ABSTRACT
Rāgmālā paintings are visual interpretations of classical South Asian ragas that have been among the most popular South Asian art forms since the fifteenth century. In the earliest paintings, ragas were given human or divine form, and by the sixteenth century they were envisioned in human situations. The Sanskrit term rāgcitrā ‘ragaicon’ is used interchangeably with rāgmālā for this ambitious attempt at fusing a fine art and a performing art. Raga icons were almost always produced in a structured set, hence the term rāgmālā ‘raga-garland’, which implies that the depicted ragas are linked like beads in a necklace.
