- Title
- Asavari Ragini, Fifth Wife of Shri Raga, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)
- Date Made
- circa 1700-1725
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 16 1/2 x 11 3/4 in. (41.91 x 29.85 cm); Image: 14 1/4 x 10 1/8 in. (36.2 x 25.72 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.85.139.3
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
The Sanskrit verses in the header describing the melody read:
On the summit of the sandalwood mount, robed in the peacock’s plumes, with a splendid necklace strung with pearls and ivory, the variegated one drawing to herself from the sandalwood tree the serpent — the proud one wears it as a bracelet, (her body) ablaze with dark splendor.
Asavari Ragini is the fifth wife of Shri Raga in the variant ragamala (garland of melodies) classification system known as Hanuman’s system (developed by the ancient musical theorist Hanuman), which was occasionally followed in Central Indian ragamalas. This is corroborated by the folio being inscribed as number thirty in the series, which corresponds to Asavari Ragini’s sequence in Hanuman’s system. In the more widespread Rajasthani system, Asavari Ragini is the fourth wife of Shri Raga. It is a somber melody associated with the early morning. The melody’s name is derived from that of the Savaras, an ancient jungle tribe renowned for its snake-charming skills. It is personified as a woman in the forest communing with cobras. She is typically garbed in a leaf skirt; alternatively, she can be naked or dressed in aristocratic finery.
Here, she wears a peacock feather skirt and copious jewelry. She is pulling on a cobra wrapped around a tree trunk. The setting is a dense landscape with animal-hunting and genre scenes. See also AC1999.127.28–.30. Another folio from this dispersed series was formerly in the Sri Motichand Khajanchi Collection.
