Boston Hydria Depicts the Golden Deer Episode of the Ramayana, Final Remarks

Ramayana in Archaic Greek & Etruscan Art at Caere, Conclusion

Description (Main Presentation, Conclusion & Appendix):

My main conclusion is that Eurocentrism and racist xenophobia, akin to the designation of India and most of South/Southeast Asia as a collection of primitive third-world countries, are the root cause of the stubborn unwillingness to accept the Indian mythological content on these Caeretan works of art. Without researchers of all ethnic backgrounds, East and West, there is little chance that we can arrive at a comprehensive understanding of everything that can be known about the ancient world. European classical scholars are actually doing themselves and others a disservice by not welcoming the input of scholars of Asian or African descent, because this leads to massive gaps in knowledge of their own history, as I have demonstrated in this presentation. Their ignorance of Indian myth and religion, as opposed to Greek myth and religion, is particularly glaring, despite the significant number of Indologists of European descent.

Raffaella Bonaudo and Jaap Hemelrijk concede the potential mythological content painted on the Caeretan hydria in Boston, but they are non-committal and unsure about how to solve this enigma. Otto Brendel is more supportive of the belief in a mythological explanation for the Campana plaques, but is unaware of their close association with the Caeretan hydria No. 2. The inability to correlate these two works of art, which Bonaudo also admits to when she calls the Ramayana episode seen on the Boston hydria "an otherwise unattested mythical tale in Etruria", has led to an inconclusive resolution to this dilemma. The Etruscan art historian Brendel astutely suggests a way out of this quandary when he proposes that the mythological subject matter in ancient Italian artifacts may sometimes be Oriental, even though the production technique is always Greco-Etruscan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm_HY8NPAqk

 

I conclude the presentation with more examples of Indian art, including ancient stone sculpture and medieval painting, to definitively prove that the Caeretan hydria No. 2 in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, dated approximately to 525 BCE, must be a depiction of the golden deer chase of Rama and Laksmana on the front and the abduction of Sita by Ravana on the back. It is a remarkable but true story of the merger of Ionian art and Indian legend in an Etruscan workshop in the late sixth century BCE! Hopefully, this presentation will motivate classical historians, Indologists, curators at major art museums, specialists in South Asian religion, and amateur researchers to also come together in the 21st century AD to tell this amazing story.

Transcript (Main Presentation, Conclusion & Appendix):

Now my main conclusion is that the combination of xenophobia and Eurocentrism lies at the heart of why these works of art have not been identified as Oriental or Indian mythological scenes. And my own personal motivation is not revisionist history per se, but the history that we are not told, simply because these classical scholars choose to focus only on Mediterranean Europe and the Near East, to the exclusion of West and South Asia. A more complete narrative of world history is only possible with the input of researchers who adopt a more holistic approach to the subject, which is what I believe I have done. 

There is a double standard unfortunately in the academic circles. There are far more western scholars of European descent who study Oriental history and myth, including the field of Indology. But compared to that there are very few scholars of Asian or African (that is non-European) descent who study classical history and myth, that is the Greek and Roman myth and culture. So this imbalance of having too many scholars in one field and not enough scholars in the other field and lack of diversity; this imbalance leads to a Eurocentric world historical view.

Returning to the same issue of why these works of art, including the Boston hydria, have not been identified as Oriental mythological scenes, I have the following quote from Jaap Hemelrijk, who does indirectly concede the potential mythological content on the Boston hydria. Like the Italian author Raffaella Bonaudo previously, Hemelrijk is non-committal, however. He writes: “The two painters had a great liking for narrative scenes and a surprising knowledge of mythology and literature. They were fond of myths that are rare, or even lacking in the work of other studios. This preference for unusual stories, which are sometimes hard to identify, suggests that certain scenes, so far not regarded as mythological, may represent definite myths as well.” (pg. 119, Caeretan Hydriae). So he really echoes Bonaudo, who also stated previously (as we showed on an earlier slide) that the Boston deer hunt “cannot be defined exactly and… does not necessarily correspond to a mythical tale not otherwise attested.” (pg. 217). They’re very close to the truth but are still hesitant to go any further than kind of knocking on the door.

