This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:"Indra Offers Sita a Plate of Payas, a Heavenly Sweet," Illustrated folio from the “Shangri" Ramayana (The Adventures of Rama) (Style IV)
Date:ca. 1710–40
Medium:Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions:H. 12 1/8 in. (30.8 cm) W. 8 1/4 in. (21 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Promised Gift of the Kronos Collections, 2015
Object Number:SL.23.2019.1.7
Sita, wife of Rama, had been abducted by Ravana, king of the demons, and imprisoned in Ravana’s walled garden. She was guarded by female demons and ogres of every description. The king of the demons had desired the ever faithful Sita to marry him. But Sita refused, and to demonstrate her steadfast resolve, has also refused all of the food and drink that were offered to her. Shortly after this refusal, Brahmadev told Indra, lord of the clouds, that as it was going to take Rama a long time to free Sita, and that as Sita in the meantime was refusing to eat any food, he (Indra) must travel to Ravana’s capital city on Lanka to give Sita payas, a heavenly sweet. If she ate Indra’s payas, she would not die. In this painting, the arriving Indra has offered Sita a plate of payas, which she will shortly consume. Indra is accompanied by Nidra, the goddess of sleep, who has been useful. The abducted Sita was guarded by four demons, three females and one male, who have all fallen asleep thanks to Nidra’s intervention. The background features a number of scraggly trees of differing kinds, denoting Ravana’s walled garden., a fabulous retreat on the demon king’s island stronghold. This painting, as well as cat. nos. 4549, once belonged to the “Shangri Ramayana “ Series. (For discussion of the complete Series, see cat. no. 46.) It is the only work from the Series in the Kronos Collections painted in Archer’s Style IV. For another picture from the same Series (Benkaim Collection) painted in Style IV and also with a lengthy inscription written in takri script in the red surrounding border, see Joan Cummins et al, Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue- Skinned Savior (Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd, 2011), no. 80. 50. SK.045
Inscription: Inscribed around the red border in Hindi, written in takri script: “Seeing Sita hungry, Brahma tells Indra she is starving to death, requesting him to take some divine food to Sita so that she will never feel hungry or thirsty again...Indra approaches Sita with the divine food, bringing the dark-skinned goddess of sleep...demons gathering....then Indra comes to Sita, bringing divine food.” (translation by Vijay Sharma) The verso is uninscribed.
Swiss Collection
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.
New York,. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sita and Rama: The Ramayana in Indian Painting," August 3, 2019–March 7, 2021.
The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
