File:Ragamala Paintings 40.jpg

English: Detail of Ragamala miniature entitled 'Kedara ragini'. Text below shows an English transliteration of this entitled 'Kadara Raug', while the image conveys an atmosphere of peace and inspires meditation. 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, which is purportedly called the Raga Kalpadruma, originates from Jaipur in Northern India and has the description of the Raga written in Sanskrit on the back of each image. Including some Bengali and English text as well, the collection also contains a few pages from another Indian music manuscript, also written in Sanskrit. It was gifted to Edinburgh University by Dwarkanath Tagore (1794-1846), grandfather of the poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and is one of two sets of Ragamala paintings in the Oriental Manuscripts Collection, the other being Or.Ms 114. 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)