Re: [INDOLOGY] Fwd: Help on mystery painting of Ramayana
(?) episode
Dear all
Many thanks to Nityanand Misra for providing such
a plausible identification, and for bringing to
our attention yet another source book to be
trawled for our inventory of Rāma narrative
motifs. It is all truly exciting, and yet another
lesson to us scholars not to neglect the influence
of non-written sources on visual tellers.
I
suppose the black speck in the middle of the dish is
the [reflection of the] bee/wasp. Might the
almost-hidden female figure perhaps be Mandodarī? Is
there any explanation for Lakṣmaṇa’s feet being off
the ground? [The cynic in me links it to the
requirement to stand for hours on a pan of boiling
oil]
The internationally widespread idea of the separable
soul -- that villains are made all the more
indestructible by having their vital organ located
outside their body -- is manifested in increasingly
fantastic ways throughout the Rāma tradition, and
attached to several rākṣasas; Mahīrāvaṇa’s
soul is also in a bee in the Thai Rāmakien,
and is crushed by Hanumān to save the captive Rāma and
Lakṣmaṇa. The ‘soul in bee’ motif is not confined to
the Rāma tradition: other examples are listed in The
Oral Tales of India by Stith Thompson and Jonas
Balys (Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1958) as motif
E715.3, so there is no question of direct influence.
As for the
severed hands, either they represent Rāma’s previous
unsuccessful attempts to kill Rāvaṇa (in which case why
haven’t they regenerated?), or (less plausibly) the
beginning of his disintegration at the point of death.
It is intriguing that the hero is shown as Lakṣmaṇa; this
is standard in Jain texts, but unusual elsewhere. His
celibacy as a qualification for special prowess (usually
expressed as not having seen a woman’s face since the
exile, and so unavailable to Rāma) is generally associated
with being able to see the invisible Indrajit.
As always, solving one problem only raises other
questions! That’s what makes our profession so compelling
and so rewarding.
Mrs M. Brockington
Research Fellow, International Association of Sanskrit
Studies
113 Rutten Lane
Yarnton
Kidlington
OX5 1LT
U.K.
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