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

Description (Main Presentation, Part I):

As part of a series of presentations about the origins of Roman foundation myth, this presentation focuses on terracotta artifacts depicting the Asian Indian myth of Rama that were made by Ionian immigrant artists who had settled in Etruria. We analyze the deer hunt and abduction scenes on a particular Caeretan hydria produced around 525 BCE, connecting them to the golden deer episode of the Valmiki Ramayana. 

The front side of the hydria depicts the hunt of one rapidly moving deer by two young men, Rama and Laksmana. In one pose, the male deer or stag contorts itself to view the accuracy of the aim of the hunters with their bow and arrows. In a similar scene on another Caeretan hydria, the singular demon Tityos contorts his body to look back at Apollo and Artemis, the two heroic figures trying to kill him with their bow and arrows. The demon Maricha, magically disguised as the golden deer (Indian demons had the power to assume animal forms) to decoy Rama and Laksmana away from Sita, is thus identified as the singular deer moving away from the hunters on the Caeretan hydria.

The reverse side of the hydria contains two scenes, which represent the moments during or before abduction and the situation after abduction. Before the abduction is completely successful, Ravana is shown grasping Sita's arm and shoulder; after the abduction, Ravana's face becomes enlarged and his body appears more monstrous as he carries Sita forcefully away from her home. The two scenes together thus form a continuous, dynamic narrative when observed from right to left. Finally, we will notice the contrast between rescue and abduction when comparing one of the Campana plaques to the scene after abduction on the Caeretan hydria. In the former artwork, Rama is depicted as a hero rescuing his wife Sita while gently cradling her in his arms. In the latter artwork, Ravana is depicted as a villain abducting Sita while keeping his right arm firmly around her waist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26xjcz33Q0&t=378s

 

Transcript (Main Presentation, Part I):

So this presentation is part of a series on the topic of the origins of Roman foundation myth. And in this specific presentation I’m going to be talking about Etruscan art from ancient Caere, a city that has been all but forgotten, but is very closely situated near Rome. And to this day it still exists as the modern city of Cerveteri. In Etruscan art from Caere we have Eastern mythological stories that were known to Ionian immigrants in that region in the 6th century BC. And these are attested in terracotta artifacts from that time. So the 6th century BC is the time period that we’re going to focus on, and the region will be southern Etruria, that is the ancient city of Caere, known today as Cerveteri. The photos below are a brief preview of the characters and stories that we have preserved for us from Caere that are both from the Indian Ramayana. The first photo shows Rama and Sita and Laksmana from right to left, and the photo on the right is of the raksasa demon Ravana and so we’ll be going through this in more detail in the next few slides.

So the specific work of art that I’ll be analyzing today is the Caeretan hydria at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which dates to around, circa 530-520 BCE, which is in the latter half of the 6th century BC. The problem that scholars have had is identifying this scene, mainly because they don’t realize that it’s an Ionian representation of an Oriental myth, and more specifically an Indian myth from the Valmiki Ramayana. And if you care to actually look at the artwork (the artifact), you can see it at this link down below here at collections.mfa.org. And you’ll see pictures, if you scroll down, of each side of the hydria, which is what you would call a water jar. So, it’s a painted water jar and called a hydria, and we’ll be really looking at it carefully right away.

So this particular example that you can see on the right side here has two painted sides. On the front side you see two young men hunting either one deer or multiple deer. And on the back side B you see two pairs of one satyr and one maenad. In one of the scenes you see a satyr grabbing a hold of the maenad and in the other one you see the satyr carrying a maenad off. And the question then arises that the scholars struggle to answer definitively is, when we look at the top scene (front scene): Is the artist depicting three different animals, a deer or multiple deer, or is it just one stag which is moving quickly in three separate phases. Another question is: Are these two maenads and these two satyrs, are they distinct characters or are they the same personalities? And finally, what is the connection between the deer hunt above on the front side, which is what you would call the obverse side, and the abduction of the woman on the reverse side? Is it just symbolic or part of a known mythical narrative? 

