Editing Madonna (art) (section)

== Parallels in Indian art ==
[[File:Carved Ivory Objects from Goa.jpg|thumb|Carved Ivory Objects from Goa, 18th/19th Century. [[National Museum, New Delhi]]]]
In [[Indian art]] there are striking similarities found in between the images of Madonna and Christ Child, and [[Yashoda]] or [[Devaki]] and [[Krishna]], as both the [[Hindus|Hindu]] and the [[Christians|Christian]] figures of the "eternal child"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rabindranath Tagore - Verses - Fireflies - 26 (the child ever dwells) |url=https://www.tagoreweb.in/Verses/fireflies-200/the-child-ever-dwells-7654 |access-date=2023-04-06 |website=www.tagoreweb.in}}</ref> are shown cuddled warmly on the laps of their mother.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=enrouteI |date=2022-12-23 |title=On the Mother's Lap |url=https://enrouteindianhistory.com/on-the-mothers-lap/ |access-date=2023-04-06 |website=Enroute Indian History |language=en-US}}</ref>

There also exists a temple in [[Goa]], the Shree Devakikrishna Temple at Marcel, where seeing the idol of Krishna-Devaki, the [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] had not decimated the temple, for it had reminded them of Virgin Mary-Jesus.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=2017-10-29 |title=When Devaki met her son |work=The Times of India |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/when-devaki-met-her-son/articleshow/61317788.cms |access-date=2023-04-06 |issn=0971-8257}}</ref>

"An impressive idol of Devaki, carrying the infant lord on her waist, stands at the inner sanctum of the temple. The image is unusual because while there exists a plethora of temples in the country dedicated to Krishna, there is no image of Devaki".<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Historian Anant Dhume, in his book 'The Cultural History of Goa from 10,000 BC to 1352 AD', compares the idol with the image of Madonna and the Christ child because of the similarities.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Dhume |first=Anant Ramkrishna Sinai |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/693684216 |title=The cultural history of Goa from 10000 B.C.-1352 A.D. |date=2009 |publisher=Broadway Book Centre |others=Nandkumar Kamat, Ramesh Anant S. Dhume |isbn=978-81-905716-7-8 |edition=2nd |location=Panjim |oclc=693684216}}</ref>

In the book, Dhume elaborates: "However, the idol of Devkikrishna originally of Chodan Island, Tiswadi taluka transferred at the time of molestation by the Christian missionaries to Mashela (Marcela in Portuguese) hamlet of Orgaon village, Ponda taluka, is interesting ... History says that Vasco da Gama in his old age was appointed Vice-Roy of all colonies of the Far East as a gesture of honour. One day, he visited Chodan Island. When he saw this idol through the main doorway, he immediately saluted the image and went on his knees, considering it the image of Mother Mary, with baby Jesus ..."<ref name=":2" />

During the Portuguese reign in Goa starting from the 16th Century, the Indo-Portuguese [[Ivory carving|ivory statuettes]] made, reflected such similarities.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Christian art in India: Indo-Portuguese ivory statuettes (article) |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-asia/south-asia/x97ec695a:1500-1850-deccan-south/a/christian-art-in-india-indo-portuguese-ivory-statuettes |access-date=2023-04-06 |website=Khan Academy |language=en}}</ref> "The Portuguese had settled with the aim to dominate the spice trade and spread their Christian faith, and these small, portable ivory statues would embellish the church altars and Goan homes, and were also transported abroad serving to fulfil their later project. These figurines were carved by the Indian artists under the guidance of the Jesuits".<ref name=":0" /> Art historian Gauvin Alexander Bailey notes that the [[Jesuits|Jesuit]] art commissions "were . . . a partnership in which the artists' own interpretations of sacred art were encouraged and fostered."<ref name=":3" /> The Jesuits sourced small paintings, prints and sculptures from Europe for the Indian sculptors to use as reference, and the indigenous artists used their own traditions for fashioning such figures. One of the most brilliant example of this syncretic form is the figure called the Good Shepherd Rockery (also known as the Good Shepherd Mount or Bom Pastor) which "displays the coming together of cultures in both its iconography and its features, encapsulating how Goan sculptors created images of the divine that are Catholic, European, and South Asian".<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> The child form of Christ in this figure, with round face and smooth skin were perhaps drawn from sculptures of baby Krishna.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Mary on the moon: ivory statuettes of the Virgin Mary |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315456058-15/mary-moon-ivory-statuettes-virgin-mary-goa-sri-lanka-goa-sri-lanka-marsha-olson |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781315456058 |author=Goa and Sri Lanka MARSHA G. OLSON|editor-first1=Deborah S. |editor-first2=Rebecca M. |editor-last1=Hutton |editor-last2=Brown |title=Rethinking Place in South Asian and Islamic Art, 1500-Present |year=2016 |isbn=9781315456058 }}</ref><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":0" />