Now, if you compare that to another scholar’s remarks - Otto Brendel’s remarks about the Campana slabs - we see a more affirmative statement that they at least realize they must be mythological. So he says that, “About the meaning of these representations (on the Campana plaques), general agreement has not yet been reached, though obviously the abduction of a young woman by a winged being calls for some mythological explanation.” (pg. 175, Etruscan Art). So he does realize that there needs to be some kind of mythological explanation. But he’s a little bit incorrect with his wording, because he’s calling it the “abduction of a young woman by a winged being”, when it really is a rescue of a young woman by a winged being. 

And I think that’s where, if they would compare the Caeretan hydria in Boston to the Campana plaque that he’s referring to, they would see the distinction between the abduction of a young woman versus the rescue of a young woman. And that’s the problem - not only they’re not able to identify definitively whether the scene is mythological or not, but they’re not doing enough comparison with other scenes that are similar, and could reveal the mythical origins.

Rama kills Maricha, whose real form appears above the golden deer, with bow and arrow after his wife Sita (left scene) requests him to hunt the magic animal.

 

Sita's Abduction by Ravana, with common features such as the twisted head, feet pointed in the opposite direction of the abductor, one arm being held by Ravana and the other arm of Sita showing resistance to movement, that are also seen on the Boston hydria.

 

So I want to present another very important quote from an Etruscan scholar, who realizes that the Etruscans probably represented some Oriental stories in their artworks. The scholar’s name is Otto Brendel and in his book Etruscan Art on pages 66 to 67, he writes: “By this time (which is the beginning of the sixth century) the Etruscan artists had acquired sufficient freedom and mastery of representational form to attempt occasionally the rendition of subjects which lay outside the limits of the Greek parent art. The possibility must at least be taken into consideration that Etruscan works occasionally represent subject matter acquired from Oriental art, which may not be immediately obvious to a modern critic because it has been translated into Greek or Greco-Etruscan techniques and forms of representation.” And this is an extremely important observation, and is thought-provoking for all modern scholars. It basically summarizes everything that I have presented to you in all these slides.

The translation of the subject matter of the Valmiki Ramayana is not something that is immediately obvious to the modern classical scholar, but that’s what has happened, and it has been translated into the Ionian-Etruscan techniques and forms of representation. And so therefore, it’s not easy to see it on the surface immediately, especially for somebody who’s not familiar with Oriental myth or Indian myth. In addition, when Brendel (see previous quote) says that “the possibility must at least be taken into consideration that Etruscan works occasionally represent subject matter acquired from Oriental art,” he’s basically or essentially pleading with the classical scholars in the western world to at least consider the possibility that this is an Asian myth, rather than a Greek myth. And he’s quite right to do that and to condemn in essence their Eurocentric views and xenophobia.

And finally, I would just like to draw your attention to the graphics below. Once again, we can see the similarity between the Indian depiction on the right of the golden deer chase, and the Ionian representation of it on the left. The Indian painting on the right was made in Jaipur in the 19th century and it actually is one half of a full painting in which on the bottom, you see the abduction of Sita by Ravana. Actually, the demon Ravana disguises himself as a beggar while Rama is distracted by hunting a golden deer in this top scene. So in the bottom scene there is Ravana approaching Sita as a beggar. And in this top scene which I’m displaying here on this slide, (there is) Rama distracted, along with his younger brother Laksmana to the left of him, while hunting the golden deer, which has two heads again, metaphorically indicating the elusiveness of the deer.

And also normally if we are going to be very technical or by the book, only Rama is the one who actually hunts the golden deer, whereas Laksmana only meets him in the forest after he has killed Maricha, in the actual poem of Valmiki. But there’s obviously liberties taken by artists, where you see these variations where Laksmana also joins Rama in hunting the deer. So that’s why we should not be surprised if the Ionian artists also did the same thing, with what we see on the Caeretan hydria - we see Rama and Laksmana, the two nude youths hunting the golden deer Maricha. 