Another point I want to add is that this Caeretan hydria is not black and white colored as this photo would indicate. But in reality the Caeretan hydria which dates from the late 6th century BC is part of the black-figure pottery technique. And black-figure means that the figures are dark or black painted and the background is reddish-brown orange colored, or clay colored. And so we can’t really see that because this is not a color photo and they have not released that, but the reality is that, yeah, that’s the technique that was used in Greece and in Etruria at that time. And also another point would be that the female characters tend to be painted a little bit lighter colored than the male characters but other than that, it’s definitely the black-figure technique.

So, the first question that I posed about whether there are multiple deer or just one deer has never really been answered convincingly in the community of scholars. The researchers tend to believe that the answer to the first question is multiple deer or three deer, and so they kind of take it literally rather than figuratively. They just see that there are three deer depicted so there must be three different deer being hunted. But they do not explain why each animal is positioned in a different stance, which from right to left seems to indicate the movement of one deer away from the two young men. 

Indeed, the Italian author Bonaudo notes below and seems to hint at this when she writes, “The hydria on which two young hunters with unshaven hair, naked and armed with bows, are about to shoot three fleeing deer, one of which turns back to look at the pursuers with a splendid torsion of the body, is the only case on the Caeretan hydria in which the hunters are naked and armed with bows.” And this is an excerpt from the book La Culla di Hermes. And it’s a translation in English of the Italian work. And you can see this on pages 215-216. What she notes that is very interesting is that this is the only case where you have naked hunters armed with bows hunting deer in any of the Caeretan hydria. So that already alerts you that this is a unique scene that may not be in the purview of Greek myth. And another thing she notes is that one of the deer has a particular twisting of the head to look back at the pursuers, or at the assailants. And what we will see is that this is part of a sequence in which the deer is moving away, much like in the Valmiki Ramayana’s scene of the golden deer.

So my answer to the question, the first question of how many deer are there, is unequivocally one deer in disguise, which is being hunted by the two young brothers Rama and Laksmana from the Valmiki Ramayana. It is the demon Maricha in the famous golden deer episode of the Ramayana who disguises himself as a golden deer in order to distract the two young brothers Rama and Laksmana away from their hermitage in order to allow Ravana, the other demon, to abduct Sita, who is the wife of Rama. Therefore, what we see in the reverse side is actually the abduction of Sita by Ravana, who is being depicted as a satyr, because that was the frame of reference that the Greek artists had for figuring out how to depict Ravana, who was what you what call a raksasa (demon or nightstalker) in the Indian myth. So there are many different types of monstrous creatures in the Greek myth like centaurs and satyrs and Sileni (associates of Dionysus), and these were the models that they used in order to figure out how to depict a demon like Ravana. 

But for this front side it’s pretty straightforward. You have a deer that’s panting and then starting to look back, and then finally it’s galloping away with full speed at the very end. So it’s not very difficult to see that this is actually a depiction of a dynamic scene, not a static scene where you have just one thing or one event being depicted. Instead they’re showing a deer hunt in which the deer is moving away over a period of time very quickly, very rapidly. 

Lastly, for comparison, we can look at the hydria on the right side here where it shows Artemis and Apollo hunting the demon Tityos with their bow and arrows as well. And you can see how Tityos contorts his body to look back at his assailants as well, just like Maricha in the golden deer form or the golden stag, you could stay. So by comparison to other hydriae we can match a singular antagonist (not multiple but a singular antagonist) such as Tityos or Alcyoneus in another example, to Maricha, who is the singular deer moving on side A, and not multiple antagonists. So just to reiterate, Artemis and Apollo are basically analogous to Rama and Laksmana, and they’re hunting the demon Tityos, just like Rama and Laksmana are hunting the golden deer, which is Maricha in disguise.

Let us recap our observations about this particular hydria in Boston, which is also called the number two hydria as it is one of the earliest Caeretan hydriae. And that’s the way it has been classified as number two among the forty or so vases that have been discovered. The first point that I want to make about it is that we see dynamic motion on both sides of the hydria. On the back side, we see Ravana and Sita moving from right to left, meaning that first we have Ravana taking control over Sita and then he’s carrying her off in the next scene. So, there’s a dynamic movement or change from right to left. And then on the front side we have the hunted deer moving from right to left with the hunters Rama and Laksmana facing and walking towards the deer.

