Literary and Archaeological Evidence from India and Italy for Dating the Ramayana

Ramayana in Archaic Greek and Etruscan Art at Caere, Part IV

Description (Main Presentation, Part IV):

The so-called Boston Deerhunt, or Caeretan Hydria No. 2, is one of the earliest vases produced in the Ionian artists' workshop at Caere, dated between 530-520 BCE. Similarly, the Campana plaques are also dated around 530 BCE by the Louvre museum. The oldest contents of the Indian epic poem known as the Valmiki Ramayana, including the Aranya Kanda (Book of the Forest), are also dated to the middle of the sixth century BCE (circa 550 BCE). Therefore, archaeological evidence from Etruria, including the Campana slabs and the Caeretan hydria No. 2 (Rama's deer hunt), in the same century confirms the literary dating of the oldest kernel of the Ramayana. Finally, we determine the exact episodes in the legend of Rama that are shown on the Campana panels and their sequential order in Valmiki's poem, thus proving it to be a unitary literary work narrating Rama's story of exile and his journey to rescue his wife Sita.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDjYWLFn-EQ

Transcript (Main Presentation, Part IV):

Now we’re going to talk more about the date of the hydria No. 2, which is the Boston deer hunt, and see how that also coincides with the dating of the Valmiki Ramayana by Indologists. Just in the earlier slides, we confirmed that the Golden Deer episode of Rama and Sita, as depicted in Etruscan art, is dated approximately 530 to 520 BCE. And if we look at the analysis by Indologists of the kernel of the Valmiki Ramayana, which includes the Book of the Forest (which also contains the Golden Deer episode and Rama, Sita, and Laksmana walking in the forest, which is seen in the Campana plaques), we see the symmetry in their dating. The kernel of the Valmiki Ramayana and its bardic tradition dates to the 6th century BC (and you can see that in the below quote), which just happens to coincide perfectly with the date of this hydria and the Campana plaques.

So according to Robert Goldman, in his Volume I translation of the Bala Kanda (Book of Childhood), he writes: “It seems reasonable to accept for the composition of the oldest parts of the surviving epic a date no later than the middle of the sixth century BC.” (pg. 22). So the Ayodhya Kanda and the Aranya Kanda, the second and third books, which are the Book of the Kingdom of Ayodhya and the Book of the Forest, those two books especially are part of the oldest kernel of the Valmiki Ramayana. And they date no later that the middle of the sixth century BC, according to the Indologist Robert Goldman. So really there’s a perfect coinciding here between the date of these Caeretan artworks and the date that he provides, based on only literary analysis of Hindu and Buddhist and Jain texts; his analysis does not have anything to do with, or is totally independent of, what I have discovered here when it comes to Etruscan art.

That’s how archaeological and literary evidence can really come together to prove something, and that’s what we’ve been able to do here. It’s a remarkable thing and it really proves that the Valmiki Ramayana is at least as old as the 6th century BC. It really confirms that, through the combination of this archaeological evidence that comes from far-away Etruria and the literary evidence and analysis of the texts from India, and parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia. It’s just amazing, and I think that people need to notice just how remarkable it is that we can date this text, not just based on literary evidence, but also archaeological, artistic evidence.

And finally, the author Jaap Hemelrijk in his book on the Caeretan hydria notes, “We have seen that No. 2 (the Boston deer hunt) is undoubtedly an early vase…” And he writes: “The drapery of the two maenads,” which I have discussed before, “is as developed as the most progressive drapery of the Siphnian Treasury.” (pg. 157). We can compare that to Hera and Athena on the north frieze, and (her dress) is “clearly inspired by Attic red-figure examples of 525 BC at the earliest.” Therefore, it proves that maenad Sita is dressed like a goddess during the abduction by Ravana, just like Hera and Athena. That just doesn’t make sense unless we realize that the artist was trying to indicate to us that she was not an ordinary person. Even though she was living in the wilderness, she was still being depicted like a goddess out of respect for her stature and her personality.

At the beginning of this presentation, I showed this picture of one of the Campana plaques and now we’re going to examine it in more detail. It simply shows Rama and Sita and Laksmana, from right to left, walking through the forest. Rama holds a bow and arrows in his left hand, and with his right hand he’s gesturing above his chest, similar to the Campana slab where he rescues Sita. And then in the back, you have Laksmana holding a spear, instead of his usual bow and arrows, perhaps to signify his supporting role as the guardian of the divine couple who are walking ahead of him, Rama and Sita. And then in the middle we have Sita holding a leaf or a flower or a branch from a tree, similar to what we see in medieval paintings of the same scene from India, which you can see in the bottom left corner of this Etruscan image on the right. 

You see this image here (bottom left) is from the Victoria & Albert Museum and is a Punjabi painting from northern India in the medieval (period), 19th or 18th century. And it shows the same type of walking through the forest with Rama leading on the left and then Sita in the middle and Laksmana on the right. And you can see also (the two brothers) holding the bow and arrows and spears, as well as Sita holding something in her right hand as well. And you can also see that they’re not wearing a lot of clothes, because they were living very simply in exile in the wilderness, especially the two young men, Rama and Laksmana, who are both bare-chested. You can also see this characteristic of holding a leaf or a flower in other Indian paintings, as well as in Achaemenid sculpture from Persia from the 6th century BC. It’s very common, it seems like, in Indo-Persian art for them to emphasize this holding of a leaf or flower while walking.

From Rajasthan, India, we also have beautiful paintings of Rama and Sita and Laksmana walking through the forest like this one. And in this particular painting, you can see Rama actually holding the flower, and that kind of variation you’ll see in many of these different Indian paintings. Sometimes you’ll see Laksmana holding a leaf; sometimes you’ll see Sita holding a leaf or a flower; and sometimes you’ll see Rama holding a flower. So that kind of variation is to be expected, but it’s the same order where Rama is leading, and Sita is in the middle, and Laksmana is behind both of them, protecting them in the rear. 

