File:Ragamala Paintings 30.jpg

English: Detail of Ragamala Miniature entitled 'Asavari ragini of Malkosh'. Depicts a girl dressed in a diaphanous veil sitting on a boulder amid a landscape of rolling hills and lotus lakes. She is holding a cobra firmly in her left hand, wielding a stick in her right. It is possible that this musical mode might originate from the Sabara people, who traditionally lived in the jungle and whose occupation it was to catch and charm snakes. However, the painter here depicts the girl as a courtly lady rather than in the typical leaf skirt of the Sabara tribe. Ragamala paintings are images which depict, in physical form, the 'modes' or scales used in Indian Classical Music, known as ragas. Usually accompanied by an inscription or poem, they elucidate the season and time of day in which a raga was meant to be performed, as well as its mood, and often portray the Hindu deities with which they are individually associated. The concept may have originally come about through the use of personification as an aide memoire for musicians, which then developed into physical imagery. This collection dates to the mid-late eighteenth century, and originates from Hyderabad on the Deccan Plateau in Southern India. Acquired by John Ballie (1772-1833), who brought it to the UK, it is one of two sets of Ragamala paintings in the Oriental Manuscripts Collection, the other being Or.Ms 437.1-2. Sources: Watson, L. (2012), What is Ragamala?, http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2012/01/20/what-is-ragamala/ (accessed 05/06/14). http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/museums-galleries/talbot-rice/archive/ragamala (accessed 05/06/14)