To finish this presentation I would like to definitively declare that we have proven exhaustively that the Caeretan hydria No. 2 in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, depicts the Golden Deer episode of the Valmiki Ramayana. What happened here is an amazing combination of Ionian art and Indian legend. They were brought together in an Etruscan workshop from the late 6th century BC. It’s a remarkable story that has never really been told, but needs to be told. So thank you. This painting from Jaipur, Rajasthan is actually kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and you can see it yourself at the link that I’ve provided below the painting on this slide - if you care to analyze it further.

Now this presentation has been thorough and complete, in my opinion, but I wanted to give another example in this appendix of the Golden Deer episode in ancient stone sculpture, rather than medieval painting. This carved stone relief that you can see on this slide depicting two simultaneous events from the Valmiki Ramayana, should be all too familiar by now. It dates to the Kushan period, which is placing it around the 2nd to 3rd century AD, and comes from ancient Gandhara, located in what used to be northwest India or what is now modern Pakistan. So this is in the very ancient past compared to the medieval paintings that we’ve been using for comparison. 

And also because Gandhara was near the eastern frontier of the Persian empire in the 6th century BC, and eventually became part of it under Darius around 520 BC, it is my contention that Indians in that region were the ones who narrated the story of Rama to Ionians and Persians when they came into contact with them, in that second half of the sixth century. And this oral tradition then traveled west to Ionia very quickly due to the fast transportation network within the Persian empire, which was also vast. That’s why they talk about the Royal Road from Susa to Sardis. So it was a very vast and fast transportation network.

What is important to not about this particular work of art is that it is one of the oldest sculptures from India that depicts the golden deer hunt as well as the moments before Sita’s abduction where Ravana approaches her. So this work of art is found at the British Museum and you can see that in the link that I provided here. Now the British Museum does give us a description of this scene, and they are non-committal though, about whether the subject is actually the Ramayana. They say that the “subject may be a version of the Rama legend or a theme shared with it.” So they’re not totally sure themselves, but I think as we go through this analysis, I think most people will be certain that it must be, or at least there’s a very high probability that it is.

So in the middle scene here the British Museum tells us that an archer, which I believe is Rama, is holding the bow and is ready to strike his quarry, which is the two rearing cervids that are to the left of Rama, and the nearer one is looking over its shoulder. So if we compare to the Caeretan hydria, we can see that there’s almost a one-to-one match here, where you have multiple deer again that are being portrayed. But the actual reality is that it’s one deer and it’s just moving in a sequence away from Rama. And they’re both rearing, meaning that they are standing on their hind legs in a panic. That is again in accordance with what we see in the Caeretan hydria, with one of the poses. And they’re also showing that one of them is looking over its shoulder, which is again the same twisted head that we see in the middle deer of the Caeretan hydria (the middle pose in the Caeretan hydria).

So really I mean it’s so close to the Caeretan hydria, and it’s also one of the oldest examples from India. So that should really clue us in that this is probably how the Ionian artists really understood it, that this comes the closest to what the Ionian artists were really picturing or imagining themselves. And you can see that the leftmost cervid is not looking back and it’s fleeing away. And that’s analogous to the leftmost deer that we see on the Caeretan hydria. Now if we look at the other scene on the left side, Ravana is posing as an “unhappy suppliant” in the British Museum’s words, and he’s approaching Sita, who is seated in a “partly leaf-covered hut”, according to the British Museum. And this hut is what is acting as kind of a dividing line between the two scenes. 

Also in the rightmost part of the middle scene we see that Laksmana and Sita are probably the two standing figures behind Rama, who is the archer hunting the deer. So really it’s again the same two events - the abduction of Sita and the deer hunt - just as we have seen throughout this presentation, including with the main work of art that we’ve been analyzing, the Caeretan hydria from Boston. I think this should be as conclusive as it gets.