The presence of two paintings from the
same series in the Green collection provides an opportunity for viewers to
study the stylistic and compositional relationships between illustrations of
different ragas/raginis within a given Ragamala set. The present comparison is
especially instructive, for the careful observer will discern that the two
paintings, although clearly from the same series, were in fact painted by two
different artists. The major comparable features of the two include the
visually dominant expanses of white architecture and the division of the
paintings into four registers, composed of a row of niches with flowering
plants and parrots along the bottom, the figures and palatial setting in the
middle, the lines of trees in the penultimate register, and the lengthy poetic
passages, written in the same hand, in the yellow panel at the top.
Closer scrutiny of the two paintings,
however, reveals innumerable minute differences in detail. The treatment of the
pink lotus petals covering the surface of the architectural domes differs
considerably between the two: the dome of painting A has petals radiating
outward in a lively arrangement, but those of painting a lie in stiff
horizontal rows. The detailing in ink of the architecture, intended to represent
carved marble forms, is much finer and more complex in painting A than in B.
The vegetal and floral forms are related but differ in botanical structure and
array, with those of painting A generally more boldly portrayed. Figures and
animals are more supple and naturalistic in painting A. Given these variances
in detail and execution, painting A seems more accomplished than B and, by
extension, so was its painter. For other paintings from this series, see Pal
1978, pp. 114-15, no. 34 (Panchama Ragini); Pal 1981, p. 58, no. 47 (Kanhra
Ragini); and Sotheby's 1996, lot 186 (Malkos Raga). An additional unpublished
illustration of Mcgha-Mallar Raga from this series is in the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.
A.) This
painting is identified and described by the text in its upper panel as
representing Kedar Ragini, who is described as a love-torn, emaciated woman
wearing earrings, smeared with ashes as an ascetic, and playing a vina. The
ragini, a wife of Hindola Raga, is an early night melody characterized by
tenderness and believed to possess magical healing properties. In the
Rajasthani tradition Kedar Ragini is portrayed as a night scene with an ascetic
either playing or holding a vina or listening to a musician playing the
instrument. Surprisingly, the ascetic in this illustration is shown holding a
tambura rather "than a vina, while both instruments are being played by
two female musicians. In the sky above the trees an antelope pulls a celestial
chariot bearing a crescent moon, a symbol of Siva, the arch-ascetic of Indian
culture.
B.)
Here the text in the upper panel identities the heroine as Desakhya
Ragini, a wife of Sri Raga, and describes her as a lovely woman wearing a sari
in Marathi fashion and performing an acrobatic movement on the upright pillar.
Desakhya Ragini is a late morning melody stressing the heroic sentiment.
Depictions of the ragini in the Rajasthani tradition feature a group of
acrobats performing feats of strength and coordination. Occasionally, as shown
here, women athletes are shown in place of their male counterparts in order to
reconcile the traditionally male quality of physical prowess with the feminine
gender of the melody.
Writer
Name:- Pratapaditya Pal
