Posted on: 17 October 2013

Digital Rare Book:
The Heroic Age of India: A Comparative Study
By N. K. Sidhanta
Published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, London - 1929


Read Book Online:

http://bit.ly/1eukxTE


Download pdf Book:

http://bit.ly/1fFX5pF


Image:
Opaque watercolour painting of a green-complexioned Rāma, poised to shoot his crescent tipped arrow from a sugarcane bow. Although elegantly dressed, the god wears his matted hair tied in a topknot, a reference to his long exile in the wilderness.

Company School
1830 (circa)
Painted in Thanjavur

© Trustees of the British Museum


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the sugarcane is -- Ikshvaku .

Really? Thats interesting. Can you elaborate?

Mallika -- I have no sources to corroborate the claim -- however the sugar cane bow is rarely used aspect of iconography, in context of use with Lord Rama, it should represent his lineage here should it not?

yes you are right Rama belongs to Ishvankyu Dynasty which means sugarcane. Good many such pictures are more near to realities.

It could also be Kama! The god of love is often depicted with a bow made of sugarcane.

Kamadev would normally be depicted fair skinned and without a sword & shield. Rama is described as dark skinned.