{{multiple image
| direction         = horizontal
| align             = right
| width             = 150
| footer            = Icons of Navanita-Krishna or Krishna, The Butter Thief, circulating in 16th century South India, like the copper alloy made statue from [[Tamil Nadu]] (left) and the ivory statue from [[Mysore (region)|southern Karnataka]](right), both currently at [[LACMA]], were utilised by Christian artists in [[Portuguese India|Portuguese-ruled Goa]] to produce the icons of the infant Christ.  
| image1            = Krishna, The Butter Thief LACMA M.72.1.16.jpg
| image2            = Krishna, the Butter Thief LACMA M.84.34 (1 of 2).jpg
}}

Whereas, in Bengal, the Chore Bagan Art Studio, the Kansaripara Art Studio and the Calcutta Art Studio, produced homegrown prints around the second half of the nineteenth century. These artists, were influenced by the various depictions of Christ in the European prints which had infiltrated the market of the time. And perhaps the closest connection they could draw was between the child Christ and Krishna.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2019-12-23 |title=The Indian Pieta |url=https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/talking-point/the-indian-pieta-111641648702047.html |access-date=2023-04-06 |website=Mintlounge |language=en}}</ref> [[Jyotindra Jain]] comments: "... the Chore Bagan Art Studio published a popular picture, titled Birth Of Krishna, which was almost entirely based on popular prints of The Birth Of Jesus Christ, to the extent that the presence of three wise men of the East was also literally imitated in this work."<ref name=":4" />

Artists such as [[Jamini Roy]] also adopted this image, and Jesus and Mary would feature in the canvases of [[Tyeb Mehta]], [[Krishen Khanna|Krishnen Khanna]], [[Madhvi Parekh]] and others in ways that provide a commentary on, and glimpse of the Indian social scene.<ref name=":4" /> Churches in India, such as Tamil Nadu's Sanctuary of Our Lady of Vailankanni which was deemed a [[basilica]] by the [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic Church]] in 1962, similarly housed idols of Mary clad in a traditional [[Sari|saree]].<ref name=":4" /> "These remain examples of how in art and in faith traditions merge, so do symbols and images, giving birth to syncretic cultures that testify the ravages of communal hate, man-made differences and orthodox interpretations".<ref name=":0" /> [[Nirendranath Chakravarty|Nirendranath Chakraborty]], one of the finest modern poets of Bengal wrote, taking forward this imagery of the mother and the child, wrote a famous poem entitled ''"Kolkatar Jishu"'' (The Jesus of Calcutta).<ref>{{Cite web |title=বাংলার কবিতা - কলকাতার যীশুনীরেন্দ্রনাথ চক্রবর্তী |url=https://banglarkobita.com/poem/famous/1587 |access-date=2023-04-06 |website=banglarkobita.com}}</ref>

The everlasting tenderness of the mother-child figure, of motherhood and the unconditional bond of love and warmth that this relationship holds, "that the Christ child on Madonna's lap signifies and is reverberated in the image of Krishna-Yashoda or Devaki, is perhaps what marks the culture of love",<ref name=":0" /> and justifies the various interpretations of this symbol in art and poetry found across the subcontinent.