The next point I want to make that we have been observing is that both sides depict a sequence of actions rather than a single snapshot at a certain time and place. And then the next point I want to make that we’ve touched upon is that there was always a need for a frame of reference from Greek myth such as Apollo and Artemis hunting Tityos or Heracles attacking the demon centaur Nessos or Heracles attacking Alcyoneus, which is another demon giant. So all of these characters from Greek myth were the artist’s model for understanding how to depict Rama, the hero, as well as the villain Ravana, and all the other characters, including Sita as well. 

And to kind of bring this point home about the frame of reference, there is a quote from a German author commenting on the Caeretan hydriae, and he tells us that centaurs, which are half-man and half-horse, “like their conspecifics on other Caeretan hydriae have horse hooves on their otherwise human-shaped forelegs. And the same applies, as the Boston hydria shows, to the Silene on Caeretan hydriae.” So in essence what he’s telling us is that Ravana is comparable to the Silene, who are the companions of Dionysus, as well as the centaurs and many other demoniac type monstrous beings.

Now to get a little bit more in detail about that, Hemelrijk, the Dutch author, writes: “There are six mythological monsters or giants, including Alcyoneus of the number 21 hydria. He’s closely related to the Caeretan satyrs, except for his feet, ears, and the absence of a tail,” which we’ll get back to later. The absence of a tail is a very important characteristic to note. And then another thing he notes is that “even more like a gigantic satyr (with satyr ears, red eyeballs, human feet, and no tail is his counterpart Tityos of number 12.” (pg. 121, Caeretan Hydriae). So the number 12 hydria which shows Artemis and Apollo hunting Tityos as well as the number 21 hydria which shows Heracles attacking Alcyoneus; they’re both comparable to this number 2 Boston hydria where you have Rama and Laksmana attacking Maricha in the golden deer form and Ravana the satyr abducting Sita.

So now getting back to the reverse side of the Caeretan hydria in Boston we see that there are two sides. On the right side we have the scene before abduction and on the left side we have the scene after abduction. Now in this scene before abduction, Ravana’s head is smaller and his penis is not erect. And the author Jaap Hemelrijk in his book Caeretan Hydriae notes this. He brings our attention to the peculiar and unique satyr in the Boston deer hunt scene. He says, “Note, however, the satyr’s left hand. He seems to try to pull the girl’s himation off her shoulder. This seems to be a unique motif. And besides, he is tail-less and not ithyphallic, meaning he has no erect penis yet. The girl looks round, her left hand raised and clenched as if she wants to land him a punch on the nose.” (pg. 177, Caeretan Hydriae)

So this is really exactly as described in the Valmiki Ramayana where Sita tries to resist Ravana’s advances and that is represented here with her left hand raised and clenched, ready to punch him if she could, but she’s not strong enough to stop him. And finally, the fact that he is without a tail is a clear indication that he’s not truly a satyr in the Greek sense of the word, but really a demon from Indian myth. Also note that the girl, the maenad here which is Sita, she looks round much like the deer in the front scene which looks back at the hunters. So in essence the painter is telling us that metaphorically the deer hunt is a lot like the hunt of the lady here by the demon Ravana.

Now in this scene to the left of the previous scene we see Ravana after abducting Sita. He has an enlarged face noticeably, as well as a very clearly erect penis. And what this signifies is that in the previous scene before abduction his disguise of a mendicant was no longer needed now that he has taken control of Sita. And so he confidently gallops like a centaur to his kingdom of Lanka and has fully transformed into his raksasa, monstrous form. And Ravana carries Sita forcefully with his right arm around her waist. 

And we will compare that to Rama in the next slide carrying Sita as well, without this violent force, like a child. So we’ll see that in the next slide where in one of the Campana plaques (from Caere as well), Rama does the same thing. He carries Sita in his arms but much less forcefully, and instead more like a child. So the author Hemelrijk, his quote below is accurate except for the fact that cradling her in his arms like a baby is more applicable to the Campana slab which we will see in the next slide. Hemelrijk writes, “The satyr is making off with his victim with great gusto and speed,” which is very, very accurate, but he gets it wrong when he says that he’s “cradling her in his arms like a baby.” (Pg. 177). Because clearly, if we look here on the right, in this photo right here, we can see that his right arm is very tightly held around her waist to make sure that she’s not able to get away. That’s hardly cradling someone like a baby.

