Battle between monkeys and demons, from the “Shangri” Ramayana (c. 1700): Art, History and Details

Battle between monkeys and demons, from the “Shangri” Ramayana (c. 1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

When the demon Ravana refused to return Sita to her husband, the divine hero Rama, Ravana sent his army to attack Rama. Rama’s army, made up mainly of monkeys from the forest, fought valiantly using only trees and rocks. The artist creates a tapestry of color and form to convey the confusion of battle.

Object facts

• Title: Battle between monkeys and demons, from the “Shangri” Ramayana
• Date: c. 1700
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 22.2 x 32.1 cm (8 3/4 x 12 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2025.9

A detail from the museum

Some of the monkeys bare their teeth in primal screams.

Collection credit

Sundry Art - Miscellaneous Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mace, Sonya Rhies. "A Spring Preview. Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the "Shangri" Ramayana.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 4 (2025): 9.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.