Ruknuddin - Folio from a ragamala series (Garland of Musical Modes) ca. 1690–95

 

Ruknuddin - Folio from a ragamala series (Garland of Musical Modes) ca. 1690–95  

The artist Ruknuddin has combined creatively a number of ragamala texts to make this evocative masterpiece. Following artistic precedent and the texts, he shows an ascetic “in penance, adorned, gray [with ashes]” listening to a disciple, who is described as “a young man beauteous in every limb,” playing the rudra vina. Another ragamala text tells us the disciple is “an ascetic, whose mind is drowned in meditation on Shiva . . . crowned by the white moon.”