Vishnu as Ramachandra; Sculpture, zinc alloy, Benares, ca.1780s

Standing figure of Ramachandra wearing a headdress decorated with rosettes and a row of either upstanding lotus buds or possibly peacock feathers. He has a Vaishnavite cast mark on his forehead and a floral garland round his neck as well as earrings, bangles, armbands and anklets. He wears a plain dhoti pleated at the front. He is now left holding only a broken shaft of an arrow in his right hand which is illustrated in the drawing of the figure published in Moor(1861) that also shows the bow he formerly held in his left hand. He stands on a circular plinth cast on a base with a lotus petal ornamented rim. The plinth has been damaged in the centre in the middle behind his feet and the hole has been plugged with solder from below. A paper label is stuck to the underside and bears the number 403 which refers to the India Museum Slip Book number.

Donated by Sir Charles Wilkins to the India Museum and transferred to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1879. Sir Charles Wilkins, K.H., F.R.S. (1749-1836) was a founding member with William Jones of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He trained as a printer and joined the East India Company as a writer arriving in India in 1770 where he gained the support of Warren Hastings, the Governor General, who encouraged him to further his linguistic studies in Sanskrit. This resulted among other publications on Sanskrit grammar and language in the first translation of the Bhagavad Gita into English in 1785. He returned to England in 1786 and subsequently became the first Director and Librarian of the East India Company’s library at India House in 1800. His collection of zinc alloy deities which he had commissioned while in Benares (now Varanasi) was published in The Hindu Pantheon by Edward Moor in London in 1810.

The figure was commissioned by the donor as part of a set of Hindu gods

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