Ragamala series of paintings

Simon Ray

Simon Ray is a London based art dealer specialising in Indian and Islamic art. He has a gallery focusing on Indian and Islamic art right in the centre of London in King’s street, St. James’s named ‘Simon Ray – Indian & Islamic Works of Art’

{ Ragamala Paintings. Courtesy: Simon Ray, London }

Dipak Raga

India (Bilaspur), 1730-1740

Height: 26.7 cm

Width: 17.5 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold on paper.

Inscribed on the reverse in takri: [sri] raga dipak chautha 7?Ipahi/a

Inscribed in devanagari: sri raga dipak chautha 4 patra 1 Further

inscribed in takri: sri raga dipak Iraga dipak chautha di patra 4

Kshemakarna's Ragamala system used by the artists of the Punjab Hills contains two sets of verses. In the first set, each musical mode is described as a person. In the second, Kshemakarna compares each raga, ragini (wife) or ragaputra (son) to a sound either found in nature: such as the hiss of a snake or the song of a bird; or made by a human activity, such as churning butter or washing clothes.1

In stanza 98, Kshemakarna describes the sound of Dipak Raga as that of fire which “sings” the melody, hence the iconographic convention of depicting the raga with lamps or burning flames. In the dhyana verse of stanza 54, Dipak is described as:

“Brought forth [born] by the eye of the sun, mounted on an excellent white elephant, shaped like Sutrama (Indra), of red body [complexion], with wide eyes, with a diadem on his head, in a bright dress, very lovely; a garland around his neck, holding an axe in his hand [here an ankus or elephant goad], giving delight to the god of love, Dipak may confer joy to all people during the hot season at noon”.2

In this painting the god Indra rides his magical white elephant Airavata, which carries a lamp on its trunk. Indra's body is covered with a thousand eyes which were originally yonis, a punishment he receives for making love to Ahalya, the beautiful wife of the sage Gautama who curses him for seducing her. After a long period in which Indra hides from the world in shame, Gautama's anger subsides and in response to Brahma's appeal, converts Indra’s thousand yonis to eyes. Henceforth Indra becomes known as “the god of a thousand eyes”.

The delight in pattern making seen consistently in the paintings of this Ragamala series gleefully incorporates Indra's all-seeing eyes into the texture of the design as a repeated motif against a deliberately plain background. Indra carries his large steel ankus in one hand and his vajra or thunderbolt as the god of rain in the other. His scarf flies in the wind as the faithful Airavata charges ahead at great speed, effortlessly balancing the oil lamp on the curling tip of his trunk. A flame darts sharply upwards, emitting a whisper trail of smoke. Airavata's trunk presses against the left red border as if about to pierce it, rush out of the picture and take flight into the sky. According to mythology, Airavata reaches deep down into the underworld to suck up its waters which he then sprays in the clouds for his master Indra to make the rain, thereby linking the waters of the sky with those of the underworld.

Provenance:

Formerly in the collection of Dr Alma Latifi, CIE, OBE (1879-1959)

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank Jerry Losty and Robert Skelton for their expert advice and kind reading of the inscriptions.

References:

1. Catherine Glynn, Robert Skelton and Anna L. Dallapiccola, Ragamala Paintings from India: From the Claudio Moscatelli Collection, 2011, pp. 19-20.

2. Ernst and Leonore Waldschmidt, Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, Part I: Ragamala Pictures from the Western Himalaya Promontory, 1967, pp. 43 and 121; Klaus Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, 1973, p. 74.

Hemala Ragaputra of Dipak Raga

India (Bilaspur), 1730-1740

Height: 26.6 cm

Width: 17.6 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold on paper.

Inscribed on the reverse in takri: dipak raga raputra raga hamela ch[??]

Inscribed in devanagari: dipake daputra raga tamala chheva 6 / Ipatra 11[below that] 12

Further inscribed in takri: dipake daputra raga hama/a/ patha chha ?

“Hemala Raga, sixth son of Dipak Raga”.

Hemala Ragaputra is shown as a young yogi, perhaps Mahadeva, seated meditating on the summit of a craggy mountain, attended by a pair of confronted jackals who keep watchful guard below him. Mahadeva, meaning “great god”, is one of the names of Shiva, who despite his potent destructive powers, also has a benevolent side where he lives the quiet contemplative life of an ascetic and omniscient yogi on top of Mount Kailash, which the imbricated cone-shaped rock formations may represent.

