Introduction to Ramayana in Archaic Greek & Etruscan Art, Part II

Description (Intro, Part II):

Summary of the plot of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, and a detailed examination of one particular episode - the golden deer chase of Rama and Sita's abduction by the demon Ravana. The style of continuous narrative in which multiple scenes are painted to form a logical sequence of events is observed in Indian medieval art. Ionian artists painted the Caeretan hydria made in Etruria, and imitated this style of continuous narrative in their own way, based on our initial examination of this ancient work of art kept in Boston, USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1yXOMAZZxM&t=469s

Transcript (Introduction, Part II):

For those who are unfamiliar with the Indian epic of Ramayana, I just want to provide a brief summary of the plot. In this story, the prince Rama is the eldest of four brothers in the royal household of Ayodhya, which is situated in northeast India. He is a great hero and prince, and he marries the lovely Sita, the daughter of King Janaka of Mithila, which is a nearby state, pretty much adjacent to Ayodhya. Next in the plotline, the queen Kaikeyi uses her position as King Dasaratha’s favorite wife and the boons he granted earlier to her as leverage in order to banish her stepson, the prince Rama, to 14 years in exile from the kingdom of Ayodhya.

So before he can become coronated by his father King Dasaratha as the next king, Rama is banished to the forest for 14 years because of Queen Kaikeyi’s jealousy. And her own son Bharat actually, however, refuses to become the next king after this deceit. So Kaikeyi acts as a shrew who ruins the King Dasaratha’s plans to coronate his own eldest son Rama as the next king of Ayodhya. So in these 14 years in exile Rama travels through the wilderness in treks through Central and South India, and he is accompanied by his wife Sita and younger brother Laksmana. Near the end of his exile in the 14th and last year, Rama’s wife is abducted by a monstrous demon named Ravana, who rules the island of Lanka, which is now modern Sri Lanka, which is just a little bit south of the southern tip of India. And Sita being the chaste lady that she was, she resists Ravana’s sexual advances, but suffers as a hostage in his palatial garden in Lanka.

Meanwhile, Rama gathers an army of semi-divine monkeys, traverses the ocean from the southern tip of India, and then finally reaches Lanka, and attacks the demons of Lanka to retrieve his wife. And finally, Rama eventually kills the demon king Ravana in the ensuing war against the raksasas, which is the main name for the demon race in India. And he then returns home to Ayodhya with his wife Sita and they reign happily as king and queen.

Now that we have summarized the main plot of the story, I want to get into a very important part of the story, which is the golden deer chase of Rama and wife Sita’s abduction, which is really a pivotal event in the entire storyline of the Valmiki Ramayana. It is one of the major episodes of the Ramayana. And in this episode, we have a hunt of  an illusory golden deer during the forest exile of Rama and Sita. Sita sees the golden deer and desires it and Rama goes off to chase and hunt it. So they were living in the forest during their exile and they came upon the sight of this beautiful golden deer.

Furthermore, in this episode, Laksmana eventually joins his elder brother Rama in a chase after this elusive golden deer. So this golden deer is both illusory and elusive and very beautiful. But the problem is it’s actually a demon in disguise, who is drawing the two brothers away from Sita, leaving her unprotected and alone. This golden deer trick is a premeditated scheme of the demon Ravana and his uncle Maricha, who takes on the magical form of the golden deer. 

So why does Ravana do this? Well, Ravana does this because he desires to make Sita his own wife and he also wants to harm the hero of the story, Rama, who has been killing many of his demon friends in the forest. So this scheme allows Ravana to hurt Rama as well as hurt Sita, and it allows him to abduct her and take her to his own kingdom of Lanka. Finally, at the end of the episode, Rama does manage to catch up to Maricha and kill him with his bow and arrows, but it’s too late and Sita is already been kidnapped and taken to Lanka.

Now you might be asking, what is the relevance of this particular episode when it comes to the classical world? Well, unbeknownst to classical scholars, the Ionians and the Etruscans of the Archaic period, that is the 6th century BC, demonstrated knowledge of this specific chapter in the story of Rama in at least one of their surviving works of art. In particular, the Caeretan hydria in Boston is one artwork that I will definitively prove to be a depiction of the golden deer hunt of Rama and the abduction of Sita by Ravana. 

Another major artwork from Etruria that I believe is also illustrating the events of the Golden Deer episode of the Ramayana is the famous Monteleone chariot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. So this chariot was discovered in Monteleone di Spoleto, I believe, which is not far away from Rome and is still in a central part of Etruria, or southern Etruria really. So I’m not going to go into detail about this particular example in this presentation because it requires really a very lengthy discussion in another presentation. 

