- Title
- Sindhu Ragaputra, First Son of Shri Raga, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)
- Date Made
- circa 1775
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 9 5/16 x 7 3/8 in. (23.65 x 18.73 cm); Sheet: 10 15/16 x 8 5/8 in. (27.78 x 21.9 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.77.130.2
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
The partially effaced Sanskrit inscription in the header describes Sindhu Ragaputra, the son of Shri Raga, in the desert or Marwar tradition (Marubheda) as someone who is curious about many instruments and is engaged in singing. This is an unusual iconography, as Sindhu Ragaputra is more commonly portrayed in other ragamala regional traditions as a solitary or battling warrior.
Sindhu Ragaputra is the first son of Shri Raga in the variant ragamala (garland of melodies) classification system known as Meshakarna’s system (developed by Meshakarna, a court priest from Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, in his Ragamala of 1570), which was sometimes followed in Marwar ragamalas. Meshakarna’s system has six males (ragas), each of whom who has five or six wives (raginis) and eight or nine sons (ragaputras). The melodies are also compared to a sound in nature or a human activity. Sindhu Ragaputra is likened to the sound of a horse.
Here, Sindhu Ragaputra is personified as a prince playing a vina. Behind him is a woman waiving an honorific fly whisk made of the white tail-hairs of a yak (cauri or chowri). He is accompanied by four male musicians playing a flute, drum (mridangam), drone instrument (tambura), and hand cymbals (left to right). He sits on a footed dais in a lush landscape with exuberant rock forms.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya. The Flute and The Brush: Indian Paintings from the William Theo Brown and Paul Wonner Collection. Newport Beach, CA: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 1976.
