Sindhu Raga: Illustration to a Ragamala, Northern Deccan, circa 1700, opaque pigments and gold on paper, including wider red border, inscribed above with the Sanskrit text of a verse numbered 1 of Mesakarna’s Ragamala system, and the number 67 on the album page, 31.5 x 25.25cm. Sindhu raga is portrayed here as a violent battle between equal forces of both cavalry and foot-soldiers. On a green ground strewn with flowers in the Popular Mughal manner, extremely violent killings are recorded. Safely behind the horizon is a line of musicians beating drums and blowing trumpets, whose efforts are meant to encourage the fighters.This large now dispersed series with its mixture of Deccani and Rajasthani characteristics come from the northern Deccan but it is difficult to be more precise. Aurangabad, the Mughal headquarters in the Deccan during the assaults on Bijapur and Golconda, is often mentioned in this context as the source of such paintings, but the finest of the mid-seventeenth century sets have now been reclaimed for Mewar (Topsfield 2002, pp. 77, 91-92), while the later material seeming to come from there is more obviously Mughal in character. It seems best to regards this ragamala set as a provincial offshoot from this school of Aurangabad. The Sanskrit verses suggest Hindu patronage, perhaps even Maratha.The painting is from a much larger set of ragamala paintings according to Mesakarna’s system which makes Sindhu raga the first son (hence the number 1 in the inscription) of Sri raga, although the relevant verse is numbered 75. Ragamalas are sets of paintings that illustrate the descriptive verses that have become attached to the main musical modes of Indian music, conceived in the plains as consisting of six main ragas each with five raginis or wives. In the Ragamala sets in the Pahari tradition from the hills and in some sets from the Deccan we find instead a small number of 84 piece sets based on the system of Mesakarna that in addition to the six main ragas and their five wives gives each main raga eight sons. The situation can be complicated further in the Deccan by giving each son a wife of his own. Mesakarna in his text first gives each raga a personality and then describes the music in terms of the sounds of nature or of everyday household activities. According to Mesakarna, the iconography of Sindhu should show a warrior on a horse, here interpreted as a battle, while the sound of the raga is compared to that of a horse (Ebeling, p. 76).BibliographyEbeling, K., Ragamala Painting, Ravi Kumar, Basel, 1973Topsfield, A., Court Painting at Udaipur: Art under the Patronage of the Maharanas of Mewar, Artibus Asiae, Zurich, 2002Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, London and Los Angeles, 1983Please refer to department for condition report