So I won’t be going into detail about this but I just wanted to add that this may be yet another example of the Golden Deer episode being depicted in the Mediterranean world. The Monteleone chariot, like the Caeretan hydria and the Campana plaques, also dates around the middle of the 6th century BC. I just wanted to add that the Monteleone chariot was technically discovered in Umbria, which is basically on the border of Etruria and Umbria. And it’s of great interest in my opinion because it does appear to be depicting the Golden Deer hunt as well as the abduction of Sita, in its own style. It’s a bronze chariot that we actually can see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

To dive right into an Indian depiction of the Golden Deer episode of Rama and Sita, I’m displaying here an Indian painting at the Harvard Art Museum, which is also in Boston, by the way. And it depicts the Golden Deer episode in a very specific way where you have two simultaneous events depicted on the top and the bottom, which are separated by the orange dividing line that I’ve put on it. So what do we see here on the top? Well, on the top we see Rama hunting the deer in the top left corner and Laksmana following behind him in the far upper right corner. But on the bottom, we see two different scenes that are directly connected. We see Ravana disguised as a mendicant approaching Sita in the middle at the entrance of her hut. And then on the bottom right we see Ravana carrying her away in his chariot and holding on to her tightly. So the Harvard Art Museum describes it this way and the most important thing to note is the continuous narrative part. 

They say that the painting depicts a continuous narrative and that’s the key phrase that I want to hold on to. Then they say that Ravana holds on to Sita while he rides away in his donkey-drawn chariot. And in the top left corner, Rama is shown delivering the fatal shot to Maricha in the form of a deer. And in the far right corner is Laksmana, his bow at the ready, coming towards Rama. So you can see that there’s a continuous narrative here, and there’s actually four different scenes that are going on: one in the upper left corner, another in the upper right corner, etc. So we have two on the top and then two on the bottom. And so we’re going to get back to that in the next two slides.

Just to summarize this painting, I want to emphasize that there are two general events that are occurring simultaneously in this painting. You have on the top, above the orange line that I provided, you have the deer hunt and then on the bottom, below the orange line, you have the abduction of Sita. So these two general events, the deer hunt and the abduction, are occurring at about the same time. And that’s what the artist is depicting in this painting. So in essence, it is actually both a continuous narrative of four different scenes as well as a more general depiction of two simultaneous events, Rama’s killing of the golden deer and Sita’s abduction by Rama.

In Western art, the concept of continuous narrative or the juxtaposition of multiple scenes that form a logical sequence of events is not necessarily common. But this is part of the problem of analyzing some of these Ionian works of art in Etruria because they do have a continuous narrative. One author who has recognized that these Western art critics and scholars struggle to identify the distinction between a work of art that is depicting a continuous narrative versus a work of art that is not, is Joanna Williams. She explains in her book that one “incentive to undertake this particular study came in the curse of looking at a fine set of illustrations of a poetic text in a museum with a discerning American collector of Indian painting. He remarked as we considered the 10th picture: ‘What a waste to have these together where they become boring. Each one would be a masterpiece by itself. And this reaction is symptomatic of our treating as separate pictures, images designed to be seen in sequence.’

And this is a quote from her book, The Two-Headed Deer, Illustrations of the Ramayana in Orissa. And she adds, Joanna Williams, on the same page: “The content of a single picture can be addressed in isolation. But for a series with narrative content, we must consider several images in sequence to understand how the story is told visually. This task is not peculiar to Orissa. So I focus upon images of the epic Ramayana, some version of which is known to virtually every Indian and which ought to have a place in the world’s literary canon.” So this is a lot to unpack here but the main thing is that we have to analyze images in a sequence as part of a continuous narrative and not as images that are isolated and unrelated to one another. And that is the problem with the analysis of the Caeretan hydria in Boston. The classical scholars treat the two sides of the Caeretan hydria, the front and the back, as independent scenes. But I view them both together as part of a continuous narrative.

Now we will make an initial examination of the two sides of the Caeretan hydria in Boston, which is called the Boston deer hunt. And that reflects the ignorance of the classical scholars because there’s a lot more to it than just a deer hunt or an abduction or an interaction between a satyr and a maenad. So if we look at the front side here of the Caeretan hydria, we see two young men who are practically nude and they’re hunting either one deer or multiple deer or a stag that is, with their bow and arrows. And look at how they keenly seem to lock in on the middle deer, which is also looking back at them with, you know, staring at them directly with their eyes. So, they’re both staring at each other, and they’re about to kill the deer. 

