Scenes from the Burmese version of the epic of Rama

Here we see Rama’s winning of Sita’s hand in marriage and subsequent events, called out on labels positioned along the artwork. The narrative runs from left to right. This long narrative textile has along its upper edge a large number of fabric tabs by which it could have been hung. It may have served as a backdrop for puppet performances.

Some late-nineteenth-century photographs of puppet performances show rather similar sequined narrative backdrops at the back of a very wide puppet stage.

1. Sita sits to one side of a royal pavilion. In the center of the pavilion is her father the king, and beside him a sage who may be Rama’s mentor.

2. Sita’s father has proclaimed that only a man who can string a famous mighty bow will win the hand of his daughter. Rama is shown succeeding with the bow after all other suitors have failed. His faithful brother Lakshmana kneels nearby watching.

3. These scenes are hard to identify. The crowned figure is probably the demon king Ravana, who much later in the story abducts Sita. In some Southeast Asian versions of the Rama epic, but not in the famous Indian version of Valmiki, Ravana hears of Sita’s father’s challenge and tries his hand at the bow-bending contest. Though he manages to lift the bow, which no other suitors except Rama can do, he fails to bend it. After Rama’s triumph Ravana, abashed, returns to his own kingdom.

4. A princely figure on horseback approaches the city gate. Perhaps this is another suitor arriving to try his hand at the bow contest. Behind him, a demonic figure who may be Ravana flies in aboard an aerial chariot. Perhaps he too is arriving for the contest.

6. Next, in what may be a flashback, Rama and his brother follow their mentor Vishvamitra through the forest; possibly they too are arriving to try the bow.

6. A young man in aristocratic garments sits next to stylized rocks while two attendants kneel respectfully. This young man, in his red vest and jaunty head wrap, has not yet been identified.

7. Finally, Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana walk through the forest behind a sage who appears identical, in his orange robes and hermit’s turban, to Rama’s mentor, shown twice before. But in most tellings of the Rama epic Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana do not walk through the forest in the company of Vishvamitra, so what is going on here is uncertain.

(Exhibition Label from The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe)