1744
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Ravana battles the great vulture Jatayu and defeats him by throwing stones in his mouth, folio 18 (recto) from a Chandana Malayagiri Varta (Story of King Chandana and Queen Malayagiri) of Karamachand is a 1744 unspecified by Unknown, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a bright, busy scene: a man with ten heads and twenty arms fights a giant bird. The man carries a woman in a white sack over his shoulder. He swings a sword at the bird while stuffing stones into its open beak. This painting tells a local twist on an old Hindu story. The artist changed details—here, the villain looks like a traveling merchant, not a demon king. The colors are bold and flat, like a comic book. Look up more paintings from the Rajput kingdom of Kishangarh to see how other artists told the same tale.
Scenes of the abduction and rescue of Sita are embedded within a popular tale rewritten in a Gujarati-Rajasthani vernacular language by the poet Karamachand in 1629–30. Many details differ from the more well-known Ramayana of Valmiki. The artist shows Ravana as a merchant carrying Sita in a white sack slung over one shoulder. As Jatayu, a vulture ally of Rama, attempts to rescue her, Ravana attacks him with a sword, above. He then defeats the bird by throwing stones in his mouth. He painted the stones with blood, so Jatayu would swallow them.
The blood-covered stones will weigh the bird down, so he cannot rescue Sita.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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