Ravana, the Ten-Faced King | Tholu Bommalata Leather Puppet

Every other puppet in the Tholu Bommalata tradition shows its face in profile. Ravana alone looks straight at you. Ten heads. Twenty arms. The one who broke every rule the Ramayana set and made the epic worth telling. A hand-cut, hand-painted Tholu Bommalata leather puppet of Ravana in his Dashamukha form - the ten-faced demon king of Lanka. Made by artisans in Andhra Pradesh, following a two-thousand-year-old iconographic convention in which Ravana’s central face is the only face in the entire tradition rendered front-facing, looking directly out at the world. Mounted in the Handmade Tales frame with khadi-white cloth backing and concealed LED lighting. The Only Face That Looks Back There is a convention in Tholu Bommalata that has held for over two thousand years. Every character, every god, every hero, every demon, every queen is shown in profile.  Except for one character. Ravana’s central face is rendered front-facing - looking directly out at the audience, through the white cloth