So here I’m going to be discussing another work of art which dates to the same time period and is also from the same region in Caere. It’s called a Campana plaque or one of the painted terracotta panels that was discovered in a tomb in Caere, and it dates to 550 to 525 BC, or the second half of the 6th century BC. And in my opinion this plaque here that you see on the right is a depiction of Rama carrying his wife back to Ayodhya. His winged boots and wings on his back - they signify the flying chariot that is very famously known as the ‘Pushpaka Vimana’ from the Valmiki Ramayana. And this is the chariot or the flying chariot that Rama famously used to return home after he rescued Sita and killed the demon Ravana. 

Now what I’m trying to tell you is that both figures, both male figures here, are the same person. The left-hand male figure is also Rama with the signature bow and arrows before his retrieval of Sita from Lanka. And his right hand is raised, as you can see, in a gesture that is similar to Persian Achaemenid kings like Darius and indicates that he is a great hero and a king as well. Now if you look at the right-hand male figure, he’s also Rama and he’s carrying Sita, and her body, including her arms, is covered to indicate that she is in the safe hands of her husband, who is now clean-shaven, as he returns triumphantly home to his kingdom of Ayodhya. Now European scholars tend to just speculate about this scene and they are very unsure, but they do tend to realize that there is a rescue that is going on here. And they speculate that it might be Artemis, a female character, rescuing Iphigenia. But if we look at this scene, it’s quite obvious that this is a male figure, not a female figure. And it just seems very silly to look at this as Artemis.

I also want to add that if you look at the way Rama’s hands and arms are holding Sita, it’s clear that he’s cradling her gently like a baby or a child in his arms. And it’s in a very sharp contrast to the previous scene that we looked at in the Caeretan hydria where Ravana is forcefully holding Sita around the waist. So we can see the contrast and we can see that one is the hero, and the other is the villain. Not only this scene represents the fact that Sita is in the safe hands of her husband, but the saffron cloth around her body covering it indicates her purity and chastity, and indicates that she was never violated by the demon Ravana until Rama finally rescued her. So if we take a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we have that line of “your chaste treasure open” (from Act I, Scene 3). It’s a lot like that, where her chaste treasure is closed, instead.

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

Description (Intro, Part III):

Previews the upcoming presentation and gives an outline of the different sections that will cover each major topic: the front and back sides of the Caeretan hydria, the dating of this Caeretan hydria and the Campana slabs, comparison with Greek myths of abduction, and identification of the major characters Rama, Sita, Laksmana, and Ravana in each episode depicted. We will arrive at the tentative conclusion that Eurocentric bias is one of the key reasons why Indian influence on Greeks and Etruscans has been neglected, which is elaborated upon later in the main presentation.

Additionally, there is a discussion about the definition of myths, which are fictional or non-fictional stories that matter to communities of people for generations. There are variations of myths across different regions or cultures, which we observe with the Ramayana in distinct parts of India. Finally, we explain why the deer hunt on the Caeretan hydria in Boston cannot be related to the Greek myth of the Ceryneian hind, even as a variation. Fundamental thematic and structural differences preclude any association with this Greek myth, including the elements of the abduction of a lady, co-operative hunting of the deer by two brothers, and the objective of capturing the deer's golden skin by killing it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xPoH4gHJng&t=2s

Transcript (Introduction, Part III):

So in this upcoming presentation I am going to exhaustively prove that the South Asian myth of the Ramayana was known in the Mediterranean world in the 6th century BC, particularly in southern Etruria, Caere, as well as among the Ionians who immigrated there. So why has this important event in world history not been documented or proven before in any classical history textbooks? Well, the answer to that is related to the way we learn about current events as well. And I think that’s what we’re going to be talking about here in this slide is that biased historical narratives omit important events, both in modern history, as well as in ancient history. And if we look at modern news media outlets both on the left and the right, they often selectively choose to report current events based on a motivated political agenda, leaving out key news stories that skew our understanding.

And it’s the same thing with our understanding of world history from thousands of years ago. The modern historians, they don’t necessarily distort our comprehension of world history by avoiding certain topics such as Oriental influence on the ancient Mediterranean, but they certainly make our comprehension less complete and satisfying. So you can see the similarity between the modern news media and the modern historians. They leave out important information either consciously or semiconsciously, not necessarily fully deliberately, but definitely they ignore certain information because it does not fulfill their interests. I mean it doesn’t promote their interests and promote their own agenda.

