Kedara ragini: Mahadeva as a yogi seated on a terrace listening to a musician

Bundi, circa 1750

Footnotes

Provenance
Formerly in the collection of Dr Alma Latifi, CIE, OBE.
Private UK collection.

Dr Latifi, a civil servant, amassed a substantial collection of Indian paintings from which several pieces were loaned to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1947-48, The Art of India and Pakistan.

The inscription reads: sri ragki kedara ragini 35.

The musical mode Kedara Ragini is depicted as Mahadeva taking the form of a Shaivite yogi with a vina over his shoulder, seated outside his hermitage listening to a sarinda player. Mahadeva ('great god') is one of the names of Shiva, who despite his potent destructive powers, also has a benevolent side where he lives the quiet contemplative life of an ascetic and omniscient yogi on top of Mount Kailash.

Mahadeva can be identified by his third eye, Shiva's matted locks around which a snake twirls, and the face of the river Ganga emerging from his hair. The crescent moon that lights the scene is also a symbol of Shiva, usually a crest above his head. Mahadeva and the sarinda player are seated on the carpet of a terrace far grander than one would expect of an ascetic and the blue-skinned god is dressed in princely robes leaning against opulent cushions, suggesting that the setting is Shiva's palace. The meditation hut though constructed of thatch seems to be made of gold.

According to Klaus Ebeling (Ragamala Painting, 1973, p. 62), in the Rajasthani tradition, the iconography of Kedara Ragini, fifth wife of Sri Raga, is described variously as an ascetic listening to the music of a disciple; or a beardless ascetic with a vina and a visitor; or an ascetic with a vina and a noble visitor seated on a terrace or in a tower. Elements from all these variations of the iconography are combined with the imagery of Shiva as Mahadeva. See Ebeling, op. cit., p. 268, no. 287 for a Deccani example of this mode, where an ascetic listens to the music of a disciple who plays the vina; and an example from Amber (no. 288), where the river Ganga flows from the head of an ascetic who is clearly Shiva as Mahadeva, seated on his tiger pelt counting his rudrakshamala beads.