Now, you might notice that there’s an orange dividing line between the front side and the back side here on this slide because I am trying to draw attention to the similarity between the top and the bottom of the Indian painting (Harvard) we just looked at and the front and the back of this painted water jar. So in the back side of the Caeretan hydria on the right here you see two different scenes actually where a satyr is approaching a maenad and grabbing here by the shoulder and arm and then on the left  side of this back side jar you see another painting where the satyr is carrying a maenad off and holding her firmly around the waist. So this is again what you would call a logical sequence of events. The satyr first grabs a hold of the maenad and gets control of her and then he carries her off.

So, it’s actually meant to be read in a logical sequence from right to left, just like the scene in the front side of the Caeretan hydria, is also meant to be read from right to left where you have the two nude hunters and they’re attacking at least one stag which is fleeing away to the left. So the action is clearly moving from right to left in both scenes, on the front side and the back side, but the back side is split into two different scenes that are part of a logical sequence. So, we have a total of three different scenes here, just like we have a total of four different scenes on the Indian painting that I just described, and they’re all part of a logical sequence and a part of a larger story.

And clearly, you can see that this is also a Golden Deer episode being depicted here, but in the Ionian style. And that’s why it’s not exactly very easy to tell for a classical scholar because they are not familiar with the Ramayana at all. But to a person like myself, it’s quite obvious that this is another depiction of the Valmiki Ramayana, but in the Greco-Etruscan style. And we will get into more depth in the presentation about this. So to be more explicit, the continuous narrative that is being depicted on this Caeretan hydria is one, the first event is on the front, the deer hunt of Rama and Laksmana hunting the golden deer Maricha; and then on the back side the second part of the continuous narrative is Ravana approaching Sita and trying to grab her and the beginning of the abduction; and then the third scene is Ravana carrying Sita off to Lanka. So you have three different scenes here, and it’s a very clear and logical sequence of events.

In reality, just like the Indian painting that we just looked over, the two events are actually happening simultaneously - the deer hunt of Rama and Laksmana (front) and the abduction of Sita by Ravana on the back side. They’re happening more or less simultaneously and it’s so similar and the parallel is so obvious with the Indian painting that it’s remarkable and I just hope that the viewer recognizes it as well. So just to summarize, the front side of the Caeretan hydria with the deer hunt of Maricha by Rama and Laksmana is mirroring the top of the Indian painting we just looked at from the Harvard Art Museum. And the back side of this Caeretan hydria where we see Ravana abducting Sita in a two-part sequence is mirroring what we see on the bottom of the Indian painting at the Harvard Art Museum, where Sita is again abducted by Ravana. Now obviously the depiction is slightly different. Ravana is on foot in this back side of the Caeretan hydria, but the implication is the same and the meaning is the same, that he is carrying her off. And you can see that everybody has their own style, but the meaning is the same. You will also see variations in Indian art of how Ravana abducts Sita, which show him either on foot or on chariot. But the reality is that it’s unmistakable that this is Ravana abducting Sita.

To briefly give you a sample of Indian art depicting this same episode, I have just shown two color photos here. One is from a print that is kept at the British Museum and comes from the Indian state of Rajasthan. So in this left scene you see the same deer hunt with Rama and Laksmana chasing the golden deer; and in this case you only see a single deer, and that’s because the Indian artists seem to prefer the multiple heads rather than multiple positions or poses, which is what you see on the front side of the Caeretan hydria. On the front side you see multiple poses, which indicate the dynamic movement of the deer. 

Now the right color photo is from the Victoria & Albert Museum and it originally comes from the state of West Bengal in India. It’s part of a narrative hand scroll and you can see that it matches almost perfectly with the first part of the abduction sequence on the back side of the Caeretan hydria. In both scenes, in the black and white scene above and in also the color scene below, you can see that the lady is trying to move away from the demon, who is grabbing her by the arm. And that demon is Ravana and the lady is Sita, and we will be analyzing the front side of the Caeretan hydria and the back side in greater depth in the presentation.

Also I want to add that in Indian art, Sita’s abduction is usually presented in at least one of three different phases. Phase one is before the abduction, phase two is during the abduction, and phase three is after the abduction. Often times the artists depict two of these phases, as we already saw in the example from the Harvard Art Museum, which were before and after the abduction. In the phase of before the abduction, Ravana is shown in a disguised form approaching Sita without actually touching her yet. But during the abduction, which we see here on the hydria, Ravana is seizing Sita by the arm, shoulder, hair, or torso. And in this case, it’s the shoulder and arms on this hydria.

After the abduction, which is the third phase, Ravana is carrying Sita away in his arms or in his chariot, which is what we see in the Harvard Art Museum. We see the chariot, and on the hydria, we see him carrying her away in his arms. So therefore we observe two phases on this hydria as well, which are during and after the abduction. And actually when go through the (main) presentation and we make a comparison with Greek myths of abduction, we also observe the same thing where they will be depicting different phases of the abduction in Greek myth also, whether it be before or after or during. So that’ll be an interesting part of the presentation.

