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Reflecting Bhava (Shri Ram Darbar | Set of Four Marble Sculptures)

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Marble has always been the preferred medium in India for carving out deity idols as its pristine white colour is a symbol of purity which befits the divine subjects being chiselled out of the stone.

This group of four marble statues, each unparalleled in beauty, most aesthetically sculpted and sophisticatedly painted with abundant use of 24 karat gold leaf, manifesting the ‘swarupa’ of the deity forms as the ‘Chitra-sutra’ in the Vishnudharmottara Purana prescribes, represent Bhagawan Rama, Lord Vishnu’s seventh incarnation, the hero of the Great epic the Ramayana and the son of Dasharatha, Ayodhya’s king, his wife Sita, younger brother Lakshmana and his most devoted aide the monkey-god Hanuman. Revealing an aura of transcendence each image is unique in its adherence to classical norms as prescribed in treatises like the ‘Chitra-sutra’.

As laid down in the ‘Chitra-sutra’, the divinity of these stone pieces is such that they enter the mind that meditates on them and transform into spiritual images and the ties with the ‘material’ are severed. In classical terminology all four images are ‘swarupa’: absolute in aesthetic beauty, that the ‘Chitra-sutra’ lays as the foremost condition of a fully evolved image. As should a ‘swarupa’ image, all four images are only the beauty, auspiciousness and good and are able to sublimate the mind and transcend it to spiritual heights. They radiate their ambience within and without: the mind and body and all things, with the same 'bhava', emotional bearing, with which they have been themselves conceived.

During the coronation ceremony at Ayodhya after coming back from Lanka and ever after, in his court Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman had special significance with the result that in visual traditions this group of four is identified as ‘Rama-durbar’ – the court of Rama. In Vaishnava tradition Rama is worshipped as ‘Raja Rama’, and his image enshrining the sanctum is said to be in his ‘Durbar’ of which Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman are essential components.

All figures have relative heights, Rama being the tallest. Rama and Lakshmana carry bows in their left hands, Rama and Sita are holding their right hands in ‘abhaya’, while Lakshmana, an arrow. Sita, the primordial energy incarnate, is holding in her left hand a lotus, symbolising cosmos. Sita is clad in sari and blouse, Rama and Lakshmana, in ‘antariyas’ – lower wears and ‘uttariyas’ shawl like upper drapes and Hanuman, in loincloth and an uttariya. All figures are elegantly bejeweled.

Each individual statue here is carved out of a single block of marble.

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