A rare golden Ramayan from Varanasi goes on show

Featuring five schools of art, the 'Kanchana Chitra Ramayana' or Golden Illustrated Ramayana, is a work of unusual beauty 

- Avantika Bhuyan

A significant exhibition is taking place at the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bengaluru. For the first time, 75-plus folios from the Kanchana Chitra Ramayana, or the Golden Illustrated Ramayana, are being showcased to the public as part of the exhibition, Book Of Gold.

This ambitious manuscript, based on Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas, was commissioned by the royal court of Banaras (now Varanasi), and created between 1796-1814. The show challenges old art historical narratives it has long been believed that the miniature tradition was disappearing around this time in the 19th century, but the Kanchana Chitra Ramayana shows that it was still flourishing in some pockets of India.

The luminosity of the folios makes them a sight to behold, with gold having been crushed into the pigment by the artists to create paint. The precious metal adds a glow to the spaces between lines, punctuation marks in the text and the illustrations. What makes the show even more poignant is that it is the last one to be co-curated by art historian Kavita Singh before she died in July this year.