At the end of this presentation there will be some corollaries that we can arrive at as well and I’ve just listed a couple of them briefly here. A thorough examination of ancient artworks in Etruria, that is central Italy, would reveal that Greek myths were not the only stories known to Ionian artists and their clients, the Etruscan aristocrats, in the 6th century BC. So that’s one corollary and then another one would be that if we do have an admission finally that the Indian myth of the Valmiki Ramayana was also known in ancient Etruria via Ionian immigrants circa 525 BCE, then it would encourage new research into a missing chapter of world history and into the mythological origins of Etruscan Rome, including the foundation story of Romulus.

So in this upcoming presentation, I want to give you a brief overview of each section or set of slides the I will be showing you. And they each form a particular group of slides that are important, for proving an important point. So in the first nine slides I will be giving an introduction to the Caeretan hydria at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which includes the deer hunt on one side and the abduction scene on the back side. On the slides from 10 to 16, I will be trying to go into more detail about this Caeretan hydria, particularly the back side of the abduction where Ravana and Sita are identified as the satyr and maenad in the pairings on that back side.

Now for the third section, the slides 17 to 24, I will be discussing the maenad’s dress and anatomical characteristics of each of the characters, male and female, and also making a comparison of the Caeretan hydria to the Campana plaques, both of which were produced in the southern Etruscan city of Caere. And one of them is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Campana plaques are in the famous museum of the Louvre in Paris. So they’re kept in very different places but they’re intimately related to one another and this is the section where I’m going to start comparing them. In the fourth section, slides 25 to 30, I’m going to be discussing the more exact dating of the Caeretan hydria, and also get into more detail about the sequential order of the Campana slabs, and also identify each major scene in the story of Rama in those slabs.

In the fifth section, which is slides 31 to 38, I will be going into a significant amount of detail about the golden deer episode of the Valmiki Ramayana from India (from the Indian epic). And also some of the things I’ll be discussing will be the dynamic motion of the stag Maricha and his deceptive nature, which we will be able to observe on the Caeretan hydria on the front side of the deer hunt. Now in the sixth section, slides 39 to 47, I will be going into a recognition analysis of the two hunters on the front side of the deer hunt of the Caeretan hydria and I will be proving that they are indeed Rama and Laksmana from the Valmiki Ramayana, by comparative analysis with other great heroes from Greek mythology such as Heracles.  

Now in the seventh section, I will be looking at slides 48 to 58, and these are different case studies of Greek myths of abduction, similar to the Indian myth of abduction of Sita, where we have Heracles and his wife Deianira and the demon centaur Nessos in one affair, and then we have another Greek myth of abduction where a female deity Eos abducts a male Kephalos. So these are both Greek stories of abduction and I’m going to be comparing them to the Indian myth of abduction where Sita is abducted by Ravana, and she is Rama’s wife, of course. Definitely there’s a very close comparison that you can make between Heracles and Deianira and Rama and Sita, as well as the demon abductors Nessos and Ravana. But there’s also an interesting comparison that can be made with the story of Eos, the female deity abducting Kephalos, as well. So we will get into that in great detail on those slides.

Now in the last two sections (eighth video part), I’ll be discussing how and why the Ramayana actually traveled from India to Ionia and Etruria and that’s mainly because of the Persian empire at that time, which was ruling much of the then known world. And then in the last section I will be talking about the preservation and interpretation of the red-colored Campana plaques in more detail. There’s also a final concluding section that we are going to get into on the next slide. Also I want to add that throughout the presentation I’m going to be displaying images of Indian art from the medieval world, especially to use for comparison to the Caeretan hydria and the Campana plaques, in order to really confirm that these are also depictions of the Indian myth of the Ramayana. So to summarize, there are plenty of examples of Indian art depicting the Valmiki Ramayana and I will be using them (those examples) throughout the presentation for comparison with the hydria from Caere, as well as the Campana plaques from Caere.