The Campana plaque and this Indian painting and many other Indian paintings of Rama and Sita and Laksmana walking in the forest are all literal translations of the exact text that we have in the Valmiki Ramayana. In Sarga 10, Verse 1 of the Book of the Forest (Aranya Kanda), there is the statement that ‘Rama went in front, fair-waisted Sita in the middle, and behind followed Laksmana, bow in hand.’ So it’s more or less a literal translation, in a picture form of the text. And also another point, as I’ve said before, is that Sita or Rama holds a leaf or a flower or any kind of plant material to indicate that they are traveling in the wilderness (forest), and we observe that in the Campana panels as well.

The three main Campana slabs that we have discussed are placeable in sequential order within the epic storyline of the Valmiki Ramayana. The first slab is the one in which, as you can see on the left, King Dasaratha is deprived of his eldest son Rama because of the meddling of his wife Kaikeyi, who wants her own son instead of her stepson Rama to become the heir to the throne. So this episode occurs in the Ayodhya Kanda, which is the second book of the Valmiki Ramayana. In the third book of the Valmiki Ramayana, that is the Book of the Forest or Aranya Kanda, we have the second scene that’s in the middle here where Rama is holding his iconic bow and arrows. He’s leading his wife, who’s in the middle, and his brother Laksmana through the forest during their exile. In the last scene, which is basically the ending of the story, which occurs in the sixth book (Yuddha Kanda or the Book of War), Rama is again holding his iconic bow and arrows on the left side (before saving his wife). And you can see the symmetry with the previous scene, and then in the last part he’s carrying his wife Sita gently in his arms and taking her swiftly back home, and that’s what the wings indicate.

There are two more Campana slabs which are more ambiguous, and we will be getting to those later on in the presentation. But I want to again focus on these three slabs and really bring the point across that they do have a very clear sequential order, and it is well-organized actually. But the Italian author Roncalli does not see this. He doesn’t realize (this), and that’s why he remarks about the “desultory nature of the proposed themes, almost the result of a selection of partes pro toto (which is parts taken for the whole) by thematic samples from broader and more articulated narrative contexts (real or ideal).” So what does this mean? 

When he’s saying “desultory”, he’s basically remarking that he doesn’t see any plan, or purpose, or any even genuine understanding of the story. And that’s just not the reality. And I believe that there probably were certain slabs that are now missing that were part of the sequence that would have made it more obvious that there was a clear organization to these slabs. And I just feel like, because they do not have any familiarity with the myth of the Ramayana, they just think of it as samples of some larger story, but they don’t know what that larger story is. And that’s why he remarks about the “broader and more articulated narrative context”, which is really the larger story of the Valmiki Ramayana.

To summarize these terracotta slabs, I would like to explain that they have a versatility in regards to the setting of the story being depicted. And that is why each scene happens in a different location. In the leftmost scene, you have a royal palace with seats for dignitaries. In the middle scene, you have three people walking slowly in the wilderness where bearing arms and staying (close) together for protection is vital. And in the third scene, you have a romantic couple who have a lot of open area or free space in which to roam and travel long distance back to their home. So you have a variety of locations and three different points in time in the story.

And I would like to add that the earliest plaque, which is the one in which King Dasaratha is sitting with Vashishta, his royal advisor, and Kaikeyi is flying with her wings, you immediately notice that Kaikeyi’s wings have kind of a symmetry with the wings of Rama in the rightmost plaque. There’s a symmetry where Kaikeyi’s wings signify the start of Rama’s exile and Rama’s wings signify the end of his exile. And that firmly places those two plaques at the first and last chronological positions. 

So just to reiterate that in the leftmost plaque, Kaikeyi is flying over a conference between Dasaratha and Vashishta with the intention of foiling their intended coronation of Rama, symbolically depicted with her own deadly arrows that are headed for them, at least according to Massimo Pallottino in his book Etruscan Painting. So Kaikeyi’s actions, by attacking Dasaratha metaphorically, caused the death of the king and the exile of Rama to start in the forest. Not only there is a symmetry in the wings between Kaikeyi and Rama, but also in the weapon, at least according to Pallottino, of the bow and arrow. In the last plaque Rama holds a bow and arrows and has wings on his shoulders and boots as well, as he carries Sita back to Ayodhya at the end of his exile. Thus, the repeated iconography of flying wings and a bow and arrows helps us identify the first and last episodes in the sequence. 

Personally, if I re-examine this scene on the left of Queen Kaikeyi flying with wings, I think that if it was fully restored, it probably would not show her shooting arrows. But this was not my opinion, but an Italian author’s opinion, so I discussed it with you. But honestly, I think that even if it doesn’t show her shooting arrows, she’s clearly trying to interject or interfere with the plans of the two elderly men. And that is enough to make it easy to conclude that this must be Queen Kaikeyi, who is ruining the plans of King Dasaratha and his royal advisor Vashishta. And just briefly, I would like to add that when it comes to interrupting or interfering, a good comparison to this scene where Queen Kaikeyi is interrupting King Dasaratha would be actually the No. 12 Caeretan hydria, where at least according to Raffaella Bonaudo, the mother of Tityos is trying to interfere here with the attack by the two siblings, Artemis and Apollo, who are trying to kill Tityos with the bow and arrows. And she’s right in the middle protesting and her hand gesture certainly indicates that. And I think that’s what you would probably see if you had this scene fully restored here on the Campana plaque. I think you would see some kind of a hand gesture that’s very similar to what you see in the No. 12 Caeretan hydria, where the lady is trying to protest or interfere, and disrupt what the two other people are doing.

So based on this sequential order that we have established for the main Campana slabs, it definitely makes sense to title them “Rama’s Exile and Heroic Journey to Rescue his Wife Sita.” That would be the best way to describe the entire story of the Ramayana, really. And that’s what’s amazing, is that this small number of panels, five total, basically cover the core narrative of the Valmiki Ramayana, which is found in Books Two (Ayodhya), Three (Aranya), and the Sixth Book, which is the Book of War (Yuddha). And in particular, the three Campana slabs that I just described on the previous slide are almost enough really, to describe the entire journey of Rama and the whole story of the Ramayana in a very condensed way. They prove beyond a doubt that the Ramayana was always known and told to others in a completed form with a well-defined beginning and end, similar to what we read today.

