Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c26.4

c26.4

Act I of the *Uttararāmacarita* by Bhavabhūti, who flourished in the eighth century A.D., is styled ‘the inspection of the painting’. It is said that a painter (*citrakara*) painted along a walk (*vīthikā*) the experiences (*carita*) of the Ikṣvāku king Rāma of Ayodhyā in Daṇḍak-āraṇya, Kiṣkindhyā, Laṅkā and other places, according to the instructions of the king’s brother Lakṣmaṇa who had accompanied Rāma to the forests. These paintings included some which are said to have depicted particular regions and may be regarded as a sort of maps. One of the paintings seems to have been conceived as showing the Prasravaṇa hill as ‘extending to the heart of Janasthāna whose darkness is deepened by perpetually pouring clouds and whose caves ring with the flow of the Godāvarī which is embraced by the forests at the skirts that are of a uniformly mild blue colour because of the dense rows of trees.’¹ The reference to forests painted in mild blue colour is interesting. Another picture of the nature of a map in the same context is introduced by Lakṣmaṇa to Rāma and Sītā in the following words: “Here is the tract (*bhāga*) of the Daṇḍaka forest, known as Citrakuñjavat, to the west of Janasthāna, haunted by the headless giant Danu; this is the site (*pada*) of the hermitage of Matanga on the Ṛṣyamūka hill; this again is the emaciated Śavara woman named Śramaṇā; this is the celebrated lake calle Pampā.”²