Introduction to Ramayana in Archaic Greek and Etruscan Art, Part I

Description (Introduction, Part I):

 

South Asian Legend of Rama in Greek and Etruscan artworks during the early Classical period (6th century BCE). Two relics are highlighted as proof of knowledge of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana among Ionian Greeks and Etruscans in Caere  - Campana plaques in the Louvre Museum, Paris and the Caeretan hydria in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. A brief overview of the Mediterranean world, including important facts and maps for visualization, is also presented to help understand the context in which Indian myth traveled to East Greece and Italy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlzjihOHcmA&t=71s

Transcript (Introduction, Part I):

The title of this presentation is simply, the South Asian Indian legend of Rama in archaic Greek and Etruscan art. The Campana plaques, one of which you can see on the left, from ancient Italy, and one of the Caeretan hydriae, which were painted water jars, are two examples that prove certain Ionian artists in the ancient Mediterranean had knowledge of this particular Indian epic. The South Asian Indian legend of Rama is officially called the Valmiki Ramayana, or just simply the Ramayana. And it is one of the two national epics of India, and definitely one of the great stories of the ancient world.  

The name of the legendary poet who composed the Ramayana is Valmiki, spelled V A L M I K I, and this is why it is called the Valmiki Ramayana. It is a poem that is much longer than the Greek epics Iliad and Odyssey combined, as it contains a wealth of stories that have fascinated Indian and Southeast Asian cultures for centuries. And although the epic poem of the Ramayana is probably more than 2,500 years old, the earlist known depictions of it from Asia date only to the 2nd century BCE.

In this presentation, I am making the bold claim that the Campana plaques and the Caeretan hydria that were painted in the Mediterranean world should constitute the oldest collection of imagery portraying the main characters of the Ramayana, including the hero Rama and heroine Sita, who you can see above from right to left. This familiarity with the story of the Ramayana in the ancient Mediterranean world began around the mid to late 6th century BC and probably ended abruptly around the beginning of the fifth century BC. And that is why it has been forgotten to some extent. 

Both the Caeretan hydria that you see on the bottom right and the Campana plaque that you see on the left, they are both artworks that date to the 6th century BC. And to be more specific, probably the third quarter of the 6th century BC, 550 to 525 BC. And this is far earlier than any Indian artwork that depicts the Ramayana by several centuries. And so given that this work of art dates to much earlier, the 6th century BC, it is an astonishing gap and if it was accepted as a depiction of the Ramayana, it would immediately become the oldest known depiction of it. And the importance of this and the magnitude of this is very, very great, meaning that the ramifications for our understanding of world history are enormous.

To gradually and gently introduce this subject matter which is very complex, I am giving  you a preview here of Greek and Etruscan art from a Caeretan workshop in the 6th century BCE. My purpose here is to give a quick overview of terms and important facts from ancient Italy and Greece in the late 6th century BC. And then after that I will give a preview of my own case study of Caeretan artworks. My case study will focus on Greek and Etruscan knowledge of South Asian Indian mythology, particularly the legend of Rama, the great hero of the Valmiki Ramayana, which is very famous even today all over South Asia and even Southeast Asia, in countries such as Cambodia and Thailand and many other Southeast Asian countries. So it’s a very popular epic in the Asian world, and what I am trying to prove is that it also was known in the 6th century BC to the Greeks and Etruscans for a short period of time.

Before getting into terminology, I just want to draw your attention to the pictures on this slide. They are from the Caeretan artworks called the Campana plaques, which are five in number. And this is a sample of faces from three of those slabs. And the Caeretan artworks were produced in the southern Tuscan city of Caere. Tuscany is the modern name for ancient Etruria. So Caere was located in southern Etruria near Rome. And what I was trying to just do briefly here is give you a little bit of a preview based on the facial recognition of these characters. And if you look at these characters from left to right, you can see the similarity in their hand gestures and their facial appearance. Their beard is shaped in a very similar way and the hair is also very similar. And I am going to argue in the presentation that each one of these characters is a depiction of the Indian hero Rama. You can see also if you look at more closely, the right hand side here is a zoomed-in photo of the picture of the man who’s holding bow and arrows and has his right hand raised. So you see that on the right side here, and then on the left side you see two pictures of a man with a beard and also making a hand gesture. But also if you look at it you’ll see that this second picture on the left has another man with a bow and arrows. So Rama is typically depicted with bow and arrows in Indian religion and in the Indian art. And so really the Etruscan artists or the Greek artists in Etruria were doing the same thing here. They were depicting him with bow and arrows. And you see that in the second and third pictures here.

