A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s5.14

c15.s5.14

The inventive talents of the Greeks never suggested a more charming allegory than the lovely families of the six *Rāgas*, named in the order of seasons . . . *Bhairava*, *Mālava*, *Srī Rāga*, *Hindola* or *Vasanta*, *Dīpaka*, and *Megha*; each of whom is a genius or demi-god, wedded to five *Rāginīs*, or nymphs, and father of eight little genii, called his *putras*, or sons. . . . These and similar images, but wonderfully diversified, are expressed in a variety of measures, and represented by delicate pencils in the *Rāgmālās*, which all of us have examined, and among which the most beautiful are in the possession of Mr. R. Johnson and Mr. Hay.’ Sir William Jones was of opinion that the symbolism sketched in the foregoing extracts ‘may be considered as the most pleasing invention of the ancient Hindus, and the most beautiful union of painting with poetical mythology and the genuine theory of music'.¹