Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c9.19.1

c9.19.1

It has already been indicated that the sound-form of a rāga is the medium—its kernel, or, body, so to speak, through which the spirit of the rāga manifests itself. The objective of the rāga is the rasa—the aesthetic emotion, the theme, the subject-matter,—the motif of the melody. As the soul must inhabit a body, so every rasa is incarnated in the rūpa (form) of particular rāga or rāgiṇī. To invoke the rasa, one must mediate upon the rūpa. Each particular form of rāga—is suitable for the expression of a particular type of rasa, that is to say, each rāga is associated with and is the medium of a particular sentiment, or emotion—its characteristic and definite ethos. A musician should, therefore, have a knowledge of the relation of the rāgas to their associated rasas—the form of a rāga being a perfected vocabulary, or phrase to express in a significant and an impressive manner a particular class of emotion. From very early times, a knowledge of this form and its contents, was considered a sine quo non of musical education. It is necessary to realise what the *Devatā*, or the image of the deity of a rāga stands for. Unlike the conception of the innumerable divinities in the Hindu Brahmınic or Buddhist-tantric (Mahāyānist) pantheons, the musical divinities—the presiding genuises of the rāgas are not conceived and symbolised in individual image-forms or icons.