There may have been more fantastical elements added later, after the sixth century, to the core plot of the epic, which are not depicted on the plaques, such as the forest monkeys who became allies of Rama. But these omissions of detail could just as easily be explained away as the desire of bards to selectively choose the salient events in the story line when narrating the Ramayana to others who were unfamiliar with it. So it really could go either way. But the main point being that the core narrative was clearly in place at that point in time in the 6th century BC. The scenes from the Caeretan hydria in Boston and these Campana panels from Caere demonstrate not only the Indian influence on the Mediterranean art, but also the continuity of the entire poem.

Finally, Sheldon Pollock, one of the main Indologists translating the Valmiki Ramayana, has criticized the western scholars who treat Valmiki’s poem as a combination of disparate stories, including the Ayodhya and Aranya Kandas. And he rightly criticizes them when he writes: “The need to develop a unitary understanding of the poem was eliminated by eliminating the perception of the poem as a unitary work. What is striking about this literary criticism, beyond the frailty of its arguments, is the cultural arrogance (and that’s what I want to highlight) that underlies it. The presumption of truth of a Western vision is coupled with an implicit dismissal of the entire tradition that produced and preserved the epic.” (Pgs. 4-5, Vol III, translation of Aranya Kanda). And later on, we’re going to go back to this cultural arrogance as being really fundamental to the lack of comprehension and understanding of these two works of art, the Campana slabs and the Caeretan hydria No. 2. It’s because of the cultural arrogance in the Western world that these two works of art have never been explained properly.

Ramayana Episodes on Etruscan Campana Plaques and Caeretan Hydria (525 BCE)

Ramayana in Archaic Greek and Etruscan Art at Caere, Part III

Description (Main Presentation, Part III):

Anatomical Complexity in renderings of the figures on the Caeretan hydria prove the importance of the characters displayed on this vase in Boston. Rama, Sita, Laksmana, and Ravana are thus depicted with the same care and effort as Greek mythological characters such as Heracles. Sita's physical distress is also illustrated in the anatomical rendering of her right hand. The figure of Sita is featured multiple times in both the Caeretan hydria and the Campana plaques. Another Campana panel is examined, in which the characters of Queen Kaikeyi and King Dasaratha, father of Rama, are identified from the epic Ramayana. We then demonstrate that the production of Caeretan vases, especially the one in Boston, and the Campana slabs are intimately connected - both were the work of Ionian artists in Cerveteri during the third quarter of the 6th century BCE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM3WuJw0UhY

Transcript (Main Presentation, Part III):

So the elaborate complexity of the dresses of the maenads has already been discussed and now we move on to the anatomical complexity on select examples. Jaap Hemelrijk specifically compares No. 21 and No. 2, which are Heracles attacking Alcyoneus and of course, the one that we are already discussing, the Boston deer hunt and the satyr abduction of Sita by Ravana. So he states: “However, even more advanced than these fine dresses of the maenads are the anatomical renderings on this same vase No. 2 and on No. 21, ‘Rome Alcyoneus’: the arms, hands, legs and feet of the ladies and satyrs of No. 2 and of its nude hunters and those of Heracles and his victim Alcyoneus on No. 21 display a surprising anatomical knowledge of the bones and muscles of these parts.” (pg. 65, More About Caeretan Hydriae: Addenda e Clarificanda). 

And if you look on the left side here in color you can see the Caeretan hydria where Heracles attacks Alcyoneus, the giant demon, and Heracles is nude and he has the bow in his left hand, much like Rama and Laksmana in the No. 2 hydria. And you also have Hermes on the left, watching as a witness. So the similarity in terms of the anatomical complexity is a hint that if No. 21 has famous mythical characters such as Heracles and Alcyoneus, then No. 2 must also have a myth with characters who are just as famous and should be something or someone we can name. 

Tityos, for example, who tries to rape Apollo’s mother Leto, and Alcyoneus are satyrs who are connected stylistically and anatomically to the satyr in the No. 2 hydria, and that confirms that Ravana is an analogue to those two and therefore likewise, Rama and Laksmana are counterparts to Heracles. So it shouldn’t be difficult to accept that if the characters on the No. 21 are anatomically well-depicted, and so are the No. 2 (characters), then they both must have explicitly nameable characters.

The anatomical rendering of Sita’s hand also tells us about her level of physical distress. And continuing his discussion on anatomy, the author Hemelrijk remarks about “the wonderful hand of the girl of the early vase No. 2, who is carried off, not unwillingly, by her brutish lover. Note the slight bend in the little finger and the subtle swelling of the articulations in the other fingers.” (pg. 66). So what does this quote really tell us? Well, “her brutish lover” is definitely Ravana. That’s a correct description, but the “not unwillingly” seems again a bit incorrect and also confused. And so we’ll get back to that in a second. What I would say here in my description is that Sita’s right hand, as you see on the right, is loose and pointed down, indicating her resignation at being taken to an unknown place - a clear contrast to her left hand, the fist that she makes in the scene on the right side. Resignation in defeat, in my opinion, is obviously not the same as the willingness to be taken away. So that kind of rules out the “not unwillingly” part, which I think is not accurate, but “the brutish lover” part is accurate.

Now the next point is that when Rama carries Sita in the Campana plaque, neither one of her arms is shown, because she has no desire to resist and is willingly cradled in his arms like a baby. I think the author’s conclusion of willing abduction is mainly due to the ignorance of the sequential nature of the mythological scenes in the No. 2 hydria. He fails to associate the two maenads and the two satyrs with one another and recognize that they are the same person, and that’s why he doesn’t see the sequential nature of the mythological story, or the connected narrative that is there. And what’s funny and ironic is that later on we’ll see that he wants to see a more connected narrative for the No. 3 hydria, which is about Hermes and Apollo, and the stealing of cattle, but he doesn’t recognize the connected narrative that is clearly in this hydria.

