Mahidpur (Madhya Pradesh): A postage stamp issued by the Department of Posts in 1974 depicts Ravana with nine heads instead of the traditional 10, according to philatelic material collected by Jawahar Dosi Piyush.
The Rs 2 stamp was part of a set of four titled ‘Masks’, issued on April 15, 1974. Piyush said the depiction effectively shows Ravana as ‘Navanana’.
His collection also includes mythology-themed stamps and first-day covers from India and abroad. Nepal issued a Sita-Ram stamp for Ram Navami, while other issues featured Sita and Radha-Krishna.
Stamps depicting characters and themes from Indian culture were also issued in Yemen, Ajman, Indonesia, Guyana, Japan, Laos, China, Cambodia and Thailand.
The Department of Posts also released eight commemorative stamps on ‘Puppets of India’ on Feb 13, 2026.
The set included Odisha’s shadow-puppet tradition ‘Ravanachhaya’, which portrays stories associated with Ravana, besides puppetry traditions from Rajasthan, Karnataka and Kerala.
In 2017, the department issued 11 stamps on the Ramayana theme, including scenes related to Ravana’s killing.
Piyush said such stamps reflect how Indian cultural and mythological traditions have found space in philately despite Ravana traditionally being associated with evil and his effigy being burnt on Vijayadashami.
