ABSTRACT
A Bengali Ramayana Scroll in the Victoria and Albert Museum Collection: A Reappraisal of Content
Pika Ghosh
This article resituates a Bengali Ramayana pata in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection within the performance context in which the object is likely to have functioned. The depicted scenes that comprised the registers of the vertical hand scroll are identified by drawing upon oral expressive traditions from the early twentieth century as well as current traditions of the region. These include songs sung by the painter- minstrels who deployed these images to tell stories and the songs sung by women in south-western Bengal during events such as wedding ceremonies. By turning to local contexts and oral lore it is possible to understand objects that have been divorced from the circumstances of their production and use.
