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.