Mahadeva is seated cross-legged in the padmasana lotus position, counting his string of rudrakshamala beads made from the seeds of the evergreen broad-leaved tree Elaeocarpus ganitrus. Rudra is another of Shiva's epithets and rudraksha in Sanskrit means “Shiva's teardrops”. The simple, organic jewellery (mala), made by foraging the fruits of nature, is much more suitable for a yogi in the wilderness than the princely gold and jewels worn by Rama in cat. no. 51, and in place of Rama's palatial rugs and cushions, Mahadeva has a rush mat. Further strings of rudrakshamala form necklaces, armbands and bracelets for our ascetic, while snakes writhe around his waist and through his ear lobes as a belt and earrings. Meditation bowls, cloths, staffs and crutches (zafar takieh) complete his minimal accoutrements.

The Indian jackal (Canis aureus indicus), also known as the Himalayan jackal, is a subspecies of golden jackal native to Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Burma and Nepal. Golden jackals appear prominently in Indian and Nepali folklore where they often take over the role of the trickster played by the red fox in Europe and north America. While in folk mythology jackals share their scavenged food with ascetics, they are of iconographic significance to Mahadeva as the name Shiva also means “jackal”.

A similar painting in the Ragamala set from Basohli-Bilaspur now in Berlin is illustrated in Ernst and Leonore Waldschmidt, Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art,Part I: Ragamala Pictures from the Western Himalaya Promontory, 1967, fig. 58, discussion on pp. 131-132, no. 36. Here Hemala is depicted as a solitary female ascetic, unaccompanied by jackals. Though clearly leading a life of austere practice, unlike Mahadeva she is adorned by especially rich jewellery of pearls and gold. By contrast, our painter is keen to emphasise through every element the rudimentary simplicity of Mahadeva's existence.

A drawing depicting Hemala as a bearded ascetic meditating in the rain is illustrated in Klaus Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, 1973, p. 284, no. 341. The Berlin picture also has a backdrop with a thunderstorm atmosphere, an element of the iconography prescribed by Kshemakarna that is missing from our picture, perhaps on account of the fact that Shiva is never depicted in the rain. According to Ebeling and the Waldschmidts, Kshemakarna's verse 103 compares the music of Hemala Ragaputra to the sounds produced by the conjunction or mixing of fire (lightning) and water (rain), in other words, thunder.

Provenance:

Formerly in the collection of Dr Alma Latifi, CIE, OBE (1879-1959)

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank Jerry Losty and Robert Skelton for their expert advice and kind reading of the inscriptions.

Gauda Ragaputra of Sri Raga

India (Bilaspur), 1730-1740

Height: 27 cm

Width: 17.2 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold on paper.

Inscribed on the reverse in takri: sri raga daputra raga g(a)uda hibha??

Inscribed in devanagari: sri rage daputra raga g(a)uda tritiya 3 patra 9 [but 10 above]

Further inscribed in takri: sri rage daputra raga g(a)uda Ipatha 3

“Gauda Raga, third son of Sri Raga”.

The verses that constitute Kshemakarna's Ragamala system often offer poetic but vague iconographies of little use to the painters who created the first Pahari Ragamalas, forcing the artists to invent their own imagery to illustrate some of the musical modes. A case in point is Gauda (or Gumda) Ragaputra, which according to stanza 109 is vehemently sung by the “royal bird”, perhaps a jay. The ragaputra is personified in the dhyana stanza 77 as simply “a worshipper of Vishnu”.1

The striking image of an acrobat dancing over a katar (thrust-dagger) accompanied by a drummer is therefore the product of the painter's imagination as it is not specified by the text. Ragamalas are an unequal blend of music, poetry and painting; painters are not musicians, and poets such as Kshemakarna may have little knowledge of musical performance despite excelling at poetry. According to Klaus Ebeling in Ragamala Painting, 1973, p. 54, Kshemakarna's Ragamala appears to have been written for the express purpose of visualisation. He notes that by musical standards it is very untechnical, especially when compared with the system devised by the ancient musical author Hanuman, whose visual couplets are followed by verses listing musical properties such as scales, leading notes and performance times. However, by the standards of poetry and painting, Kshemakarna's system is very sophisticated, if at times visually imprecise.