So what is the connected narrative here or the sequence? Well, the first event is on the front side (on the obverse), which is the hunting of the golden deer, or Maricha in the form of a stag, by the two nude youths Rama and Laksmana. The second part of the sequence is Ravana approaching Sita with unwanted sexual advances, which is on the right side of the back side. And then on the left side of the reverse side, we have the third part of the sequence, Ravana carrying Sita away to Lanka. So if the author had recognized the fact that the characters Ravana and Sita are the same - the satyr and maenad on both sides of the reverse side - he would have realized perhaps the sequential nature of it. And he would not have made the incorrect statement of “not unwillingly”, because she’s clearly unwilling to be taken, but in the left scene (third scene) Sita has become resigned to her fate and does not resist any longer.

Now my conclusion would be that both maenads represent Sita in the Boston hydria from Caere. But what about the Campana panels, the painted terracotta plaques? Well, in those also, similarly all three women that are painted on those panels are representations of Sita (in my opinion), who is the wife of Rama. If you look at zoomed-in photos of the two maenads for comparison of facial appearance, arms, and dress, you’ll notice a lot of similarity. There is looser hair seen on the left maenad because she has quit resisting Ravana’s control, in my eyes from what I’m seeing. 

Now with regard to the Campana panels - Mario A. Del Chiaro, in his article Two Etruscan Painted Terracotta Panels, from the J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, Volume 11, in 1983: He explicitly notices that there are “essentially congruent profile heads exhibited by the women depicted on three of the Campana panels,” which are also dated 530 to 520 BCE in his journal article (pg. 132). So I mean he’s practically telling us that these three women on the Campana panels are the same person. He’s practically admitting it, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s quite obvious that they are all Sita, as we have discussed earlier. And not only that, you see the congruence in the dating as well. The Boston hydria and the Campana panels both originate in Caere circa 525 BCE. So really, there’s just too many coincidences here for them to be just random coincidences.

Finally, please look at the two images on the bottom, which are both from the Campana panels, and are the best examples of the face of Sita that you can find. And in the first one, we are pretty familiar with that. That’s the one in which she’s being carried off by Rama and rescued. In the other one, she’s walking with Rama and Laksmana in the middle (in between them) and she’s holding a plant, which is very typical in many ways of depictions of Rama and Sita and Laksmana walking in the forest in Indian artwork as well. And you can see the face is almost identical in both of these two scenes, which are both from the Campana series.

So the first thing I want to discuss on this slide is the painting on the right, which is another Campana panel among the five that are existent. And in this, one can see three different figures - a winged female figure on the right (in the top right corner) and then a bearded man with black hair sitting on the right pensively with his knuckles on his chin. And then you have the even older man with grey hair on the left holding a stick, who’s probably giving him some kind of advice. In my opinion, this is King Dasaratha on the right sitting pensively and consulting his counselor, the elderly Vashishta, who was the royal advisor in the household in the kingdom of Ayodhya in the Indian epic Ramayana. And the winged female figure above is about to attack them or strike them, especially Dasaratha on the right, as she’s flying directly above him.

This is basically a depiction of the very important event in the Ramayana where Kaikeyi requests boons that cause Rama to be exiled and her own son Bharata to be crowned king temporarily. And Bharata is her own son whereas Rama is her stepson from another wife of Dasaratha. And so this scene basically, metaphorically, or figuratively depicts Kaikeyi killing Dasaratha the king, even though in reality she does it in a less dramatic way (by using her boons as leverage, she makes Dasaratha helpless because as king he must honor his promise to fulfill her requests in Vedic culture).

The renowned Italian scholar Massimo Pallottino in his book Etruscan Painting, describes the same scene and he says, “Two bearded elderly men are seated on folding chairs facing each other. They are wearing Greek tunics, mantles, and peaked shoes. One of them holds a scepter (not spectre). The other is resting his head on his hand in an attitude of pensive sadness. Above them on the right, a winged female figure is shooting arrows towards them.” (pg. 33). So clearly he agrees with my assessment and description as well. And it’s quite obvious that the Queen Kaikeyi is the winged female figure who is ruining King Dasaratha’s plans to crown his own eldest son Rama king, and instead forces him to send his dearest son Rama into exile, thereby killing the king because of heartbreak.

So the Caeretan hydria with the deer hunt and the abduction, and the Campana panels which show Rama and Sita and Laksmana, are both Ramayana scenes. And unfortunately they are kept far apart from each other in museums around the world. One of them is kept in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (the hydria). And then the Campana panels, which are five of them, are kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris. But even though they are far apart in terms of where they are kept in the modern world, they’re actually intimately related and they certainly were produced in the same region of Caere.

So the Campana painted terracotta panels are likely the work of painters in the same workshop that produced Caeretan hydriae. So either the artists from the Caeretan hydria workshop were the same artists who painted the terracotta panels that we see in the Campana series, or they collaborated with other Ionian artists who painted those terracotta panels. Jaap Hemelrijk has repeatedly emphasized that Ionian immigrants, probably from Phocaea, probably specialized in both architectural terracottas and/or panel painting, along with the pottery that we see from the Caeretan hydria workshop. And he repeats this over and over again in his book Caeretan Hydriae.

Now moving on from that issue, I also want to add in some commentary about the panels themselves. In an article “In Search of Etruscan Colours: A Spectroscopic Study of a Painted Terracotta Slab from Ceri”, you see that the Italian authors also make some good observations here. They say: “Essentially documented in Cerveteri… series of these (painted terracotta) panels, fixed in succession using strong nails to a wooden frame mounted on the wall, adorned the internal spaces of temples, patrician houses and aristocratic tombs.” (pg. 87). 

So the Italian authors acknowledge the importance of these terracotta panels, given their placement in temples and aristocratic homes and tombs. But they also acknowledge, and we can quote them here, that “painted terracotta slabs, which are characteristic of Etruscan art, are much less known than the funerary frescoes of the Etruscan necropolis, and have never been studied by advanced diagnostic techniques.” (pg. 87). So, this tells us that they haven’t done enough research about these painted terracotta panels and that includes the Campana series.

