Page:South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses.djvu/55

Rh their national harvest festival, the Ōnam, in which they worship a clay figure of this high-minded emperor. It is supposed that the king is permitted by Vishnu to visit every year the fair earth over which he once ruled and to satisfy himself that the people are quite as happy and glad as in his time.

We now come to the avatār of Rāma, Rāmachandra Rāmabhadra, the hero of the beautiful epic Rāmāyana, which in its various aspects has permeated the life of the Indian people and moulded their character to a great extent. Rāma was the eldest son of Dasaratha, the king of Ayōdhyā (Oudh). As such, his images do not, like those of the avatārs so far described, avatārs which were sudden outbursts of divine energy exhibit either the four arms of the gods or the distinguishing Vaishnavite symbols of conch, discus, club and lotus. Human in form, but god in essence, Rāma is always represented as a royal personage of bewitching beauty, well developed in body, having broad eyes, long arms, curly tresses, ornaments and auspicious marks that indicate high birth and noble character. Paintings of Rāma's life are numerous and cover the whole period of his history from his birth to his passing away bodily from this world into the depths of the Sarayū river. In many South-Indian temples may be observed scenes from the Rāmānyana, either painted on the walls or cut into panels, forming continuous belts round the central shrine or the prākāra wall. When represented as the consecrated deity within a temple, Rāma is generally seen to be a standing figure with his queen Sītā on the left and his faithful brother Lakshmana on the right. He and his brother hold bows and arrows. The bow is called kōdanda and so Rāma with the bow is sometimes known as Kōdanda-Rāma.

In the accompanying illustration of metallic images from Ramēsvaram (fig. 23) the positions of Sītā and Lakshmana are interchanged and the arrows and quivers are missing. The two images at either extreme represent their faithful servant Hanuman (see below p. 64). As stated in the Silpasangraha, the figures of Rāma are distinguished as independent and dependent. In the former case he stands alone and has four arms, two of which hold the bow and the arrow and the other two, the conch and the discus. In the latter he has two arms and may be accompanied by his three brothers, his queen