On this slide, I just want to list some of the main conclusions that I am going to draw from this presentation. The first major conclusion is that xenophobia and Eurocentrism are the main reasons, unfortunately, along with sheer ignorance of Eastern myths, that certain Greco-Etruscan works of art from the 6th century BCE have not been positively identified as Oriental, that is South Asian Indian, mythological scenes. So that’s one of the first major conclusions. More specifically, the second major conclusion is that the Caeretan hydria, or so-called Boston deer hunt, is an Ionian depiction of the Golden Deer episode of Rama and Sita, including Rama’s killing of the golden deer with his bow and arrow, and the demon Ravana’s abduction of Rama and Sita. Western scholars admit that this artwork may have a mythological explanation, but they do not go any further.

The third major conclusion is that the Campana plaques in the Louvre depict the events of the Valmiki Ramayana in a series of five panels that form a coherent sequence. The first scene is from the royal palace of Ayodhya, where a decision on the next king, which is supposed to be Rama, is thwarted. And in the next scene we see that Rama and Sita, his wife, and his brother, Laksmana, are walking through the forest because they have been banished from the kingdom into exile, and Rama has been prevented or thwarted in his coronation as the next king. The third panel is Rama and Sita sharing a romantic moment together during exile. And then in the fourth panel we have Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, performing austerities in front of a fire altar as he has renounced the kingship of Ayodhya in deference to his elder brother Rama, whom he did not want to usurp the throne from. And then lastly, the fifth panel is the divine winged hero Rama, who is famous as a god in India. He is depicted as a divine being, a winged being, who heroically rescues his wife Sita and carries her back home to his home of Ayodhya where he then regains his kingship. So everything comes full circle in the last panel and you can see the sequence is very logical here.

So these are the three major conclusions and they’re extremely important for our understanding of the connections between ancient India and Persia and also the ancient Ionian and Etruscan world of the 6th century BC. The cultural arrogance and the fear of the unknown is also another reason why these western scholars are unable to comprehend that these are Oriental scenes, or more specifically, Asian Indian mythological scenes. In my opinion, the western scholars feel overwhelmed that their knowledge base is not enough to totally comprehend the history of the Mediterranean world in the 6th century BC. They feel like their understanding of Latin and Greek, and the different cultures in the Near East and in Greece and Italy and Magna Graecia and in the greater Etruscan world and the Roman worlds, should be enough for them to analyze the material and draw conclusions and produce works. But unfortunately, they feel a sense of dread, I think, that they have to actually know even more than that in order to come to a full understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world.

Before jumping into the presentation itself, I wanted to list the bibliography here of all the major sources of information that I drew from. And these include the classical works on the Etruscan world, the Greek world, and artwork from those two cultures, as well as Indian medieval art as well. And there’s also direct references to websites from the museums like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that show us the pictures of these works of art that we’re going to discuss in the presentation. We also have some periodicals that are in different languages. There’s one book from Raffaella Bonaudo that’s in Italian. There’s a German periodical from Antike Kunst by Konrad Schauenberg on the Caeretan hydria and we also have texts on the Valmiki Ramayana. All these works are important for demonstrating what I am going to try and show about the Caeretan hydria and the Campana plaques through comparison with the Greek art in the contemporary ancient world as well as medieval Indian art.

So let’s go through one by one, these important works cited. The first one is the Cradle of Hermes, Iconography and Imagery of the Caeretan Hydriae, which is written in Italian and I have translated it into English, i.e. many of the important excerpts from it. Then the next one is Caeretan Hydriae by Jaap Hemelrijk, which again has quite a few plates and pictures of the specific hydria that I’m going to be analyzing, which is hydria number two, the Boston deer hunt. Then another work is the Two-Headed Deer, Illustrations of the Ramayana in Orissa, by Joanna Williams, which is helpful for comparison to the hydria in terms of identifying the mythical scene as that from the Golden Deer episode in the Ramayana. And then there’s the actual text of the Valmiki Ramayana; specifically I’ve focused on Volume III, which is the Aranya Kanda, or the Book of the Forest, translated by Sheldon Pollock.

Then the next citation is from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts website directly, and that’s the Caeretan hydria number two, or the Boston deer hunt as they know it. Then there’s the German periodical from 1969 in Antike Kunst, which is very important on analyzing in pretty good detail, the Caeretan hydriae, including the Boston hydria, and it’s written by Konrad Schauenberg. Then there’s kind of a quaint reference here - it’s the archaic painted tomb chamber in northern Lycia in Kizilbel. And this author is discussing a contemporary tomb that has artwork that is comparing favorably to the Caeretan (hydria) and Campana plaques from the 6th century BC. So this archaic painted tomb chamber in northern Lycia is also from the late 6th century BC and it’s useful for comparison to the Caeretan hydria as well as the Campana plaques.