So now I’ll get into more of the terminology from ancient Italy and Greece as well as, you know, getting more in depth about these Campana plaques and the Caeretan hydria. The story of Rama, the great hero of ancient India, was later subsumed into the foundation myth of Rome and into the mythology of the founding king Romulus. And this is a subject that I am not going to go into detail in this presentation, but that’s what this presentation is laying a foundation for. So even though I will not be going into a length discussion about the foundation myth of Rome, I just want the audience to keep in mind that this presentation is meant to act as a bridge towards that even broader subject. I want to establish some important details about the classical world or ancient Mediterranean in the 6th century BC before going into greater detail in this presentation. 

The first important fact is that the Ionians or the Greeks were scattered across the Mediterranean world. And they had colonies in Asia Minor on the western coastline. And many of these Ionian artists from Asia Minor also traveled to Etruria and settled there during the second half of the 6th century BC or 550 to 500 BC. So they were well-traveled. They actually traveled to many different places in the Near East and in the Mediterranean world. But one of the most important places where they settled down was the ancient city of Caere in southern Etruria. The next point I want to make is that, and it’s a very important fact, is that the Persians or ancient Iranians had already conquered the Ionians in Asia Minor, as well as most of West Asia by 525 BC. And their empire actually stretched far enough to include parts of modern-day northwest India or what you would call Pakistan, or Afghanistan. 

And the next point I want to make is that Caere was a city situated in southern Etruria, very close to the boundary between Roman and Etruscan tribes of Latium and Etruria. So the Latin tribes of Rome and the Etruscan tribes were on the border around this area of Caere and Rome. And Rome was a city in Latium, of course, that was situated very close to the Etruscan cities of Caere and Veii in southern Etruria. So, Caere and Rome were in close proximity and that’s what is very important for our analysis and the Persians had an empire that stretched all the way from Ionia and Asia Minor to really, the northwest boundaries of India. So these Ionian artists were able to communicate with ancient Indians and Persians.

Now the next few points are that Rome was ruled by generations of Etruscan kings. And this again ties into the fact that the there was a close relationship between Etruria and Rome in the 6th century BC, especially between Rome and Caere, as well as a few other Etruscan cities like Tarquinia. So Rome was ruled by generations of Etruscan kings whose origins have often been traced to Tarquinia, another coastal city in southern Etruria that was close to Caere and Rome. The next point I want to make that’s very important is that the Etruscans themselves were very fascinated, unusually fascinated, with oriental cultures, especially in the Near East during the Orientalizing and Archaic periods, which primarily span the seventh and sixth centuries BC, which would be approximately 700 to 500 BC. 

Now the Caeretan hydriae are specific works of art in a workshop in Caere that existed about or between 530 to 510 BC. And these Caeretan hydriae were painted water vessels and along with them there was also an established art of terracotta wall painting, which was connected to the hydria. And both of these works of art were often the work of Ionian artists who had immigrated to Caere. And these Ionian artists also had access to interactions with Oriental civilizations including Persia and Egypt as well. For example, in Egypt there was the coastal city, or important trading outpost of Naukratis, where there were many Greek artists. Just to summarize, before we move to the next slide, I just want to re-emphasize that the Caeretan hydriae were produced in the coastal city of Caere in southern Etruria. And these painted water vessels as well as the terracotta wall painting, which includes the Campana plaques, were often the work of Ionian artists who had immigrated to Caere. And these Ionian artists had access to interactions with Oriental civilizations including Persia and Egypt.

To visualize the ancient Mediterranean world, I’ve presented some simple maps here. On the left hand side, you see ancient Italy with Etruria and Latium. Latium is in the southeastern part of the map of Italy. And then you see Etruria in the northwestern part of it. And on the border between Etruria and Latium, you see the cities of Cerveteri and Rome. Cerveteri is the modern name for ancient Caere. And you can see the blue arrow pointing at it and the red arrow is pointing at Rome. And they’re clearly in close proximity to one another. So these two cities had a close relationship in the 6th century BC.

Now moving on to the map on the right hand side, you see the Ionian cities colored in green on the western coast of ancient Anatolia or Asia Minor, which is now modern Turkey. And if you look on the top you can see an orange arrow pointing at the Ionian city of Phocaea, which is of particular interest. These Ionian artists that immigrated to Caere, they likely hailed from Phocaea, which is, you know, located in the northern part of Ionia near the border of Lydia, which was one of the first nations to fall infamously to the Persians and Cyrus the Great around the middle of the 6th century BCE.

