Add Or 2744-2767

Add.Or.2744-2767

Twenty-four paintings from a ‘ragamala’ series, arranged according to an otherwise unrecorded system totalling forty-two illustrations.

Murshidabad, c.1790.

Formerly Album 68; circumstances of acquisition unrecorded.

Inscribed in nagari on mauve panels at top with identifications; signs in top left corner indicating the grouping of the ‘ragas’ and ‘raginis’; inscribed with English identifications beneath; throughout these identifications the scribe has mistaken the letter ‘s’ for ‘l’; the word ‘long’ should therefore read ‘song.’

Gouache with gold; orange borders with silver chevron pattern; mounted on European paper.

Note: The arrangement of this series is different from other series in Murshidabad style in the Library collection. In most cases the iconography complies with the traditional interpretations according to the Hindi identifications which were written at the time the series was painted. But a number of pictures have unconventional titles, notably ‘Sadi Ragini’ and ‘Kalanena Ragini.’ Each picture has in the top left corner a symbol peculiar to its ‘raga,’ the symbols being repeated up to seven times designating the position in the hierarchy of that ‘raga.’ The ‘ragas’ themselves have their symbol repeated seven times. From this it has been possible to reconstruct the original arrangement of the series, with six ‘ragas’ and thirty-six ‘raginis’ making a total of forty-two.