It is thus with interest that we study this painting of music accompanying a vigorous dance. The painter cannot record the melody but in his depiction of an acrobatic handstand heightened by the added danger of the dagger pointed at the dancer's face, we must imagine the music to be fast moving, rhythmic and exciting. The drummer leans forward, urging the dancer on. According to Ernst and Leonore Waldschmidt in Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, Part I: Ragamala Pictures from the Western Himalaya Promontory, 1967, p. 81, the barrel-like drum he plays is a mardala.

The Waldschmidts illustrate in fig. 10 a mardala drum that accompanies a juggler and a woman dancing on her hands. Similar in size to the mridanga but with drum-heads of equal width, the mardala is slung by a strap over the left shoulder and played with a curved stick in one hand and by the palm of the other, thus generating two different types of sound for a syncopated rhythm. The mridanga has by contrast drum-heads of differing diameters, the larger one producing a lower bass note while the smaller creates a higher pitch. Notes on both types of drum can also be resonated together, producing harmonics as well as beats. The drum is tuned by leather straps laced in a zig zag around its circumference and held in a state of high tension to stretch out the goatskin membrane covering the apertures on each end. Wooden pegs are slid under the straps for fine tuning, here only on the left side thus raising the pitch on that face.

Similar attention to details applied to the figures who wear the striped shorts sported by acrobats, athletes, strong men and fairground performers in Pahari paintings. From beneath a turban with a gold mesh band and a spindly aigrette trail the drummer’s gossamer locks. The dancer has a fine coating of body hair including the piquant detail of hairy ankles.

Provenance:

Formerly in the collection of Dr Alma Latifi, CIE, OBE (1879-1959)

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank Jerry Losty and Robert Skelton for their expert advice and kind reading of the inscriptions.

Reference:

1. Waldschmidt, 1967, p. 124; Ebeling, 1973, p. 76.

Kanada Ragini

India (Provinical Mughal, probably Lucknow), circa 1780

Height: 26.5 cm

Width: 17.4 cm

Opaque watercolour heighted with gold and silver on paper.

A dramatic scene unfurls in the depths of the night under a sky dimly lit by a smattering of dark stars. A lord riding a cantering horse holds an elephant tusk in one hand. He is saluted by two hunters that stand before him, both wearing floor-length jamas and carrying spears. The elephant which he has killed lies at the bottom of the picture with one tusk removed, its massive carcass collapsed and convulsed by its writhing death throes into a contorted form. The elaborate contrapposto of the beast retains within its gamut of twisted postures the recent history of its enraged combat: the legs still placed for charging; ferocious attempts to rut the lord still apparent in the now truncated tusk and tensely coiled trunk. The lord is accompanied by a courtier that rides alongside holding a parasol. In the background, a princess seated under a red awning watches from a crenelated palace balcony; one of her two companions standing behind waves a chowrie (flywhisk). The ladies of the court echo the rhythmic pairing of the horses and the two hunters praising their lord's prowess in unison.

This painting depicts the musical mode, Kanada or Karnata Ragini, which as Andrew Topsfield notes, is named after the Karnataka region of Southern India, where it may have originated as a hunting melody.1 The ragini is visualised as a princely warrior who has shown his valour by slaying an elephant and is often depicted blue-skinned like the god Krishna.2

In his discussion of a seventeenth century Kanada Ragini illustration by the Bikaner artist Ruknuddin, now at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Topsfield observes that elephants were too highly valued in India to be hunted in this way, so the subject may allude to the Bhagavata Purana story of Krishna's defeat of Kuvalayapida, the demonic elephant sent by the wicked king Kamsa to kill Krishna before he enters the arena at Mathura, where he slays Kamsa's champion wrestlers, then Kamsa himself.3 The text describes how Krishna tears off Kuvalayapida’s tusk, then uses it to gouge the elephant and kill the mahout. In this painting, Krishna is further identified by his peacock crown and nimbus.

Klaus Ebeling publishes an eighteenth century Deccani picture of the subject in Ragamala Painting, 1973, pp. 82-83, no. C29. This shows the slain elephant at Krishna's feet alongside a box of severed heads that may be Kamsa's four champion wrestlers. The Ashmolean Museum painting described by Topsfield has an earlier iconography of Kanada Ragini in which the defeated elephant is not depicted. Ebeling illustrates on p. 236, no.167, a seventeenth century Marwar painting, and in no. 168, an early eighteenth century Amber painting, both without the elephant. These examples suggest that the elephant was added to the iconography of the heroic slayer and his saluting admirers round 1700, and then widely adapted during the eighteenth century. Ernst and Rose Leonore Waldschmidt note that in sixteenth and seventeenth century paintings, congratulations take place in the vicinity of the hero's house, whereas in eighteenth century pictures, the scene is the very spot of the heroic deed, located in a mountainous region with the carcass of the elephant in the foreground. Our late eighteenth century painting combines the wilderness with an approach to the prince's palace and elaborates on his regal splendour by the addition of retainers and a royal consort.

