Sita and hermit raise Sita and Rama's young son (Thai Ramayana mural)
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- Unknown
- Location
- Bangkok, Thailand
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2006. Terms of use
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This mural at the Emerald Buddha Temple shows Sita and a hermit standing with Sita and Rama’s young son.
Displaying Rama’s characteristic green skin, Rama’s son kneels between his mother Sita and a grey-bearded hermit who is caring for them in the forest. The kindly hermit holds a palm leaf fan and leans forward to watch the boy as he kneels facing his mother. Sita is reaching forward putting something in the boy’s outstretched open hands.
Behind the three figures are two tier-roofed, tiled cottages in the forest, one for the hermit and one for Sita and her pre-adolescent son.
In the Ramayana, an old forest hermit takes in the pregnant Sita and then helps her raise the son who was fathered by Rama just after Sita returned from her long imprisonment on Ravana’s island.
This image was photographed in August 1984.
