Sita's son sent to fetch water in forest (Thai Ramayana mural)

Sita's son sent to fetch water in forest (Thai Ramayana mural)

This mural at the Emerald Buddha Temple illustrates when Sita’s son is sent to fetch water in the forest. On the right side of the frame, Sita stands in a blue-tinted forest and hands her son a bowl with which to fetch water from a nearby pond. A god, watching out for their well-being, is visible in the upper left appearing to run in the sky.

A faint shaft of light seems cast from the god, identifiable by his teardrop shaped halo, down to Sita and her son. It is apparent that Sita’s son was fathered by Rama because he has green skin just like Rama’s. On the left of the same forest background, beneath the shaft of light that goes to the previous scene, Sita’s son appears again as he kneels by a pond and fills the bowl with water. The placement of two sequential plot events within a single landscape is typical of the artistic narrative techniques used on murals at the Emerald Buddha Temple.

In the Ramayana, the gods and the faithful hermit continue to watch over Sita and her son, but one day he wanders off and becomes lost when he goes to fetch water. Because the hermit does not want Sita to grieve, he creates an exact copy of Sita’s son. Even though the real son soon returns, Sita convinces the hermit to keep the second boy so she has a pair of twins, who are called Mongkut and Lob. They grow up happily together, and know that King Rama is their father.