Continuing with our discussion of how the Caeretan painted panels are directly connected to the Caeretan hydriae, we have an even more revealing quote here from the same Italian authors in the article that we just quoted on the previous slide - “In Search of Etruscan Colours: A Spectroscopic Study of a Painted Terracotta Slab…” These Italian scholars add on the next page (pg. 88) that “refined stylistic analyses have shown that a group of panels with a high aesthetic quality recovered from the Cerveteri urban site was manufactured by craftsmen who moved from eastern Greece to Etruria (that is, Ionia to Etruria), and to whom the particular type of pottery called idrie ceretane (i.e. Caeretan hydria) is generally ascribed… The iconographic repertoire comprises scenes representing epic and mythological subjects… These painted panels constitute one of the most important examples of Hellenic-style and, at the same time, original products of Etruscan artistic culture.” 

This is a pretty loaded quote here. And clearly they’re making a direct connection here between the painted terracotta panels in Cerveteri to the Caeretan hydriae. And they’re also connecting the Ionian immigrant artists to both. They’re also acknowledging the epic and mythological content or subject matter in both of the works. And they’re also recognizing the importance of them. And yet, they haven’t been properly understood or studied and explained, which is a travesty.

The Italian author Raffaella Bonaudo confirms this connection, specifically between the Campana slabs and the Caeretan hydriae. She writes (pgs. 26-27): “Already in 1962 K. Friis Johansen highlighted the very strong influence of Etruscan art on the workshop of the Caeretan Hydriae, emphasizing in particular the relationships that unite them to the production of Campana slabs, and deduced that the ceramic workshop must have been located in Caere…” She also adds and summarizes that “in the same years, Francisco Roncalli tackled the study of the painted slabs from Caere, identifying a series which presents for the first time the ‘absolute dominance of those Ionic influences’, already highlighted sporadically in other examples and leads one to imagine ‘the direct settlement of Greek-oriental artists, and first of all of the Master of the Idrie (the Caeretan Hydria), which had already taken place in Etruria and in Cerveteri in particular.’” (La Culla di Hermes, pgs. 26-27)

So she again is summarizing all of this evidence that connects not only the painted terracotta panels from Caere to the Caeretan hydria, but also specifically the Campana slabs themselves, which as I’ve already demonstrated, are clearly depicting Ramayanic episodes from the Indian legend, which is clearly of eastern origin obviously. And therefore it’s not a Greek myth. I want to specifically point out now that the Caeretan hydria No. 2 in Boston, which is the deer hunt and the abduction, is more closely related to the Campana panels than any other existing hydriae. So all the other Caeretan Hydriae may be artistically (stylistically) somewhat similar to the Campana panels. But this specific hydria No. 2 has not only a similarity in artistic style, but also they share the same subject matter, which is the epic mythology of the Indian Ramayana, especially the stories from the plot of the third book (Book of the Forest) in the Ramayana, which is called the Aranya Kanda. 

What is the evidence that proves that the Caeretan hydria No. 2 is the most closely related to the Campana panels of all the hydriae? Well, the early dating of the Caeretan hydria No. 2, which is circa 525 BC, should be seen as a clue to its intimate relationship to the Campana panels, which date to the same period. Later hydriae produced in the Caeretan workshop are not as intimately related, as they are quite a bit further produced in future years, you know, in later years. If you go by Hemelrijk, he uses the No. 2 vase as kind of a reference point because of the fact that it’s such an early vase. He says that “it seems likely that the latest hydriae were made fifteen to twenty years after No. 2” (pg. 157), and therefore probably are not related to the Campana panels at all, at least not when it comes to subject matter.

Now the next point I’m saying is that the scholars have recognized that the Caeretan hydriae, as we have shown on the previous slides, are generally related to the Campana panels artistically, but they have not specifically identified which ones share the same subject matter or mythological content, as I have. Now another quote I’m going to give you here is from the scholar M. Cristofani: “After analyzing the contributions of the northern Ionian ceramists in Etruria from about 530 BCE,” he traced the Caeretan pinakes (which are the painted terracotta panels) to the workshop of the Caeretan hydriae. So he made the same match there and he also “recognizes a production less conditioned by Attic (from Athens) and Clazomenian ceramography,” and one that’s “freer in its expressive forms, with a predilection for narration,” which is what we see in both the Campana plaques and the Caeretan hydria No. 2 (see La Culla di Hermes pg. 27, by Raffaella Bonaudo). We see a predilection for narration of a certain episode - not just one event at one time, but multiple events happening in a sequence.

The Demoniac 'Satyr' Ravana's Abduction of the 'Maenad' Sita on the Boston Hydria

Ramayana in Archaic Greek and Etruscan Art at Caere, Part II

Description (Main Presentation, Part II):

Analysis of the reverse side of the Caeretan hydria reveals that the Ramayanic characters of Sita and Ravana are the maenad and satyr, respectively, in both the left and right scenes. Valmiki's poetic description of the demon Ravana is similar to the description by classical scholars of the satyr or Silenus on the hydria. Indian and Asian art furnishes imagery of Ravana's abduction of Sita that matches the iconography on the Caeretan hydria. Based on her dress and association with hunting animals (including deer), the maenad was the perfect model in Greek art for Sita. Maenads were the object of pursuit of lusty satyrs, so the Ionian artists chose those mythological prototypes to depict Sita and Ravana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M55AIvEpMkw

Transcript (Main Presentation, Part II):

So getting back to the Caeretan hydria, the conclusion firmly that I would make is that Ravana and Sita are the satyr and the maenad in both scenes on the left and the right. So each pairing on the left and right in the Caeretan hydria number two from Boston on the back side represents an interaction between Ravana and Sita during the golden deer chase. There’s an inherent duality between the two sides. You’ll see more static movement and activity on the right side and more dynamic movement and activity on the left side. And so what does that all mean? 

