Funeral Pyre

[RBL80.190.1] The woman in this macabre painting is undergoing sati, a ritual in which a widow sacrifices herself by burning alive on her husband’s funeral pyre. This now-obsolete form of suicide was meant to show the woman’s ultimate loyalty to her husband, the embodiment of womanly devotion. A large group of onlookers dressed in white watch as enormous flames engulf her and her husband’s body. Thick black smoke drifts out of the frame against a sparse, gray background. [RBL80.190.2] This painting depicts a scene from the epic Ramayana in which Rama rescues his wife Sita, who had been abducted by Ravana, the ten-headed King of Lanka, Rama and his brother Lakshmana assembled an army of monkeys and bears who attack Ravana’s demons in battle.