Drishta Sita - Hanuman’s adventures in finding Sita
I wrote this essay as part of the Indian Aesthetics 2022-2023 Diploma course at Jnanapravaha.
Fig. 1 - Hanuman Visits Sita in Lanka, Folio from a Ramayana (Adventures of Rama)
India, Gujarat, circa 1775-1800
Drawings; watercolors | Opaque watercolor and ink on paper
6 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. (16.51 x 31.75 cm)
Painting cleanses the mind and curbs anxiety, augments future good, causes the greatest delight, kills evils of bad dreams and pleases the household deity.
Vishnudharmottara Purana (qtd. in Pleasure Gardens of the Mind Indian Paintings from the Jane Greenough Green Collection, Pal et al. 11)
The benefits of a beautiful painting, as described in the Vishnudharmottara Purana, bear similarity to those attributed to a popular practice in the subcontinent: that of chanting the “Sundara Kanda”. The “Sundara Kanda" is the fifth canto of Valmiki’s Ramayana, which forms the heart of the epic. It contains vivid accounts of the life of Hanuman who is the son of the wind god, Vayu. Hanuman is the general of the Vanara king Sugreeva and, most importantly, an ally and devotee of Rama. The canto describes Hanuman crossing the ocean to find Sita who was abducted and held captive in Lanka by the demon king Ravana, and bringing news of her whereabouts to her husband, Rama.
The Ramayana has been a boundless source for inspiration for visual and performing arts, literature and religious thought in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia for many centuries. Over the course of 1500 years the epic has inspired countless artworks of every kind from sculpture to paintings to embroidered textiles to illustrated manuscripts and even dance-dramas. The distinguished collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) houses a corpus of about sixty such artworks of the Ramayana and Ramayana-related imagery (Markel, 82). Among these is a folio depicting Hanuman’s adventures in finding Sita (Fig. 1). This folio depicts the pivotal episode of the “Sundara Kanda”, in which Hanuman finds Sita in Lanka, and the events immediately preceding and following it.
COMPOSITION AND NARRATIVE
In the folio in Fig. 1, the narrative begins at the bottom right, where Hanuman is poised to leap off Mount Mahendra to cross the ocean to Lanka. Hanuman is the son of Vayu (the wind god) and was blessed with many boons by the devas in his childhood. Among these was the ability to expand and contract his physical body. This is depicted beautifully in the painting where he is almost as large as the mountain from which he leaps off. In the various retellings of the Ramayana, Hanuman encounters many demons and obstacles in his journey across the ocean. One such is Surasa, mother of serpents, a huge snake-like monster who opens her mouth wide and demands that Hanuman enter it if he is to pass her. Here the astute Hanuman contracts himself into a speck and darts through the demon’s open mouth, exiting through her ear to continue on his journey. This episode is depicted with a diminutive Hanuman in front of a demon on the shore, though she is not snake-like in appearance. This could also be the demoness Simhika who captured her prey by trapping their shadows. Though Hanuman encounters both monsters at sea in the Valmiki Ramayana while the one in the painting is on the shore, his smaller size, mischievous expression and absence of a shadow near him indicate that the monster is most likely Surasa.
The scene in which Hanuman finds and meets Sita anchors the narration in the painting and the incidents that occur before and after it have been artfully demarcated as being on either side of the ocean moving clockwise from bottom right. The ocean itself is depicted with little whorls and eddies, and a lining of foam on either coast. It is teeming with fish and other monstrous sea creatures including crocodiles and a turtle.
The core episode of the “Sundara Kanda" is depicted on the bottom left of the painting. It is the fructification of all Hanuman’s efforts, valour, resilience, wisdom and eloquence where he meets Sita and reassures her of her impending rescue by Rama. In this poignant scene Sita sits under a Simshupa (Indian Rosewood/Sheesham) tree as Hanuman stands before her in an attitude of reverence. The artist manages to convey sorrow, benevolence, gratitude, strength and irreproachable honour in the depiction of Sita, through her facial expression, her hand gesture where she raises it in blessing and the demure drape of her garments. This portrayal captures the essence of the conversations between Sita and Hanuman which extend to several stanzas in the original Valmiki version, and include Hanuman’s recognition of Sita, Hanuman hiding in the Simshupa tree as he strategises his introduction to Sita, Hanuman convincing her of his authenticity with soulful descriptions of Rama’s beauty and sorrow, Sita’s recognition and acceptance of Rama’s signet ring and her giving Hanuman her choodamani (hair ornament) in return.
Many different vignettes are integrated into this scene. Sita’s plight is highlighted by the presence of two other characters : Trijata, the dark demoness leaning on the tree behind Sita, and a male character who could represent either Ravana or Akshayakumara. Trijata is among many demonesses appointed to guard the captive Sita. Trijata’s dream is a key episode in this narrative. She dreams of a scintillating Rama and his powerful army destroying Lanka and killing Ravana. Hanuman witnesses her warning the others not to threaten and harass Sita, telling them of the dream that portends doom for them all. Trijata is thus seen as an ally and perhaps the only solace for Sita in this hostile environment. The male character could be Ravana who comes to threaten Sita to submit to his advances and gives her an ultimatum. Hanuman witnesses this scene as he lies hidden in the branches of the Simshupa tree before meeting Sita. This character could also be Akshayakumara, son of Ravana, who is dispatched to subdue and arrest Hanuman when he wreaks havoc in the orchard where Sita is held captive. This act of defiance by Hanuman is depicted in the painting by a few trees around the periphery lying uprooted, with Hanuman's foot upon one of them.
