Indra Strikes Down Hanuman with a Thunderbolt
| Support Type: | Paper |
| Paint Type: | Gouache |
| Current Location: | Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. |
| Location History: | The folio is part of Akbar's imperial Ramayana manuscript. The delicately rendered one hundred and seventy-six miniatures of the Ramayana were accomplished within just seven months after submission of its final translation by Badaoni on 28th Zulhijjia, 997 AH (November 6, 1589), consisting of three hundred and sixty-five finely calligraphed folios. After Akbar's death in 1605, the manuscript passed to Jahangir. After Akbar's demise, the imperial manuscript was dutifully passed down to his heir, emperor Jahangir, followed by his successors, as determined from the seals, inscriptions and dated notes, on the leaf. Interestingly, similar to other imperial illustrated manuscripts, like the Akbarnama, the Ramayana too has an autographed note by Jahangir on the opening folio, stating that it entered in kitabkhana in the first year of his reign, i.e. 1013 Hijri (1605). The manuscript remained in imperial custody across subsequent Mughal reigns and eventually became part of the royal collection at Jaipur, where it is now held by the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum Trust. A photographic archive of the Jaipur Ramayana paintings was later given by the Museum to the Freer Gallery of Art in the early 1970s. The third is a set of 154 photographs of paintings depicting scenes from the Ramayana from the collection of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, which gave the photographs to the Freer Gallery of Art in the early 1970s. |
This folio is from the imperial Ramayana commissioned by Emperor Akbar and now housed at the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum in Jaipur. The scene depicts a moment from the Bala Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, in which the infant Hanuman, having leapt toward the sun believing it to be a fruit, is struck down by Indra's thunderbolt Vajra and falls to earth. The sun is shining bright with its carefully drawn rays from the upper right corner. All the players on the stage are mythological creatures. Indra, the king of Gods, is depicted on his heavenly elephant mount Airavata, entering the space battle from left. Hanuman's smaller dark body is hardly recognizable against the bright whirling clouds on the right side of the picture, lower than the victorious Indra. Hanuman is wounded by Vajra (thunderbolt), Indra's magical weapon. The space is filled with deities and demons and the event is happening in the sky. The composition is striking in the way it negotiates between two visual traditions. The crowd of deities, demons and divine attendants filling the sky demonstrates the idiom of Hindu mythological narration, while the human figures wear Akbari Mughal court costume. This interesting painting is successful in creating a composition that is almost entirely Hindu with the exception of Mughal outfits. Indra is shown mounted on his white elephant Airavata, a characteristic attribute that identifies him in both Hindu and Mughal pictorial conventions. Indra, Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu and other Hindu deities are characterised by their attributes and mounts. The depiction of the sky as a field of swirling cumulonimbus cloud formations draws on the Chinese cloud conventions that entered Persian painting and were transmitted into the Mughal idiom.The spatial organisation is dense, filling every portion of the pictorial field with figures, clouds and atmospheric light. The brightness of the overall palette, the movement of Airavata entering from the left edge, and the subordinate position of Hanuman's darker figure on the lower right create a clear narrative hierarchy. Indra's dominance within the frame communicates the power of the thunderbolt and the significance of the event in the Ramayana's mythological sequence. This painting was produced within the Mughal taswirkhana (painting workshop) where labour was divided between designers and colourists. Within a given folio, a master painter composed the image based on the text, to be coloured in by a junior artist. Lala handled the compositional design and Jagajivana the colouring. Both artists are named in the lower margin of the folio, following the standard practice of the Akbari atelier. The folio belongs to one of the most significant illustrated manuscripts produced under Akbar's patronage. The splendid illustrations of Akbar's Ramayana are highly renowned for their acute naturalism, refined execution and the brilliance of surface treatment. A vivid and sophisticated colour palette and distinctive style defining the dynamic conflation of Indo-Persian aesthetic quality values represent the epitome of the classical Mughal idiom that developed during the Akbar period.
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