Well, on the right side, we see Ravana the satyr, so-called satyr. He’s walking or approaching cautiously with a flaccid or limp penis and holding or grabbing Sita by the arm and shoulder like a moment in time in a photograph. She is showing static resistance to moving from her position through her defiant stance with a closed fist in her left hand because she wants to remain in her home in the wilderness. And Ravana is basically still sort of in disguise as a mendicant because he doesn’t have an erect penis and he doesn’t have as monstrous a form as he has on the left side. And that definitely accords with the Valmiki Ramayana.

So, now on the left side, it’s different. It’s not static anymore, it’s more dynamic. And we have Ravana moving rapidly with a galloping gait that indicates continuous movement towards a destination. He is now sexually aroused with an erect penis. And he has firmly controlled her upper and lower body with his right and left arms, respectively. Sita is thus like a passenger in a moving vehicle with nowhere else to go. The researcher Jaap Hemelrijk does agree with my assessment here, stating that the satyr-maenad pair on the left side “form a compact, dynamic group” and the other pair of characters on the right side “are more widely spaced and seem more static.” (pg. 10, Caeretan Hydriae).

Now the wide spacing is intentional because Ravana approaches Sita cautiously in the guise of a priest and initially Sita resists his advances. The static nature of the scene also indicates that the setting is a place where the female victim thought she was safe, that is her home. And she stands with her arms raised, as if to say, how dare you put your hands on me in my home. Now getting back to the more dynamic scene on the left side, the key word is “dynamic” of course, because it confirms my view that the scene represents the beginning of a long journey to another place, or a constant progression in another direction. In this case it is south to Lanka, which is depicted as west on the hydria. Now the word “compact” indicates how Ravana wants to maintain possession of Sita and make her become his queen in Lanka forever.

The German author Konrad Schauenberg’s description of the satyr or Silenus on the Boston hydria accords with Valmiki’s description of Ravana. According to Schauenberg, the painter of the Caeretan hydria “by no means adhered to a consistently preserved, rigid pattern. This is particularly evident in the Boston hydria.” He says, “While a group of Silenus and maenad is depicted on each side of the vertical handle, the left depicts a kidnapping or abduction group as it appears primarily on northern Greek coins and archaic gems, while the right Silenus, adorned with a magnificent, gigantic head, pursues a maenad.” (pgs. 98-101, translation).

This is from the German journal Antike Kunst (1969). So what we have here is that Schauenberg, like so many European scholars, probably had no familiarity with the Ramayana of India. He therefore could only observe what are unmistakable characteristics of what Indians call the ten-headed Ravana, which is, you know, meant to be looked at metaphorically in some ways, and for some people, literally. But the ten-headedness of Ravana definitely is meant to tell us that he’s very big, or very large in the head. The magnificent gigantic head and the horse hooves with human-shaped forelegs - they all indicate his dual form as a brahmin mendicant in the beginning on the right side and then the monstrous, raksasa demon form that he has on the left side. To recap, he has a more harmless looking form of a (bearded) brahmin mendicant before the abduction of Sita. And that’s on the right side. And then on the left side he has that monstrous raksasa form with the really large (even larger) head and the erect penis, after he has abducted Sita.

Now let us actually delve into the Valmiki poem, the epic poem of the Ramayana, for an exact description of Ravana’s transformation during his abduction of Sita and compare that to the Caeretan hydria’s depiction. So in the Valmiki Ramayana it’s written thus: ‘Suddenly Ravana, younger brother to Vaisravana, abandoned the kindly form of a beggar and assumed his true shape, one such as Doom itself must have.’ (3.47.6). Now in the Etruscan depiction on the water jar from Caere, Ravana does not undergo as radical a transformation, but this more basic illustration (Ionian) is still clearly and unmistakably the abduction of Sita by the ‘brahmin’ Ravana. The hydria, because of its inherent limitations as a medium for artistic expression, represents a more primitive and less detailed version of Valmiki’s narrative.

Now getting back to the epic poem, there’s another verse which again in detail tells us: Ravana ‘had thrown off the guise of mendicant and assumed his own form again, the colossal shape of Ravana,’ (3.47.8), which matches well with the Caeretan water jar where Ravana is naked in his lust for Sita with an enlarged head and erect penis. His full transformation from human sage to lusty satyr is most evident in the subtle change in the size of his face, which if we measure it from the chin to the top of the forehead is noticeably larger on the left side actually, about a 3:2 ratio. The problem with the author Schauenberg is that when he mentions the “gigantic head” of the Silenus on the right, he seems to be missing the fact that the so-called Silenus on the left has an even bigger looking head!

The picture here is a medieval painting from India that actually depicts the same exact two-part sequence of Ravana abducting Sita that we see in the Caeretan hydria. The two-part sequence is Ravana grasping the lady’s arm, which we see on the right, and then taking her away to Lanka, and that’s in the flying chariot on the left. And we see that more primitively on the Caeretan hydria in Boston. And also if you want to, you can compare the left hand of Sita in this painting to the corresponding hand of the maenad in the Boston hydria, both of which indicate resistance to moving from where they are living or staying, which is a very simple hut in the wilderness. 

Now, unfortunately, we don’t have ancient contemporary depictions from the fifth century BC or sixth century BC from India of this same epic poem. And that’s the biggest problem when trying to confirm that this is a Ramayana scene in the Caeretan hydria. But other than that, given the fact that the Ramayana is a very old epic poem that most scholars would indicate dates to at least the middle of the first millennium BC, there’s no reason to think that this isn’t exactly the same as what we see in the Caeretan hydria. It’s just that we do not have existing artifacts from India from that same period that show this same scene.

So just to summarize, I want to reiterate that the reverse side of the Caeretan hydria metaphorically depicts Ravana carrying Sita away by painting him as a satyr with centaur-like horse hooves and long strides. But in the actual Indian poem, he takes Sita into his flying chariot drawn by donkeys up in the sky, as you can see on the left side here of this painting. And if you look closely at this painting just to the right of Ravana, you see the black vulture is attacking Ravana after his abduction of Sita and the chariot gets broken in Valmiki’s story after this battle. So after that, afterwards, Ravana, who is often shown with ten heads and multiple arms to highlight his gigantic size, as you see in this painting on the left, he literally carries Sita himself (once he has transformed this way and once his chariot has been broken down) and flies in the air towards Lanka. 

