The Ramayana (Adventures of Rama) narrates the epic saga of the valiant Prince Rama and his dutiful wife, Princess Sita, who was abducted by Ravana, the arrogant ten-headed King of Lanka (probably modern Sri Lanka), during Rama's unjust fourteen-year forest exile from his capital of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. To rescue Sita, Rama and his faithful brother Lakshmana assembled a great army of monkeys and bears led by the Monkey-King Sugriva and his Monkey-General Hanuman. After several magical battles, the princess was freed, and the happy couple triumphantly returned home to rule their kingdom. Rama and Sita epitomize the ideal ruler and the paragon of fidelity in Hindu culture.
This illustration is from Book 4 (Kishkindha kanda). On the left, Lakshmana and Hanuman meet with Sugriva and Tara in Sugriva’s palace in Kishkindha (Ramayana 4:33-35). On the right, the monkeys summoned by Sugriva to aid Rama arrive at Sugriva’s palace bearing fruits in his honor that they gathered from the Himalayan mountains (Ramayana 4:36:27-37).
This folio is from a dispersed Ramayana series with additional folios in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1976.16 and 1978.540.1) and formerly in the Archer Collection, London.
