Asavari Ragini is a somber
melody of the early morning, generally considered to be a wife of Sri Raga. The
name is taken from that of the Savaras, an ancient jungle tribe renowned for
its snake-charming skills and from whose fluted tunes the ragini is said to
derive. The literary descriptions of Asavari Ragini exhibit considerable
variance; those corresponding most closely to the Rajasthani-tradition
paintings are found in the early seventeenth-century Sangitadarpana of Damodara
Misra and a number of other texts paintings of Asavari Ragini display a
consistent basic imagery, a woman in the forest communing with cobras, with
minor variations She is usually garbed in a leaf skirt, as in the present
examples; alternatively she is naked or dressed in aristocratic filter Consistent
with the ragini's cultural origin, the heroine displays a ,mastery over the
serpents and interacts with them in a number of ways. She can be Shown taming
them by hand, through the use of a wind instrument, or by instructing them by
hand gestures or the movements of a small stick, usually shaped and brandished
like an orchestra conductor's baton. Occasionally, as in painting, male
snake-charmers are shown performing their melodic spells. These movements of
the stick flute or hands accord with the belief that it is the hypnotic, serpentine
movements of Indian snake charmers flutes rather than their actual melodies
that mesmerize cobras.
These two illustrations of
Asavari Ragini, created slightly more than a century and a half apart,
represent an early and a mature stage in the development of the imagery
associated with the ragini. Although both depict a leaf-clad heroine
accompanied by serpents in a forest, traditionally identified as the
snake-infested sandalwood groves of the Malaya mountains in Kerala, there are
significant differences between the two representations.
In this painting, a minimally
adorned heroine holds one cobra while others slither around her legs, the
wooden platform on which she sits, and the tree trunk. The forest is indicated
by the two deciduous trees sheltering her as well as by the plantain trees and
flora. The subdued browns and greens of the palette, similar to those in the
illustration of Vasant Ragini, typify the productions of subimperial Mughal
painting workshops.
Curiously, this illustration of
Asavari Ragini is identified by a label in the upper border as "the ragini
of Dipak Raga, number 36" instead of the wife of Sri Raga, which in the
Rajasthani tradition the ragini is normally regarded to be. Iconographically,
this work presents a much more detailed and expanded version (or vision) of
Asavari Ragini than painting A. The simple heroine has been transformed into
the goddess Savari, the Saiva tutelary deity of the Savaras. Her identity and
divinity are indicated, respectively, by her blue skin, denoting her tribal
origins, and by her golden nimbus and crescent moon, emblematic of Siva and
Saiva goddesses. This socioreligious elevation is also suggested by her now
copious gold-and-pearl jewelry. place of a simple stick the goddess waves an
ascetic's crutch in front of a cobra. She sits enthroned on a hilltop plateau
symbolic of the Malaya mountains, a compositional feature much more
representative of Asavari Raginis than the humble platform of painting A. The
forest is also imbued with greater life and variety. Lush blooming trees, a
hallmark of Bundi painting, draw the viewer along the recession toward the
mountains in the background. Swans and Brahminy ducks gather around a lotus
pond in the foreground, a compositional element equally typical of Bundi
painting. A snake-charmer playing a bulbous flute (pritigi) completes the
composition. Ragamala paintings were particularly popular in Bundi, both as
album folios and palace murals.
Writer
– Janice Leoshko
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