This is actually closer to the visual image that we see on the Caeretan hydria in Boston and many other depictions of this abduction, because there’s many variations of how they depict this abduction in South Asian and Southeast Asian art. If you want to examine this painting in particular, then you can see it in the book Ramayana in Indian Miniatures: From the Collection of the National Museum in New Delhi, which is edited by Dr. Daljeet and Dr. V. K. Mathur. So this book was published in 2015 and is an excellent source for Indian miniature paintings of the Valmiki Ramayana, including this painting on this slide.

There are many other modern and medieval Asian depictions of Ravana abducting Sita in painting and other forms of art (sculpture). But these are two examples in painting. One is from Southeast Asia, specifically Bali, Indonesia on the left. And here you can again see Ravana carrying Sita away with his arm around her waist, just as we see in the Caeretan hydria. And his face is hideous and enlarged to highlight his fear and excitement. And again, that’s comparable to the enlarged face of Ravana on the Caeretan hydria. Now on the right side you see another example in painting from Rajasthan in India. It’s Mewar, Rajasthan. Here it’s extremely similar to the right side of that side B of the Caeretan hydria (on the right-hand side). You can see how he’s grabbing her by the arm again and she’s turning away. Her feet are turned away and pointed in the opposite direction, just as they are in the hydria. So there’s really no reason to doubt that they’re depicting basically the same exact abduction.

Also, if you notice, Ravana’s ten heads are showing in the Rajasthani painting, as well as a donkey’s head above them to indicate his dual form like that of a Silenus or centaur in Greek myth, half-man (and) half-animal. So, it just indicates that he’s duplicitous, much like Maricha, who is also duplicitous with his golden deer form. These demons in Indian myth are also capable of having dual forms. 

There is also an interesting contrast that one can observe between these two paintings of Sita’s abduction. In the Southeast Asian painting on the left, we can clearly see that Sita is more of a sexual object of Ravana’s in a very violent act of rape as we would see in Greek mythology. Her bare skin in her lower limbs are more visible and that definitely emphasizes Ravana’s lust. But if we look at the right-hand scene from northern India, we see a more conservative approach, which is more in line with what you would expect in the Indian Hindu tradition, or in what you would call the devotional Hindu tradition. They depict her as a very chaste lady who is outraged at Ravana for even touching her. And you can see the very strong similarity once again that I would like to reiterate with the Caeretan hydria, where her face is staring back at Ravana with the same type of angry, scornful look that we see in the Caeretan hydria with the maenad and the satyr. So, it really is a remarkable similarity, thousands of years between them, but they’re almost exactly the same. It’s amazing how this artist independently depicted Sita in almost the same exact way as the Greek artist in Etruria, many hundreds of years before him.

The combination of these two paintings that I’ve shown here would be analogous to what we see on the left and right sides of the back side (B-side) of the Caeretan hydria. You have Ravana grabbing a hold of Sita on the right side and then on the left side he’s carrying her off, just like we see in the Caeretan hydria on the back side. So it’s like a two-part sequence. And so if we combine these two paintings together, we would have something that would be equivalent to it.

My book sources for these two paintings were the following: The left-hand painting was from the book title Ramkatha in Narrative, Performance and Pictorial Traditions, which is edited by Molly Kaushal and others. And the right-hand image (painting) is from J. P. Losty’s book The Mewar Ramayana, which is published by Roli Books. And these two sources are really good sources and have quite a bit of artwork depicting the Ramayana, especially the second one by Losty, which is all drawn from manuscripts from the region of Mewar, Rajasthan.

Now I’m going to continue with some more technical examination of the reverse side of the Caeretan hydria from Boston, focusing on the dress of the maenad and also the anatomical knowledge of the artist. The author Jaap Hemelrijk recognizes that the fine complexity of the dress the lady Sita wears in both the left and right scenes is quite remarkable. And in my opinion the Busiris painter was emphasizing the female character’s importance through his attention to detail regarding her dress and appearance, like the Athenian korai. We can confirm that Sita is not a generic maenad or nymph, just as much as the Athenian korai are not generic female figures, at least according to Mary Stieber in her book (The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai). Jaap Hemelrijk also recognizes on page 130 of his book Caeretan Hydriae that the maenad is dressed a lot like the Athenian korai. So, as long as we recognize that this is not a generic female figure, we’re clearly one step closer to identifying her as a legitimate mythological character.

And now, a quote from Hemelrijk I’ll give you is the following on the right side here: “The most obvious indications of the date of the hydriae are provided by the Busiris painter, who was far more advanced in his pictorial and anatomical knowledge than his colleague. These indications are, in the first place, the fine dresses of the ladies on the reverse of No. 2 Boston deer hunt. Such complicated renderings of dresses and folds cannot be dated before 525 to 520 BC.” (pg. 65, More About Caeretan Hydriae: Addenda er Clarificanda)

So that tells us about the date that it must have been produced, which was very early for the Caeretan workshop. It was definitely one of the earliest Caeretan hydriae to be produced in that workshop. And it obviously really indicates strongly that this lady is not some ordinary lady. Reinforcing this opinion, Hemelrijk also adds later on that “the drapery of the two maenads is as developed as the most progressive drapery of the Siphnian treasury.” And he compares this elaborate rendering (of dress) to that of Hera and Athena of the North Frieze. And that’s high praise. It’s basically comparing Sita to goddesses of Greek myth.

