# Jatayu hinders Ravana’s chariot trying to prevent Sita’s abduction (recto), from a Kalighat album

- By: Shri Gobinda Chandra Roy (Indian, active late 1800s)
- Date: c. 1890
- Medium: woodcut
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: Secondary Support: 49.8 x 31.4 cm (19 5/8 x 12 3/8 in.); image only: 40.6 x 26.5 cm (16 x 10 7/16 in.)
- Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
- Credit line: Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.111.a)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2003.111.a/2003.111.a_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Adult profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

As ten-headed Ravana successfully flies away with his quarry, Princess Sita, the demon king is stopped by the great vulture Jatayu, an ally to Sita’s husband Rama.

Closely resembling the Bengali paintings of the same subject, a woodcut print was a less expensive alternative to a painting. Almost any resident of the burgeoning city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) could afford to acquire one. Woodcuts such as this were made on paper that Christian missionaries intended for the production of Bibles. However, local artists used it to mass-produce popular Hindu imagery.