THE OLDEST SURVIVING ILLUSTRATED RAMAYANA

 

"Rama Receives Sugriva and Jambavat, the Monkey and Bear Kings"

THE RAMAYANA FROM THE COURT OF EMPEROR AKBAR

The claim that India is a monolithic culture, as reflected in some imagined past, is belied by centuries of artistic production. The Mughal period brought together talented artists from all regions and religions together to create extraordinary works of art. In their time, these works provided pride, pleasure and education to their viewers. 

"The Court of Ravana"

 (The array of demon courtiers attending the ten-headed demon-king Ravana come right out of Safavid paintings of divs, while the ornament of the pavilion resembles the Persian tile decoration found in paintings from Shiraz.)

In 1574, Mughal emperor Akbar (reign 1556-1605) created a bureau of Records and Translation at Fatehpur Sikri. The aim was to translate important texts, including Hindu epics, into Persian and to illustrate them in the royal workshops. In order to accomplish this task, scholarly Mullahs and Pandits collaborated over several years as Sanskrit texts were reborn in Persian — the Mahabharata became the Razmnama; the Vishnu Purana and Kathasaritsagara were translated; and four illustrated versions of the Ramayana were made — three for different members of the Mughal royal family and one for a Rajput ally- Raja Bir Singh Deo of Datia.

"The Awakening of Kumbhakarna in the Golden City of Lanka"

For the artists at the Mughal court (which included Muslims, Hindus, Europeans and women painters), illustrating these manuscripts posed a special challenge because this was an almost entirely new type of imagery. For example, there is no surviving evidence that the Ramayana was illustrated in manuscript form before the 16th century. So, many of these paintings are innovations of the Mughal period. 

"The Death of King Dasharatha, the Father of Rama"

We have many illustrated folios of the Mughal Ramayana with us today. These shows elaborate scenes from the Hindu epic, with details inked painstakingly and with deference to the epic.




-  Folios from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York