The following is a general list of the main ideas I have that I want to prove in this presentation. So what am I trying to prove about the classical world including Greece and Etruria in the 6th century BC, especially the second half of it which was 550 to 500 BC? Well, on a high level, I want to expose the incomplete nature of our understanding of that time period due to Eurocentrism and ignorance of Asian influences, particularly Indo-Persian on the Greeks and the Etruscans. Specifically, archaeological excavation of artworks from the city of Caere has revealed knowledge in Etruscan aristocratic circles of so-called Oriental myths, which are actually traceable to the Indian legend of Rama, the earliest composition of which dates to the 6th century BC in India, the same period coincidentally. 

The next point I want to make is that the Caeretan hydria, that specific work of art which is kept at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the USA, and the Campana plaques, which are a group of five terracotta painted panels, and those panels are kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France; these two separate works of art, the Caeretan hydria and the Campana plaques, they are two major examples of artworks depicting the popular Indian myth of the Ramayana, which was also told in ancient times to countries all over Southeast Asia. Next, I want to talk about the Persian Empire which facilitated the necessary social exchanges between Ionian Greeks from Europe and North Indians from Asia that were required for transmission of this Indian epic Ramayana all the way from India to Italy, or what you would call Etruria.

Ramayana in Archaic Greek and Etruscan Art, Part V (Boston Deer Hunt)

Description (Main Presentation, Part V):

An in-depth study of the deer hunt on the front side of the Caeretan hydria in Boston. Excerpts from Valmiki's text describing Rama's chase of the golden deer Maricha help explain the meaning of the three different poses of the stag on the Etruscan vase, confirming that it is one deer moving away from the hunters in a dynamic scene. Indian medieval artists prefer to employ the device of multiple heads on the golden deer (instead of multiple poses) to illustrate its deceptive form, elusiveness, rapid movement, and duplicity. The turning or twisting of the head of the deer to look back at the hunters is a common feature shared between the Greco-Etruscan and Indian depictions of Rama and Laksmana's deer hunt, however. Both artistic styles, either through multiple poses or multiple heads, emphasize the extraordinary nature of this particular deer that the two 'nude youths' in the forest are pursuing. In the Caeretan hydria, the three poses from right to left signify a sequence of actions by the deer: panicking when seen by Rama (rearing); looking back with a twisted face to spy the hunter Rama aiming a bow and arrow; and fleeing away at full speed beyond the hunter's range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dbXZD2zpZE&t=846s

Transcript (Main Presentation, Part V):

We now return to a more in-depth analysis of the Boston deer hunt on the front side of the Caeretan hydria number 2. So this is a zoomed-in view of the front side of the Caeretan hydria or Boston deer hunt. And notice how the eyes of the two hunters seem to be honing in on the deer in the middle. And you can see how the stag also in the middle is also eyeing them with the twisted head. And so the reality is that this is a hunt of one deer or a single deer, not multiple deer. The other two poses are quite distinct and are from the same deer. And we’ll be going through that in detail on the next slide.

Before going to the next slide, however, I would like to read you a passage from the Valmiki Ramayana itself which describes this scene that you’re viewing right now on the hydria almost perfectly in some ways. So it reads in Aranya Kanda, Sarga 42, Verses 3-6, we have the following description: “The deer spied the Lord of Kings, that is Rama, rushing toward him and he led him on, now timorously hiding, now showing himself again. Taking up his bow, Rama ran toward the deer. At one moment he would spot him running through the deep forest, temptingly near, and would take his bow in hand, only to look once more and find the deer beyond the range of his arrow. In one stretch of forest he (Maricha in his deer form, that is) came into sight leaping through the air in frightful panic and then he passed into another stretch and out of sight.”

So the parts where the deer is beyond the range of his arrow and out of sight are represented by the deer which is fleeing away in the far left corner, you know, furthest away from the two hunters here. And then the leaping through the air in frightful panic when the deer comes into sight is represented by the first deer which is closest to the two nude youths. And you can see it, you know, in a panic mode leaping up, with its front legs; and of course the deer spying the Lord of Kings rushing toward him is represented by the deer in the middle. So really if you look at the description in the Valmiki Ramayana, you can see the multiple poses or positions of the deer as it tries to get in and out of sight of Rama’s range, of his bow and arrow. So it’s just, it’s quite remarkable that the artists were able to depict this in just one painting.

So just to summarize what we’ve discussed here, the Caeretan hydria in Boston on the front side depicts this dynamic chase through the multiple poses of the stag and represents the moments before Rama strikes Maricha with his arrow, killing the demon. Many depictions actually show the moment when Rama finally kills Maricha and his illusory form is disintegrated. This hydria, however, does not depict this last moment, probably because the focus of the artist is on the deception of Rama and Laksmana who are being done in while Ravana abducts Sita. The stag painted in the middle with the twisted head represents the moments when the deer spied the Lord of Kings, Rama, rushing toward him. And the situation where Maricha comes into sight, leaping through the air in frightful panic, is represented on the hydria by the stag closest to the nude hunters Rama and Laksmana. And of course, the leftmost stag, which is the farthest from the two nude youths, represents the deer beyond the range of Rama’s arrow, which passes into another stretch and out of sight, in Valmiki’s words.

