Saranga or Sri ragini Sub-imperial Mughal, 1610-20, opaque pigments on paper heightened...

Saranga or Sri ragini Sub-imperial Mughal, 1610-20, opaque pigments on paper heightened with gold, numbered 31, inscribed with Sanskrit above, the lord is shown sitting on a throne in a chamber listening to the sage Narada playing to him while the kinnara or horse-headed deity Tumburu plays the clappers. painting 13.5 x 10.6 cm; folio 20.5 x 16 cm

Inscription: Splendidly enthroned, of peerless beauty and lovely as the autumn moon, he sits hearing stories from Narada and Tumburu. By the sages Sri Madhava etc he is called Saranga

The inscription is confused since it seems to be the normal one for Sri raga and then transforms itself into Saranga ragini. Both have lords listening to musicians, but only Sri raga has the kinnara as part of its distinct iconography

Paintings of the Ragamala or Garland of the Ragas illustrate not the mood of the musical mode, but rather the verses, anonymous as well as authored, in Sanskrit or in Hindi, which had become attached to that mode over the centuries. There were various systems of classification of the modes of Ragamalas, but those most in most common use identified six major ragas, each with five dependent wives or raginis.

Various sets of Ragamalas and similar short Sanskrit texts were produced from the 1590s into the early seventeenth century in which the Mughal style has been adapted to fit Hindu sensibilities. Instead, however, of the flat backdrop colours and conceptualised architecture of Early Rajput painting, which continues into some Rajput schools such as that of Mewar, some elements of landscape and three dimensional architecture have been introduced, as well as modelling of figures and draperies, although the paintings remain very simple in their compositions and colouring. Some seem to have been done for the Rajput courtiers based in Agra, others very likely in Rajput courts such as Amber and Bikaner. Such sets are a charming bridge between the two cultures. This painting has a hero who seems to be modelled on the youn Jahangir, with his square head, distinctive moustache and floppy turban. He appears also in other contemporary Ragamalas such as the Berlin Ragamala dated 1605 (Waldschmidt 1975, fig. 63). Most of these sets are dispersed in various collections worldwide, except for the Manley Ragamala in the British Museum (Cran 1980 and Ebeling 1985, pp. 118-28, and 161-62). For select references to similar sets, see Waldschmidt 1975, pp. 427-31; Glynn et al. 2011, nos. 13-15; and Topsfield ed. 2004, no. 170.

Literature

Cran, Robert, The Manley Ragamala in The British Museum Yearbook, 1980

Ebeling, K., Ragamala Painting, Ravi Kumar, Basel, 1973

Glynn, C., Skelton, R., and Dallapiccola, A., Ragamala Paintings from India from the Claudio Moscatelli Collection, Philip Wilson, London, 2011

Topsfield, A., ed., In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2004

Waldschmidt, E. and R.L., Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, Part II, Berlin, 1975