Rāmāyaṇa, il divino poema rivelato attraverso le maschere dei Rājbanśī

This article examines a collection of carved and painted wooden masks created by the Rājbanśīs, an ethnic minority of West Bengal and Southern Nepal, for the theatrical representation of the Rāmāyana. The collection was displayed at temporary exhibition of Himalayan handicrafts in the Museum of Oriental Art, Ca' Pesaro, Venice (April-September 2017) and has been introduced to the public by ourselves on occasion of a series of lectures, seminars and cultural activities on the great Indian epic and the ethnographic study of some distinctive features of the rapidly vanishing indigenous Indian handicraft. The present essay investigates the historical-ethnographic profile of the Rājbanśī ethnic group by analysing the exhibited pieces in the context of the multiple traditions of the Rāma epic, the importance of its regional and vernacular versions inside and outside India, and the theatrical tradition of Rāmlīlā.