Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c10.222

c10.222

The earliest attempts to indicate the nature and quality of the motive of rāgas in Persian versions appear to be represented by interpretive annotations written on rāga-mālā pictures of which some typical examples are borrowed here (Plate CXI, A.B. & C) from the Johnson Albums in the India Office. They appear to be quite early, if not the earliest specimens of their kind. The miniatures B & C (Plate CXI) appear to be earlier than A, and have the explanation in Persian crudely inscribed on the top and at the bottom beyond the borders which frame the pictures. The other examples, Śrī-rāga (Plate CXI-A) is of much more interest as it provides the Persianized version of the Hindī original cited on Plate LII-C, which it copies somewhat crudely substituting an interpretation in Persian in place of the Hindī verses of Pearay Rangalāl. An early series of examples in the Government Art Gallery, Calcutta, are of high aesthetic merit, both in their lovely and native types of figures, and in their deeply felt emotional contents. From this series, four specimens have been borrowed in the second volume (Plates XVI-C: ‘Toḍī’; LXI: Vasanta; LXIV-D: Megha-rāga, and CXIV: Khamāic). On this series beyond the ornamental border in yellow, certain Persian texts are inscribed indicating the name of the rāginī, and the rāga to which it belongs. Strictly speaking, the texts are mere labels for identifications, and do not suggest the atmosphere of the melodies, and have no literary pretensions. These labels show the necessity of Persian texts for a class of patrons of Hindu music who had no knowledge of the Hindī language and to whom the Hindi texts conveyed no information. These Persian labels establish a demand for Persian texts for which we have other evidences.