The third and perhaps most dramatic scene of the painting is that of Hanuman with his tail on fire, setting Lanka alight after he is captured by Indrajit.The golden city of Lanka is shown with its citadels aflame and engulfed in smoke. Hanuman leaps back across the ocean with an expression of grim determination, his tail alight and arched over the burning Lanka, as he hurries to complete his mission and bring tidings of Sita to the distraught Rama.
COLOUR AND FORM
He who paints waves, flames, smoke and streamers fluttering in the air, according to the movement of the wind, should be considered a great painter”
Vishnu Dharmottara Purana, 43.5.38 (qtd. in Exploring India’s Sacred Art, Kramrisch 263)
The skill and proficiency of the artist is evident in the flourishes that abound in the painting. The waves of the ocean with its surf-lined shores and ripples around sea creatures are in stark contrast to the more stagnant waters of the moat around Lanka. The bold use of colour showing “golden” Lanka in contrast with the dark, foreboding sky complements the ominous expression on the face of Hanuman as he leaps with his tail alight.
There are four figures of Hanuman in this folio, each the central character of the four phases of this narrative, each depicted in a different posture matching the scene. Though his face appears to be painted on as a mask with the “human” skin tone visible at the edges, care has been taken to create nuanced expressions on the face of each of the images of Hanuman. The only smiling Hanuman is the one in front of Sita, while the one in front of Surasa/Simhika sports an almost mischievous expression. The image of Hanuman leaping back from Lanka wears a bejewlled crown as compared to the other three that appear to be wearing a simpler turban-like ornamented headdress. Hanuman alone is represented with rounded eyes, while all other characters in the painting have elongated eyes with distinct lashlines.
The details in the posture and expression of each of the characters in the painting ensure that the action in the narrative could still cohere in the absence of the background (Sardar, 72).
HISTORY AND INFLUENCES
The story of Prince Rama of Ayodhya has its origins in an oral tradition thousands of years old, well before the poet Valmiki composed it into an epic containing twenty four thousand slokas (verses). There is also a flourishing tradition of regional versions of the Ramayana in various Indic languages all contributing to the vast treasury of visual representations of the narrative with the sculptural depictions far predating the earliest known paintings by a few centuries.
In Epic Tales from Ancient India, Marika Sardar writes:
The sculptural depictions of the Ramayana demonstrate that even before the earliest known paintings were made, it was fairly common to depict the story in visual form, and that many viewers must have been familiar enough with the conventions for conveying its narrative that they could be easily recognized and deciphered. (73)
Miniature paintings depicting the Ramayana take on many forms; illustrated manuscripts, narratives with brief captions, and less frequently, single paintings which may be part of lost sets. The earliest known paintings of this subject are embedded in late-15th century manuscripts of the “Balagopala Stuti”, in which the story of Rama is related to the child Krishna (Sardar, 70). Manuscripts with paintings illustrating a written text of the Ramayana appear to become more common after illustrated Persian translations were commissioned at the Mughal court by Akbar.
During the Mughal period, this practice spread to the Rajput courts of present-day Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh with illustrated manuscripts in indigenous painting styles being commissioned by high nobles and rulers, who were perhaps influenced by their interaction with the Mughals. This resulted in varying levels of Mughal influence over the miniature styles as they evolved across the princely states of western and central India. Notwithstanding the interaction with Mughal painting, Rajput paintings have “a great variety of motifs, compositions, and formulae that occur commonly in much older Indian works or correspond to the phraseology of classical rhetoric” (Coomaraswamy, qtd. in Pleasure Gardens of The Mind, 13).
Illustrated manuscripts of the epic were also produced by families of artists working in association with various courts in the Pahari region (the Himalayan foothills in present day Himachal Pradesh) of which the Shangri, Mankot, Guler are most famous. The text in these illustrated manuscripts across the subcontinent is often that of the Vālmīki Rāmāyan. a but there are also several based on the Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsīdās and other vernacular versions.
CONCLUSION
The Ramayana encompasses the gamut of human emotion and behaviour spanning the spectrum of love, longing and of lust. Heroism, faithfulness and a sense of duty jostle with betrayal, pride and deception creating infinite scope for artistic expression. The power of Rama as the model, righteous king, Sita as the strong and faithful wife and Hanuman as the wise, valorous and staunch devotee is evidenced in the timeless appeal of this story and its many renditions. It is no surprise then that connoisseurs and commoners alike immerse themselves in exploring these complex, yet viscerally human, stories in paintings. These paintings create space for the viewer to contemplate the story more deeply than could perhaps come from a mere study of the text. The artist does not merely illustrate the epic poem, but rather reminds the viewer of subtle aspects of the text while deepening the aesthetic appeal of the narrative (Pauwels, 43).
In the folio in question, arguably the most poignant and beautiful scene of the episode lies just outside the frame of the painting, when Hanuman returns to Rama with news of Sita. Commentaries on the Ramayana of Valmiki and Kamban speak of Hanuman’s empathy, wisdom and eloquence in conveying the gist of his arduous trip to Rama in the carefully worded message - “Drishta Sita! (Found Sita)” (Pāṇḍuraṅgārāva, 66). In religious discourses about this episode, the audience is often invited to savour the beauty of the moment by speculating on the reasons for Hanuman’s choice of words : Rama is distraught and waiting so anxiously for news of Sita, that if Hanuman had uttered the word “Sita” first, the suspense about Sita’s wellbeing in that split second might have killed him. Hence Hanuman in his infinite wisdom says to Rama “Found Sita”. For the connoisseur, the aesthete, the devotee, the rasika, all the adventures, trials and travails of Hanuman in the painting collapse into that one moment of compassion, hope, relief and pure devotion as they too move beyond the frame to the space where Rama meets Sita in Hanuman’s message.
Works Cited
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