Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.151

c6.151

After the Saṅgīta-samaya-sāra, one is inclined to place the work Rāgārṇava which we owe to an unknown author. The exact date of the upper limit cannot be definitely fixed, but the lower limit is furnished by Sāraṅgadhara-paddhati, an encyclopædia in Sanskrit, compiled in 1363 A.D. As the latter work derives all its musical materials from Rāgārṇava, it may be reasonably accepted that the last named work must have been composed at least about half a century before. The fact that Sāraṅgadhara borrows some of his materials from Rāgārṇava, seems to place this work in the position of the leading authority on music about the end of the thirteenth century, in Northern India.