It's the epic tale of a young king's adventures, told through a series of tiny paintings chosen from the vast collection of India's National Museum, New Delhi.
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The National Gallery of Australia plays host to The Story of Rama: 101 miniature artworks on loan from India that tell one of civilisation's most enduring stories, the Sanskrit poem of the virtuous king Rama and his queen Sita.
Gallery director Gerard Vaughan said the story was one of universal values.
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The exhibition, on loan from the National Museum, New Delhi, is the first product of a cultural memorandum of understanding signed by the Australian and Indian governments last year, in the wake of the Dancing Shiva incident, in which the gallery purchased a 900-year-old statue of Shiva which had been allegedly looted from a temple in India.
The dealer who sold the Shiva to the gallery faced trial in Chennai last year. The Shiva has since been returned to India.
Mr Vaughan said the show made the point that Australia had very close cultural relations with India.
"We've kept them fully informed, of course, going forward, trying to resolve the problem of provenance with many of the Indian antiquities and they're very content with the process we've put in place. And it's a very rigorous process," he said.
Mr Vaughan said the gallery was working through provenance of its items and would consult with Indian authorities on the sometimes complicated issue.
"One extreme would be the Shiva that was clearly illegally exported from India, to other objects that may have left India quite some time ago but we don't have any documentation as to when that was and that applies to every museum in the world. And there are ways that we are going to deal with this."
Indian high commissioner Navdeep Suri agreed the two countries had moved past the issue of the Shiva.
"This is a very large, multifaceted relationship and it is not one that would be defined by one issue or another," he said.
"You will have occasional issues that make the news and there's a determination on both sides to make sure they are both addressed. But at the same time, the relationship is so much larger."
Mr Suri said there would be more Indian cultural works and artists coming to Australia and vice versa in the next year.
The Story of Rama runs until August 23 at the National Gallery of Australia. Free.
