, in a manuscript made as a visual aid for daily prayer and recitation. In this and other ways Kashmiri manuscript illustrations differ from Indian miniature paintings. It also accounts for many Kasmiri folios being worn or in poor condition as they would not be preserved in protective bundles like miniatures in the tradition of those commissioned by courts and courtiers, only occasionally unwrapped and viewed with care, but handled on a daily basis - the images of Krishna and other deities even rubbed with ritual pastes during puja - as would be a bronze murti or icon. Additionally, by being handed from generation to generation they would kept in continuous use over a period of decades. Kashmiri manuscripts were not commissioned by nobility and the wealthy, but ready-made and bought for cash by pious Hindus - perhaps traders, officials, pandits, brahmins - for domestic use and as a portable shrine for travel. For reasons of purpose, these manuscripts are (like those for Jains) conservative in nature, with artists' intent not on the production of fine art but in representing iconic images of the gods, with a presence gained by an almost abstracted simplicity of form and merely summary application of detail to decorative elements such as floral borders.

Price: £125