Ramayana: Death of King Dasharatha, The Father of Rama (Dasharatha is the name they used labeling the picture, which is different from the name in our book.)
In the picture linked above, the artist shows the death of the former King Dasaratha dying shortly after being forced to banish his son Rama to keep an oath. The image shows the people around the former king grieving. It also shows us that the king is old through the use of gray and white for his hair. The vibrant colors used in the picture show us that the former king died in his palace which is full of color as opposed to a commoner’s home. The faces of the women in the picture are darker than Dasaratha’s skin which shows us that they’re mourning. There are what appears to be clouds at the top of the painting, one of which is black which is fitting to the theme of death and grief.
In the story the focused more on Dasaratha’s grief that he’d exiled his son fulfilling an oath from Kaikeyi. While most of his death scene is comprised of him forsaking Kaikeyi and Bharatha and regretting his oath to Kaikeyi, the picture shows the king already dead and women around him mourning. The picture could not display the anger and despair that Dasaratha was displaying in the book. The picture helps us imagine how the environment around the king was during his death, while the book focuses on the emotions of the king and those around him. When Dasaratha says,”You are no longer my wife and your son shall not be entitled to cremate me when I die”, he shows his anger towards what Kaikeyi made him do. The painting only shows the grief of the death of the king while the book showed the grief and rage the king felt when he passed.