So my main conclusion about the maenad in the Boston hydria is that she is a real female character, shown twice, and her name is Sita. And how am I certain of this? Well, I’d like to put forth a quote from an important author on archaic and classical Greek art, Robin Osborne, who gives us a really detailed explanation of the distinction between satyrs and maenads. That will help me, as I can now apply it to this example. So he says: “Satyrs and the female worshippers of Dionysus, known as maenads (‘mad women’), did not form a symmetrical pair (meaning there was a clear distinction between the two)… A man could never be mistaken for this composite creature, that is a satyr, with its horse’s ears and tail. But maenads were simply women. They (the artists) certainly enjoyed the freedom to turn a satyr into an actor or an actor into a satyr by the addition or removal of a pair of furry shorts with tail and phallus attached. But with maenads the possibility that the scene was of ‘real’ women was always present.” (Pg. 150, Archaic and Classical Greek Art)

So how do we apply this to this scene? Well, first of all, the freedom to turn a satyr into an actor or an actor into a satyr should immediately remind us of how Ravana changes his form from that of a simple brahmin sage (mendicant), and from there becoming a very monstrous demon. So in that case he goes from being (turns from being) a satyr to an actor and then he goes back to being a demon again (from an actor into a satyr). His phallus therefore becomes more pronounced when he goes from being an actor to a satyr. But the most important thing here is to recognize that Robin Osborne is clearly showing us that the maenads are not just generic female figures. They are likely often times to be real women or real female mythical characters. And that’s exactly what this person is, this maenad is. She’s not a generic figure, and I think this should clinch the issue, that this is a real person from a real epic mythical story, that is Sita from the Ramayana.

Another important point is that maenads by definition are ‘mad women’ and that can definitely be applied to Sita in the case of the Golden Deer episode, because as per Valmiki’s Ramayana, she becomes very madly attached to acquiring the golden deer. And that is why she asks her husband Rama to chase after it and hunt it, and then she also doubles down on that when she also gets angry at her brother-in-law Laksmana for not helping protect Rama and going after the deer as well. So in this specific event of the Golden Deer episode, Sita does behave like a maenad, literally. And I think that’s probably why the Ionian artists use the maenad as a frame of reference, as the perfect frame of reference, to depict Sita.

So, Sita behaves like a maenad with three different characters. With Rama, she starts to get very excited about the golden deer and forces him to go and chase after it. Then the second time she acts like a maenad when she irrationally and hysterically gets angry at Laksmana for not going to help Rama in the woods because she feels that her husband may be threatened and she feels that all of a sudden Laksmana may have plans to obtain her as his wife, which was obviously crazy. So she was acting very crazy and irrationally and those are the symptoms of a maenad. 

And then the third time is actually in the Valmiki Ramayana that I’m going to give you an excerpt from, when she’s being accosted by Ravana and he is making advances on her and asking her to become his wife, when he is about to reveal his massive form. So I’ll just give you an excerpt from that. So in Sarga 46: “Vaidehi (Sita) was overcome with rage. Her eyes grew red and though all alone in the deserted spot she made this harsh reply to the lord of raksasas, that is Ravana. She says, ‘A man might abduct Indra’s wife (wife of the king of the gods in heaven), Saci herself, and still hope to save his life but he who carries me off, the wife of Rama, has no life left to save. And one might steal the incomparable Saci from the hand that wields the thunderbolt, and long remain alive, but violate a woman like me, raksasa, and even drinking the nectar of immortality will be no escape for you.’” (Verses 19, 22-23). So she becomes extremely angry and wild in her rage towards Ravana for even thinking that he could make her his own wife. And so that’s the third time that she acts like a maenad.

In the poem of the Valmiki Ramayana, Ravana himself actually addresses Sita as a ‘mad woman’ twice, right before he abducts her. He says to her and I’m quoting directly from the poem on Sarga 47 at the beginning: “Hearing Sita’s words, the awesome ten-necked Ravana struck his hands together and made ready to assume his massive form. Again he addressed Sita and far more severely than before: ‘It seems you did not hear, mad woman, when I spoke of my strength and valor. I can lift the earth in my arms while standing in the sky. I can drink up the ocean, and I can slay death in battle. I can shatter the earth with my sharp arrows, mad woman, or bring the sun to a halt. I can take on any form at will. You see before you a husband ready to grant your every wish.’ And as Ravana spoke thus in his wild rage, his yellow-rimmed eyes turned fiery red,” just like a satyr. Okay, so I just wanted to reiterate that the excerpt that I just quoted is from the Aranya Kanda, the Book of the Forest, Sarga 47, and verses 1-5. And how does this help us?

Well, the addressing of Sita as a mad woman, who is obviously showing belligerent resistance to Ravana’s advances, definitely agrees with the iconography of Sita as a maenad, which literally translates to the same term, as ‘mad woman’. And other definitions for maenad include ‘raving one’,’ frenzied or raging woman’, ‘an unnaturally excited or distraught woman’, etc. So maenads as wild followers of Dionysus were also viewed as sexually desirable like nymphs. And Ravana’s erect penis in the scene on the Caeretan hydria exemplifies his own sexual nature and the objectification of the maenad Sita. The fact that she’s a mad woman that not only is very attached to acquiring the golden deer skin, but is also very angry now that she is in a very threatening situation with Ravana about to abduct her, is notable.

Reviewing the definition of maenads, we learn that they were known as women who lived in the wilderness wearing animal skins, including deer and panther pelts. The artwork on the left displays one such maenad on a kylix from Vulci in Etruria with the deer skin on her back. And this is dating to the early 5th century BC. And the website that I’ve listed here from the University of Chicago, they summarize what maenads are. They describe this scene that you’re seeing on the left where she’s “draped in the skin of a fawn” and they show that unlike the satyrs who are “represented as beasts,” pretty much, the “maenads only take on the outward appearance” of such beastly satyrs. She has a serpent in her hair and she has the fawn skin on the back, and all that wild behavior and holding the panther as well, shows the closeness to nature of these maenads. And even on the right side, you can see a maenad brandishing a (tiny) fawn on another Greek work of art, which comes from page 151 of Osborne’s book. 

So it’s just something where the deer skin that Sita wanted, it makes her a natural match to these maenads, who would often wear such animal skins when they were living close to nature in the wilderness as devotees of Dionysus. I just want to quote another passage from Robin Osborne’s book Archaic and Classic Greek Art, page 149, in which he sums up the interaction between maenad Sita and satyr Ravana. He says that “often the female devotees of Dionysus appear as passive objects of satyrs’ attentions… as willing or unwilling partners in their revels.” And in this case, Sita is definitely an unwilling partner in Ravana’s scheme.