Now the next list here on the right is again a more in-depth look at the Ramayana in Indian art. So in Indian art we don’t have too many examples of depictions of the Ramayana from the ancient Indian world but we do have plenty from the medieval Indian world. And so one of the references is the Ramayana in Indian Miniatures, from the Collection of National Museum in New Delhi, by Dr. Daljeet and Dr. V. K. Mathur. There’s also the Mewar Ramayana by J. P. Losty and he has another book called The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India’s Great Epic, which I haven’t written down here, but basically they’re both related to the Rajasthani depictions of the Ramayana. Rajasthan is in the northwestern part of India and so he focuses on the depictions of the Ramayana from that region. Then we have the next reference, The Ramayana in Bengali Folk Paintings, by Mandrakanta Bose. And then a western author also looks at depictions of the Ramayana in Southeast Asia, outside of India. The title of his book is In the Shadow of Rama: Murals of the Ramayana in Mainland Southeast Asia, by Vittorio Roveda.

Then there are some important references on Etruscan and Greek art here: Etruscan Art by Otto Brendel, Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, edited by Warren G. Moon. We have Archaic and Classical Greek Art by Robin Osborne. And we also have the very important book, Etruscan Painting, by the renowned scholar Massimo Pallottino. And there are many other references that I have, you know, cited specifically within the slides in the upcoming presentation, so there’s no need to list them here. And those are also very important. But they’re all connected to Etruscan art, especially archaic Etruscan art from the 6th century BC, as well as comparing that to Greek art and medieval Indian art. And it’s something that’s hard to really explain here, but that’s why we’re going to be jumping into the presentation very soon.

In presenting my findings, I just wanted to emphasize that there is no political motive or intention when it comes to pro-Hindu or anti-Hindu views. Because the Ramayana is a sacred text in the Hindu religion, there is always a concern that labeling the story a myth is denigrating. But if we look at the definition of myth that I have quoted here, the realization should be that Valmiki’s poem is very important for objectively examining ancient art, no matter what your subjective opinion may be of the story itself and its historicity. My purpose is not to prove or disprove the historicity of the Ramayana, but to prove that the epic was known outside of India during a specific time frame. The conclusions I draw are meant to hold independently of anyone’s positive or negative views about Hinduism, including the story of Rama.

Timothy Wiseman, in his book The Myths of Rome, comprehensively defines the meaning of myth. He writes that in Rome, “kings and consuls, tribunes and tyrannicides, secessions and civil wars produced a world of stories that were both historical and mythic. For myth and history do not exclude each other. Mythos in Greek and fabula in Latin mean literally ‘that which is said’, and thus story. So let us define a myth as a story that matters to a community, one that is told and retold because it has a significance for one generation after another. Such a story may be (in our terms) historical, pseudo-historical or totally fictitious, but if it matters enough to be retold, it can count as a myth.” (Pgs 10-11). So therefore you could categorize the Ramayana by Valmiki in any of these categories as historical, pseudo-historical, or totally fictitious, and it still would not make any difference when it comes to the analysis that I’m going to be presenting to you.

So the Valmiki Ramayana is a story that has mattered to many different communities throughout India over the last few thousand years and you can see variations of it actually in North India, South India and also Western and Eastern parts of India. And that’s why I’m displaying for you two different scenes here from the same episode of the Golden Deer, which are somewhat different from one another in the sense there’s a variation or there’s permutations here. In the left scene, you’ll see Rama and Laksmana hunting the elusive deer together and the deer itself has two heads, signifying the duality in Maricha’s real and illusory forms along with its elusiveness. This scene comes from the British Museum in London. That is, the artwork is kept there at that museum. And on the right side, we see Rama hunting the dappled golden deer. In the previous scene on the left you see that it doesn’t have any bright dappled spots, but in this case this is more closer to the book, or faithful to Valmiki’s text. And so Rama is hunting it alone and this comes from the National Museum in New Delhi.

