Four beautiful paintings from Kangra (HP)
Maharaja Sansar Chand of Kangra with his court and soldiers of the modern Kangra infantry under Colonel O'Brien aka Matthew Heaney.
The construction of the Rama Setu between India and Sri Lanka, which leads up to the war between Rama and Ravana.
From the same series as the painting above, this one shows Ravana's son Indrajit stealthily attacking Rama's camp. The painting depicts a sequence of events and Indrajit is shown successively at four different places; first attacking from the clouds and binding Rama and his brother Lakshman with the deadly serpent arrow. Then he faces off against the monkeys who try to fight Indrajit by hurling boulders at him. Last he binds those monkeys with the same serpent arrows and then (not shown in the painting) Indrajit carries off Rama and Lakshman as prisoners to his kingdom in the nether world.
Indrajit is shown in medieval Turk/Rajput armour.
Another miniature painting from Kangra depicts a group of soldiers exercising with their weapons. The soldiers are in minimal clothing for their exercises. Two of them hold shields along with a sword and spear, two others hold just a sword and bow, while the central figure holds spear and shield in one hand and swings a double-headed wooden club in the other.
The bow depicted is not the recurved composite bow, but the more ancient and simple dhanush. Initially I thought this painting actually depicted the five Pandavs in their vanvas period....but then the figure holding the bow should have been painted in a darker hue, since Arjun was dark-skinned.
Wooden clubs are still used by Indian wrestlers and bodybuilders to increase upper body strength, and stamina, while maintaining flexibility. This exercise was adopted by British officers from Indian soldiers in the British Indian Army and was taken to the west as a form of exercise in the late 19th and early 20th century. Since then this exercise of swinging wooden clubs gradually went out of fashion.
Wooden clubs are known in India by various names: Magadal, karela , ekka, and Mugdar (thanks to Murugan and CalvinH from BRF)