Illustration to the Shangri Ramayana (Style III): Rama and Lakshmana Arriving at the Rishyamukha Hill

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

This painting was once part of a loose album with more than 270 illustrated passages of the great Hindu epic The Ramayana ( The Adventures of Ram ). The famed “Shangri” Ramayana series was probably begun in the 1670s and completed over decades by several different artists working under the patronage of regional kingdoms in the Himalayan foothills of northern India. In this scene from the “Monkey Chapter” of the Ramayana, we see the blue-skinned Ram (an incarnation of the Lord Vishnu) and his dutiful brother, Lakshmana, pluckily climbing Rishyamukha Hill where they seek the assistance of the Monkey King in saving Sita (Ram’s wife) from her captor in Lanka. Emerging from their boroughs, it seems that even the animals are anticipating this important turning point in the great epic. Asia