The Burning of Lanka

The given artwork by K Venkatappa depicts a scene from Ramayana called "the Lanka Dahan”, where Hanuman is seen setting Ravana's kingdom Lanka ablaze. Hanuman was a loyal servant of Rama, he went to demon king Ravana's island kingdom of Lanka to save Sita. On reaching Lanka Hanuman got to know about more ill deeds of Ravana and eventually concluded that Ravana was “devoted to unrighteousness”. But, before he could act, Hanuman got captured by Ravana's soldiers who then presented him in front of Ravana on account of being a spy. Hanuman had earlier killed his son Aksa in a battle and upon questioning Hanuman said that he did so in self defence. He further said that he was a messenger for Sugreeva and pleaded Ravana to release Sita or be ready to face the wrath of Rama. On hearing this Ravana got furious and ordered Hanuman to be killed but Vibhisana who was brother of Ravana intervened and suggested a more appropriate punishment according to the scriptures. Finally, Ravana ordered his demons to punish Hanuman for his crime by setting his tail on fire thus sending a message that such mischief would not be tolerated by him. Hanuman was wise enough as he seized the opportunity to gather military information of Lanka during the day so that he could plan some havoc in future. When his tale was set on fire, Hanuman was surprised to see it did not hurt him and took it to be a divine help from the blessings of Rama and Sita. Then on seeing a suitable opportunity he eventually freed himself from the soldiers and flew around Lanka thus putting Ravana's kingdom on fire using his tail. This was a dramatic moment showing the might of Hanuman which eventually K Venkatappa tried to depict in this painting thus glorifying the heroic action by Hanuman. K Venkatappa(1886-1965) was a student of Abanindranath Tagore. He was born into a family of court painters in Mysore, Karnataka. He made a series of illustrations for “Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists” written by Sister Nivedita and Ananda Coomaraswamy. He is best known for his mastery of using watercolour to draw dramatic scenes from Hindu mythology. Mahatma Gandhi was so impressed by Venkatappa’s paintings that he mentioned about his art works in his journal ‘Young India’. Currently, a lot of his legendary artworks are preserved by the government of Karnataka in Venkatappa Art Gallery, Bengaluru.