Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c10.164

c10.164

To the third quarter of the eighteenth century belongs an interesting Hindi text which provides some very attractive verses for rāga-mālā illustrations. It is a short treatise called *Rāga Kutūhala* composed by a Gauḍa Brahmin of Jayanagar named Rādhā Kṛṣṇa (Kavi-Kṛṣṇa), under the patronage of Prince Bhīm Singh of Unyiār-gaḍ (Jaipur State). It bears a colophon¹ dated Saṃvat 1853 (1781 A.D.). It gives a general survey of the theories of Hindu music and also describes the ‘pictures’ of the melodies (“Kahaun rīti saṅgīta kī, rāga-rūpa darasāī”). It survives so far as we can gather in a single manuscript,² which has not yet been published. The rāga-mālā text of this poet has, however, been utilised and published by Bhānu-Kavi in his *Kāvya-prabhākar*. And we have quoted several verses from this text (Plates VII, X, XIII, XIX, XXV, XXVIII, XXX, XXXII, XXXIV, XXXVII, XXXIX, XLIII, XLIV, XLIX ,LXI, LXIII, LXIV, LXVII, LXXVI, and LXXVII) to indicate the high merit of these rāga-mālā verses. The composition of this text proves that the demand for rāga-mālā texts and pictures had continued unabated, at any rate, as late as the end of the eighteenth century. We have not, however, been able to trace any, miniatures which have utilized the excellent verses of Rādhā Kṛṣṇa. Whether they have offered materials for pictorial illustrations or not, the verses are very distinguished compositions of their kind and are marked by qualities of ideas, imageries, and dictions very rarely met with in the average level of rāga-mālā texts. We