So to identify the three positions, the distinct positions or poses of the stag, we have to view them from right to left. And the rightmost stag, we can see, we can observe the panicked fact and the front legs are raised because it has been alerted that it needs to start fleeing away. And we can also see the quote below: “the good East Greek parallel for the panicking of deer is seen on a Lycian wall painting,” which also dates to the same time period. And again, ‘Lycian’ is a hint that this is a scene that originates from East Greece and Asia Minor and also is probably a myth that is from the Eastern world, not from necessarily the Greek world. Now, the next pose is the twisted neck and the deer’s eyes looking back at the hunters while moving away. It (has) started to gallop away but not at full speed. And it’s also eyeing the hunters and making sure that they don’t have a perfect aim. And then the third pose is, clearly, it’s not looking back at all anymore. It’s only looking straight ahead and it’s running away at full speed with its front legs bent perfectly now. So it’s clearly an indication of a transition from, getting ready to flee, to starting to flee at half speed, and then finally fleeing at full speed without any hesitation.

Jaap Hemelrijk explicitly notes that “hunting deer with the bow on foot is rare anywhere in Greek art.” So these nude hunters who are clearly hunting on foot with bow and arrow are not something you normally see in Greek art. That again is another alert that this is not really a Greek myth that’s being depicted. “The frontal head,” he continues, “of the third stag on No. 2 (hydria) is remarkable, a motif popular in East Greece.” And the third stag in this case is actually the first one from right to left, which is the one with the panicked face and the front legs raised to get ready to start fleeing. And so therefore he realizes that a good East Greek parallel as we have noted earlier for the panicking of deer is seen on a Lycian wall painting, and Lycia is located in Asia Minor. So clearly there’s a lot going on here and there’s not a lot of great, complete answers that they have. They only give hints.

So comparing this scene to the reverse side of the Boston hydria, I have noted that he has stated that the maenad Sita “looks round” (and that’s the key phrase) or looks back in fear while moving away when Ravana grabs her arm. The second pose here of the stag on the front side with eyes looking straight at Rama and Laksmana while striding away is comparable. And also the third pose of the stag which is, you know, the leftmost stag, is comparable to Ravana’s rushed movement with Sita fully in his grasp with bent legs and hooves. So we can see the analogy in many different ways here between Ravana and Maricha, who is disguised as the golden deer, as well as even the maenad Sita and the golden deer.

Classical scholars do hint at the realization of one stag making multiple poses. In his book Caeretan hydria, Jaap Hemelrijk recognizes the “lively” drawing of stags multiple times and he reminds us of the dynamic nature of Maricha who shifts from one position to another in his elusive movement away from the hunters. It really is an ingenious way to present the whole myth in my opinion in one vase or water jar. You have Rama and Laksmana distracted by the deer on one side, in a place far away from the two characters on the other side, which is side B, and those characters are Ravana and Sita, of course. The author does remark directly in a revealing way that the “drawing of stags is lively”, and that’s the key word, and he says, “one expects an arrow to be sticking in one of them.” And he explicitly says one of them. So that is exactly what we see happening in the Valmiki Ramayana. That’s what happens to Maricha the demon who disguises himself as an attractive stag. Eventually Rama catches him and kills him. So Hemelrijk also restates the same observation later on in his book emphasizing the deer’s movement. He says “the movement of the fleeing animals on number two is extremely lively.” So this really is a strong indication that the scholars are coming close to realizing the truth but don’t quite have the ability to connect the liveliness of the movement to the dynamic nature of the moving deer, the singular deer which is Maricha in disguise.

So how do the Indian artists depict Maricha’s multiples poses and trickery in their painting? Well, this is an example on the right side from Himachal Pradesh or Chamba painting. And in it, you can see Maricha’s two different poses, one on the left and one on the right (on the far right). On the left, Maricha appears before the two nude youths Rama and Laksmana and then appears again in his buck form with his head tilted back to look at them on the far right side. The Indian artists thus convey his elusiveness and seductiveness through multiple poses or even heads, which we will see on the next slide. And just to remind you, the demon Ravana is also shown with ten heads. So they (the Indian artists) were very fond of depicting these demons and depicting their treachery and elusiveness through multiple poses and multiple heads.