So you can see the differences between the two scenes even though they’re from the same episode and that indicates there are going to be variations also of a myth regionally. And that’s also going to be the case in some ways in terms of how it is depicted outside of India, as we will see. I just wanted to add that the two paintings below are from different regions in India. The left scene is from the Maharashtra region, which is in west central India, specifically Pune, and it was produced around the early 19th century. And the other painting on the right is roughly contemporary. It’s from the mid-18th century and it’s the Pahari style in northern India, specifically the Punjab hills, I believe. So they’re definitely two different regions in which these paintings were produced and that’s why, partly why, you see the variation in the depiction.

Before going into the details of why I think that the Caeretan hydria in Boston is a depiction of the Indian myth of the golden deer chase in the Ramayana, I want to explain why the Greek myth of Ceryneian hind, or any other Greek myth for that matter, cannot be a variant of what we see on the Caeretan hydria. Now the myth of the Ceryneian hind, which is the deer with the golden antlers, constituted the third labor of Heracles. In that story Heracles is supposed to chase down the Ceryneian hind and take her to King Eurystheus of Mycenae. Now, classical scholars themselves do not propose this Greek myth as an explanation for the deer hunt shown on the Caeretan hydria in Boston, despite superficial similarities such as the swiftness, which was one of the characteristics of the Ceryneian hind. And I think they realize why it’s not a good idea to propose it as a variant because it just simply does not come close to any of the other depictions of the same myth during the same period in the 6th century BC.

So if we look at these two art examples which are contemporary in the 6th century BC, we see that there’s a really strong difference, you know, a very fundamental difference in the structure of the narrative. In the Athenian plate from 560 BC, Heracles is on the left and Apollo is on the right, and they’re fighting over the Ceryneian hind and Artemis, the goddess for whom the deer is sacred, she stands in between them. And on the right hand side we have an Attic amphora from Vulci around 540-530 BC. So this is actually made in Etruria as well. And in this one you have Heracles cutting off the golden antlers which were prized; that was the prized thing from this hind. And Athena is on the left and Artemis is on the right as witnesses. So we can see that there’s a very strong difference in the structure, and also the theme of the narrative. In the actual Golden Deer episode of the Ramayana, the main theme is abduction and deception. Whereas here, the main theme seems to be just simply capturing the deer, and that’s about it really - and taking it back it alive actually, not dead, but taking it back alive to the king as a part of the third labor of Heracles. So this was really just one objective, one singular objective here.

What are the main differences if I want to summarize? Well, there’s no corresponding abduction of any female heroine like Athena or Artemis, although the Ceryneian hind was said to be sacred to Artemis. So Heracles catches this elusive beautiful deer after one year of pursuit! So it’s quite different from the golden deer episode in the Ramayana where Rama takes a while to pursue Maricha in the disguised form, but eventually he catches up to him and kills him. So it’s very different, and what we see on the hydria clearly indicates a pursuit to kill, and to kill as soon as possible. So it doesn’t quite match up with it when you look at the structure, or the theme. And of course, Heracles and Apollo, unlike Rama and Laksmana on the hydria, are actually quarreling for possession of the female deer, as we see in the leftmost example below. So it’s not a cooperative effort to hunt the deer like we see on the hydria, but it is definitely in accordance with what we see in Indian depictions of the Golden Deer episode, as we saw on the previous slide.

Finally, the most important thing perhaps, or one of the most important things, is the third labor of Heracles involved capturing the hind alive, which is the key word here, and taking her to King Eurystheus of Mycenae. So the objective was not to capture it for its skin, the golden skin, like it was for Rama and Sita. So Rama was capturing the golden deer or trying to capture Maricha in disguise for the golden skin, and to bring it back to his wife Sita. But here we have a totally different objective and it involves not actually killing the deer. So it’s totally opposed to what we really are seeing on that scene, as well as in Indian depictions of the Golden Deer episode. That’s why we can rule it out as an explanation.

The Caeretan hydria depicts two different events happening at the same time - the abduction of Sita by Ravana, and the golden deer hunt by Rama and Laksmana. And so it doesn’t make sense to apply the third labor of Heracles, which was to chase down the Ceryneian hind, to this particular work of art, because it involves two different events actually happening at the same time, rather than just one singular deer chase.