- Title
- Asavari Ragini, Fourth Wife of Shri Raga, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)
- Date Made
- circa 1700
- Period
- 17th century
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 10 1/8 x 6 in. (25.72 x 15.24 cm); Sheet: 13 7/8 x 9 5/8 in. (35.24 x 24.45 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1999.127.28
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Asavari Ragini is a somber melody of the early morning, generally considered to be a wife of Shri Raga. Indian name is taken from that of the Savaras, an ancient jungle tribe renowned for its snake-charming skills and from whose fluted melodies the ragini is said to derive. Paintings of Asavari Ragini display a consistent basic imagery with minor variations: a woman in the forest communing with cobras. The forest is traditionally identified as the snake-infested sandalwood groves of the Malaya mountains in Kerala. The woman is usually garbed in a leaf skirt; alternatively, she can be naked or dressed in aristocratic finery. The heroine displays a mastery over the serpents and interacts with them in several ways. She can be shown taming them by hand or through the use of a wind instrument, or instructing them by hand gestures or the movements of a small stick, usually shaped and brandished like an orchestra conductor’s wand.
Here, Asavari Ragini is envisioned dressed in courtly attire in a forest glen besides a stream curiously issuing from a bull’s head and flowing down a mountain with a shrine on its summit. She is surrounded by serpents that have wrapped themselves around the trees and are being attentive to her teachings and hand gestures. Her lessons have captured the attention of the waterfowl on the riverbank as well. Poetic verses describing Asavari Ragini are inscribed in the header. See also M.85.139.3, AC1999.127.29, and AC1999.127.30.
