Ramayana in pictues. Picture 3

One day when the sons had not yet grown up, a holy man named Vishvamitra came to King Dasharatha. He had a difficult and important request. He wanted Rama to accompany him in order to destroy two demons (raksasas): Marica and Subahu. The demons were disturbing Vishvamitra in his important holy services (Yajna). They were throwing stones on the fire and they attempted in many other ways preventing the holy man from carrying out the rituals needed for the whole community.

 ”Give me your eldest son, Rama, the hero with hair black like a raven! He will be able to destroy the demons, due to his divine heritage and with my help”, Vishvamitra said.

Dasharatha did not want Rama to embark on such a dangerous task. The boy was still young and was not prepared for this kind of difficult endeavours. Vishvamitra assured him that Rama was the only human being who at all would be able to kill the demons.

”Remember, you did not get your son by your own power. Now you have to share your gift. I assure you that those two raksasas will be killed without damaging Rama.” So Vishvamitra spoke.

Dasharatha wanted under no circumstances Rama to fight the demons. Vishvamitra became so angry that the earth was trembling and even the gods feared his wrath. Then Dasharatha’s counselor said:

 ”Honoured king, you are always faithful to dharma. You know it’s impossible to go against dharma. Your duty is to trust Vishvamitra. ”

After a long time of persuasion, the king understood that he had no choice. He sent for Rama and with him came the inseparable friend and half-brother Laksmana.

Picture 3. Vishvamitra and the boys take farewell of their father, king

Ramayana in pictures. Picture 2

When each queen had got some of the rice, there was a small amount left. The king gave this to Sumitra. All queens were blessed and gave birth to sons. The eldest son, who was called great minded, was born by Kausalya. He got the name Rama and he was chosen to be successor to the throne of King Dasharatha. Kaikey, who was the king’s favourite, gave birth to a son named Bharata, while Sumitra, who received two servings of the rice milk, gave birth to twins: Laksmana and Satrughna.

The four prince were raised in ”dharma” and were taught to handle weapons. During their upbringing they became tightly knotted together. Rama and Laksmana got especially close friends, indeed inseparable.

Picture 2. The king and the queens are watching the young princes playing.

Ramayana in pictures (4)

 

Once, very long ago, Ayodhya was a beautiful city in India. Its King, Dasharatha, had ruled for many years, and its inhabitants lived in happiness and prosperity. The king was honoured for his justice and wisdom. He abode his duty (dharma) in reigning his kingdom, as well as in carrying out his religious duties. In the Vedic-Hindu tradition, every single person is responsible for the benefit and the health of the whole society. Kings have a special duty to take care of their people.

At this time, King Dasharatha was depressed. He began to grow old but he still had no heirs, even though he had several wives. He went to the Fire God. Due to Dasharatha’s humility and obedience, the Fire God listened to his prayer for sons. Dasharatha got a mug of rice in milk (payasa) to divide between his wives. King Dashratha’s wives were Kausalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi. Kausalya was the oldest queen and Kaikeyi the youngest.

Picture 1. The Fire God is offering the mug. The queens and King Dasharatha with their counselors are standing before the god.

Ramayana in picture (3)

Before we present the pictures and the explanations of them, we want to provide a summary, as featured in Sanskrit. Below you find a transcription of the Sanskrit text along with a translation into English.

ADOU RAM TAPOVANADI GAMANAM

Rama and the others go out into the woods

HATWA MRIGAM KANCHANAM

The golden deer was killed

VAIDEHI HARANAM

Vaidehi (= Seeta) was kidnapped

JATAYU MARANAM

Jatayu was killed

SUGREEVA SAMBHASHANAM

Conversation with Sugreeva

VALI NIGRAHANAM

Vali was killed

SAMUDRA DHARANAM

The city was in flames

LANKAPURI DAHANAM

A bridge was built to the city of Lanka

PASCHAT RAVANA KUMBHAKARNA HANANAM

Later Ravana and Kumbhakarna were killed

EDAT HE RAMAYANAM

This is Ramayana

Ramayana – continuation (2)

What is written above represents only two rows of a verse in a shloka, that should consist of four rows of eight syllables in each. The entire Ramayana consists of 24000 verses. Together they form a single shloka, which in Sanskrit is called: I shloka Ramayanam.

In an introduction to texts from Ramayana, Måns Broo writes the following (translated from Måns Broo, 2010, p. 153):

”Thus the honourable and noble Valmiki created the glorious poetry of Rama

in hundreds of harmonious verses with pleasant lines of meters and meaning.”

It is very difficult to interpret the entire work in verse. This book is intended to illustrate Ramayana by pictures and to explain the episode behind each picture.

An Indian artist, Sugandha Iyer, became when  she was very young, as inspired by Ramayana that she painted images to various episodes from the epos. 

The pictures were painted in Paithani style, a traditional style going back two hundred years. This style is characterized by the following: Faces are painted in profile, with a marked nose and large expressive eyes. Nevertheless, the people seem to be numb. The ritual hand movements. are also noteworthy The images are painted with traditional materials in opaque colours (poster colours) on paper. 

Sugandha Iyer presented her pictures 1977 at an exhibition in Basel, Switzerland. She then left her pictures at the ethnographic museum in Basel (Museum der Kulturen). Before she did so, she took photos of them. This book is based on reproductions of her slides, which unfortunately had become badly devoured by time.

Two young art students, Rahul Satpute and Kiran More, got trusted to recreate Sugandha’s pictures. Their teacher in artistic creation is Radhika Malekar, who also explained how the images were to be painted. Their images have been photographed for this book.

Sugandha Iyer and Yvonne Wærn met when Sugandha was returning from Switzerland.  Thirty years have now passed. We want to celebrate our friendship anniversary with this book. With our hands stretched over continents we herewith pass the pictures and the story to the eyes of readers.

Poona Linköping November 1, 2017

Sugandha Iyer Yvonne Wærn

Ramayana in pictures

Pictures designed by Sugandha Iyer

Preface

Ramayana is one of the great Indian epic tales with roots in an ancient era. Most inhabitants of India have met Ramayana in some form or other. As a child, you might have seen a puppet theater about Seeta, Ramas wife, when she was abducted by the demon king Rawana. You may, as a youngster, have got fascinated by some films about the fight between Rawana’s people and Rama together with the monkey army. As adult, you can immerse yourself in the poetical language as well as the religious ideas. 

The story goes as follows.

God Shiva has incarnated in Prince Rama in order to destroy Rawana, who was ruling over the demons in Lanka. Rama is displaced from his throne by a stepmother and commanded to spend fourteen years in the wilderness. He accepts this as his duty. His wife, Seeta, follows him loyally and Laxamana, his affectionate half brother cannot leave him either.

The story can be read as an adventure story, but it is much more than that. It is about devotion and love, about fulfilling duty and engaging in moral purity. The story teaches about helping friends and fighting the evil. In short, it’s a story about how a person should be obedient to ”dharma”.

Ramayana is said to have been written down at first by Maharishi Valmiki, a holy man who lived between the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ. He, in turn, was trained by the goddess Narada. He expressed himself in Sanskrit, a language very close to the origins of all Indo-European languages. Sanskrit is still the second official language in the state of Uttarakhand in India.

It is said that Valmiki was the one who invented the shloka verse, and this was first used in Ramayana. The background is the following:

Once Valmiki saw a hunter killing a crane in the middle of a love act. He became so upset about this misdeed that he exclaimed (the following is a new construction in English):

Malicious arrow from stringed arc finished the ardent love of cranes. 

May your mind be filled with agony all the remainder of your life.