Poet Tulsidas rightly said about the personality of Rama that my head bowed to Rama, holding bow and arrow in this hands. Rama the wanderer of thorny pathways, not the throne-ridden king of Ayodhya commanded the reverence of India.
Sage Valmiki preferred calling his poem Ramayana- Rama’s journey or the story of Rama. From various literary sources this story of Rama re-emergas in Indian miniatures illustrating from Ramayana to Rama-Katha.
In any tradition of painting – classical or folk, or any art form, style, or school, the Ramayana has been the most widely illustrated theme. Each illustrator, adhering to his own stylistic distinction, has discovered in his lines and colours even the minutest details of his life.
Ramayana paintings are purely illustrative and text-based, whatever their textual source, stylistiv distinction, medium – paper, wall, or palm-leaf and cloth.
The story of Rama’s life being known to every Indian and is famous worldwide. This catalogue has planned to focus along his life story and also on its illustrative aspect.
The most ingenious aspect of the catalogue is to let the visitor have an idea of the different styles of Indian miniature painting as also how the same theme reveals with one set of stylistic features in one miniature, and with other, in the other way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Daljeet
An eminent art scholar Dr. Daljeet, is the Curator in-charge of the Department of Painting, National Museum, New Delhi. Several books, catalogues, portfolios and articles on Indian Art and Painting are to her credit. She began her career as an archaeologist, and traveled in India and abroad extensively in connection with her studies and work. Her prestigious volume on the Mughal and Deccani paintings from the collection of the National Museum, New Delhi, has been widely acclaimed by the scholars and art connoisseurs. Her other noteworthy works are Shakuntala, Immortal Miniatures and Monuments of India. Shakuntala and Monuments of India are authored jointly with Prof. P.C. Jain. She was awarded jointly with Prof P.C. Jain Delhi State Award-Vishist Kriti Samman 2002-2003 for their book entitled "Krishna: Raga se Viraga Tak". In 1999, she was commissioned by the Government of Punjab to set up a special exhibition on the Sikh Heritage at Anandpur Sahib in connection with the Tercentenary Celebrations of the Birth of the Khalsa. The culmination of this has led to her book "The Sikh Heritage: A Search for Tatality" published in 2004. "Sri Harimandar Sahib: the Body Visible of the Invisible Supreme", In English and Gurmukhi, another recent work authored jointly with Prof. P.C. Jain, has been well received by art lovers in general and Sikh community in particular.
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