Unidentified Manuscript, with gopis?

[mrabe at artic.edu]

Dear friends with an interest in north Indian epigraphy and bhakti literature:

The Krannert Museum of Art, University of Illinois, Urbana, owns a Kotah
style miniature (5 3/4" x 8 1/2") that carries three lines of an as-yet
unidentified text.  The painting below depicts four women in a riverbank
arbor of flowering trees, the outer two reverentially holding a peacock fan
and a fresh-plucked, long-stem lotus.  Might they be companions of Radha,
together waiting for Krishna?

In hopes that someone might recognize a telling phrase in the accompanying
text I sent a scan to Dominik who has graciously posted it on his Web site,
in a new section called "Indology member queries."
<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/wujastyk.html>

I'd much appreciate suggestions of possible texts to scour even just based
on these preliminary clues:  after the last pada of a verse 52, the next
section's fourth of at least seven phrases [each separated by double red
lines] seems to read "sura-nara-nAga-loka-mana-mohUM" (?).  Also, it may be
that the 3rd akzara in line one is <th> rather than the z of modern
devanagari it looks like, to judge by a charting of 18th c. TAkrI and
ShArada scripts.


Thanks much to any with graphical browsers who may venture to take a look,

Michael Rabe
Saint Xavier University
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
mrabe at artic.edu