A note attached to the back of the old frame by the dealer Ray Lewis of Marin County, California, informs us that the portrait inserted by the palace wall depicts the patron of the painting. For comparison Lewis draws our attention to Ivan Stchoukine, La peinture indienne à l’epoque des grands Moghols, 929, pl. 89.

Provenance:

Marjorie D. Schwarz, collected 1965-1974

Acknowledgement:

We would like to thank Jerry Losty for his expert advice.

References:

1. Andrew Topsfield, Indian paintings from Oxford collections, 1994, pp. 44-45, no.19.

2. Ibid.

3. Topsfield, 1994, p. 44.

4. Ernst and Rose Leonore Waldschmidt, Miniatures of Musical Inspiration In the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, Part II: Ragamala Pictures from Northern India and the Deccan, 1975, p. 97; and pp. 93-96, figs.25-29.

Asavari Ragini

India (Hyderabad), 1784-1786

Height: 24.3 cm

Width: 15.2 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold and silver on paper.

In the cool air of the early morning, two female ascetics meet under thetrees on the rocky outcrops surrounding lotus ponds. Dressed in courtly attire and seated with one leg raised is Asavari Ragini, who plays her melancholic melody on the punji, the wind instrument of snake charmers made from a bottle gourd and two reed pipes (jivala), one for the tune and one for the drone. Attracted by her music, snakes coil around her arms and legs to adorn her like jewellery while others hiss and slither on the ground and in the branches above.

Her companion on the left, with a dog at her side, embraces a tree with her leg wrapped around its trunk. Dressed in a short dhoti and cloak that opens to reveal her delicate breasts, she re-enacts the role of bare-chested Gorakhanatha, the celebrated male yogi who gives Asavari the punji so that she can call forth swarms of serpents. She holds a crutch handle (zafar takieh) in one hand and with the other, silhouettes her gentle profile with the haloed shape of her fan.

According to John Seyller, Asavari Ragini derives its name from asi (snake) and ari (enemy) and is associated with the snake-taming Shavaras tribe. She is usually depicted as a solitary dark-skinned woman dressed in a skirt of leaves or peacock feathers, sitting on a rock surrounded by snakes that console her disappointed love. The light-complexioned noblewoman accompanied by a standing ascetic is an iconographic variant peculiar to the Deccan.1 A similar painting in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalya has inscriptions identifying the male ascetic as Gorakhanatha. The distant white building is an element of Hyderabadi painting also at odds with the traditional wilderness.2 The stylised landscape develops from traits seen in seventeenth century Golconda painting, the rocks and foliage abstracted into even more strongly defined shapes. The sense of rarefied elegance continues in the palette: the lotus ponds are rendered a gleaming silver, the snakes a luxurious gold and the sky a salmon pink.3

This painting from the Seitz Collection comes from a Ragamala set nearly identical in composition and quality to the celebrated Johnson Ragamala now at the British Library.4 Richard Johnson collected paintings during his twenty years in India, holding positions in Calcutta, Lucknow and Hyderabad. He spent 1784-1785 in Hyderabad, where he acquired the series of thirty-six paintings now in the India Office Collection. The most elaborate of five closely related sets, it is probably the earliest as well, dating to the years around Johnson's sojourn in Hyderabad.5 The other series were produced in quick succession by the same artist or his workshop using a set of master drawings. The six paintings in the Seitz Collection parallel those in the India Office closely enough to demonstrate this process. While alterations can be seen in all the Seitz paintings, the most aesthetically significant change is the replacement of the golden sky of the Johnson series with a lyrical salmon coloured one.6

Provenance:

Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection

Published:

John Seyller, with introductions and interpretations by Konrad Seitz, Mughal and Deccani Paintings: Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection of Indian Miniatures, Museum Rieberg Zurich, 2010, pp. 140-141, cat. no. 48.

References:

1. John Seyller, Mughal and Deccani Paintings: Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection of Indian Miniatures, 2010, pp. 138, 140 and 146.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.