One example is the two-headed deer sculpture which you can see in Orissa, the state of Orissa (Odisha) in India, which is in the northeastern part of India. And the Indian artists in this state, they employ the magic illusion of two heads to illustrate the golden deer’s elusiveness. And so you can see both of these two pictures here. You can clearly see that one of the heads is tilted back to look at the pursuer and the other is feeding on something to seduce the hunter. And this is from Joanna Williams’ book on the two-headed deer in Orissa. 

There are many characteristics of these extraordinary deers. They are elusive. They are illusory. And also the duplicity is another characteristic. So whether Maricha moves so fast that the hunters see multiple stags or (they see) one stag with multiple heads. So either multiple stags or one stag with multiple heads. Either way, the result is the same, duplicity. And Joanna Williams has stated very clearly, “The two-headed deer catches our eye as an emblem of illusion. What are the implications of this image? The golden deer was part of a trick that enticed Rama away from Sita. To endow it with an extra head is in the words of living painters, to emphasize that it is no ordinary deer. The two-ness of the heads implies duplicity.” 

And so yeah, I mean there’s so many characteristics here, but the main thing is that it’s a very extraordinary deer and it’s illusory and it also is duplicitous. And my own comment is that hunters with a bow and arrow do not normally hunt multiple deer at one time because shooting one arrow after another without stopping like a gun with bullets is not possible. So even though there are two hunters wielding a bow and arrow, the three deer we see on the water jar from Caere are the Ionian artists’ rendering of the hasty movement of one deer as it eludes both of them, in my opinion. The turning of the deer’s head in the second part of the sequence of fleeing is comparable to what we observe in many Indian paintings depicting that scene, i.e. the deer hunt of Rama hunting Maricha. So the fact that the artist paints the deer three times in a moving sequence serves to emphasize the difficulty of the hunter’s chase and the extraordinary nature of this particular deer, just as the two-headed deer from Orissa above is no ordinary deer.

So, just to summarize, whether the artists depict multiple stags or one stag with multiple heads, what they’re really trying to depict for us is that the hunters are seeing Maricha, disguised as the golden deer, moving so fast that it’s like a blur. And that can be, you know, depicted with multiple stags moving in a sequence or one stag with multiple heads, (the latter of) which is what the Indian artists in Orissa chose to do. But they can do it either way, but either way the result is the same, duplicity - the depiction of a duplicitous raksasa demon disguised as a golden deer.

Joanna Williams reinforces my point that both rapid movement and illusion, or Maya as they say in India, are encapsulated in the image of the two-headed deer. She writes that “the images also bear out the charm of the creature, which in the first place captivated Sita, and which both puzzles and amuses us. Thus the deer reminds us in a playful way of uncertainty and the difficulty of making judgements. This is true of the motive as it appears in Orissa, whereas in Gujarat, the same form implies primarily rapid movement, also appropriate to the deer but less specifically evocative of Maya.” So what she’s saying is that it can be interpreted in many different ways. The two-headedness or multiple deer moving in a sequence, they can be interpreted as implying rapid movement and elusiveness, but it also can be appropriate or evocative of Maya, or illusion, as well. 

But the two-headedness is better for implying illusion or Maya, whereas the depiction of multiple stags moving in a sequence is more evocative of rapid movement, of course. So it really is a judgement of the artist whether they want to emphasize one or the other. But they are both very important and they’re both applicable and appropriate to the story of the Golden Deer chase. And on the bottom you can see a picture from Williams’ book, figure 60, where it shows Rama and Laksmana on each corner, and they’re both preparing to hunt the two-headed deer. So you can see that in India as well as in the Ionian artist’s depiction, you can see Rama and Laksmana looking to hunt the deer. And both artists in India and the Ionian, they’re both emphasizing the puzzlement of the hunters and how they are being kind of seduced.

These two images that I’m going to show you are more examples from Indian art - Indian miniature paintings of the Golden Deer episode that illustrate Maricha’s duplicity, seductive form and rapid movement or elusiveness. On the left you see from Bengali folk art the golden deer twisting its head to seduce Rama, who’s almost looking like he’s leaping out of his hut getting ready to hunt it. And on the right side you see the chase is already on and Maricha is in full flight. And you can see that half of his body (is changed) - his body is the deer form but his (real) face is showing, and that indicates his duplicity quite explicitly. And he’s also galloping away fast, whereas Rama is about to aim his arrow at him. The right image seems to emphasize more of the duplicity and the elusiveness of the golden deer, whereas the left image from Bengali folk art is more evocative of the seductiveness of the golden deer. But clearly the characteristics of duplicity, seductiveness or illusory Maya form, as well as rapid movement of the deer or the elusiveness - those three characteristics are the ones that are primarily emphasized in different ways in all of these depictions.