Indonesia (Asia) – SCHAAK-MUSEUM

Rama is the main protagonist or hero of the Ramayana tale.
Portrayed as the seventh avatar of god Vishnu and as the epitome of virtue, he is the eldest and favourite son of Dasharatha, the king of Kosala with capital Ayodhya and his chief queen Kausalya. Dasharatha is forced by Kaikeyi, the third of his three favourite wives, to command Rama to relinquish his right to the throne and go into exile with his wife Sita. That lasted a period of fourteen years.
Together with his half-brother Lakshmana and the army of "Varana" - originally means forest men and today means monkeys - under leading of his friends Hanuman, Angada and prince Sugriva, he fights with the evil and powerful demon king Ravana, who abducted his wife Sita to Lanka.
The Garuda saved the injured Rama and Lakshmana, after which Rama kills Ravana and returns to Ayodhya to form an ideal state.
(ca. 50.000 lines of poetry in 5 sentences!)

Indonesia. This Sumatra - Bali set is called a "deity" set. It has a Ramayana theme. The chess set is made of a very light and soft wood, hardly carved, but expressively stained, one side in white and the other in red. Produced in Sumatra - Bali, at the 2nd half of the 20th century. Sets from begin 20th century are known as well. These sets, according Munger/III 2000, are the old way to represent the Ramayana. The figures are representing various Sumatran or Balinese Hindu deities. The King is Rama an the Queen is his wife Sita.

Indonesia. These are 7 Bali sets with a Ramayana theme. The King is Rama, in most sets sitting on the Garuda and the Queen is Sita. Bishop, Rook and pawns are the "Varana" (monkeys) or other mythological figures (in the 4th set is the Rook a Garuda). Knight could be Ravana (normally shown as man with multiple heads and arms?) I'm not 100% sure if the 4th set is representing the Ramayana.

The quality of the carving of these sets varies greatly. The best carved sets can be very costly and you do not see those in my collection. The 2nd and 3rd set are carved quite well, which is not so common. The 1st, 4th and 5th (=1st coloured) set are carved moderately, while both the 6th (=2nd coloured) and 7th set aren't carved that well. But I have seen much worse too!

These sets are made for the tourist market and, except the 2nd one, are found in huge quantities. They come often with a teak storage box annex board as shown at the 4th and at the last set. Sometimes there are legs that can be attached or turned out so that the box can be used as a chess table as well. They may also have primitively made disks and dices to play backgammon and checkers. Maybe some other game too, because there are 16 disks in each colour. Or is there just one spare? See last set for an example.