[Rāg darshan].

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Khushhāl Khān.

Contributor:

Schoenberg, Lawrence J., former owner.

Anūpa Saṃskr̥ta Pustakālaya, Bīkānera, former owner.

Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

Urdu

Subjects (All):

Music--Early works to 1800.

Music theory--India--Early works to 1800.

Music theory.

Miniature painting, Indic.

Rāgamālā painting.

Music.

India.

Music in art.

Ragas.

Rāgamālā painting--Specimens.

Miniature painting, Indic--Specimens.

Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)

illuminated manuscripts

Manuscripts, Indic -- 18th century.

Manuscripts, Indic -- 19th century.

Specimens.

Penn Provenance:

Commissioned by Maratha military commander Raja Rao Ranbha (Savita Ananthan).

Unidentified bookplate (inside upper cover); at one time held in Anūpa Saṃskr̥ta Pustakālaya, the Anup Sanskrit Library in the Bīkāner royal library until it was sold in the 1960s (Sheth-Fogg correspondence).

Purchased by Sam Fogg (London), 1996 (Sheth-Fogg correspondence).

Sold by Sam Fogg Ltd. (London) to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, June 1996.

Gift of Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2010.

Physical Description:

43 leaves : paper, color illustrations ; 362 x 250 (290 x 198) mm bound to 367 x 260 mm

Place of Publication:

[Hyderabad, India], A.H. 1214-1219 (1799-1804)

Language Note:

Dakhini (Nastaʻlīq)

Summary:

Treatise on the modes of Indian music, based on the fifth chapter of Mirza Khan's Tuḥfat al-hind. Visual representations of each mode depict a male Raga with between four and six female Raginis. The selection and sequence of Ragas and Raginis is according to the Hanuman system and the iconographic tradition of the images is that of Amber in Rajasthan. Other miniatures depict scenes at court and include images of the courtesan Māh-i Liqā, also known as Malaqa Bai; the author Khushhāl Khān; and the patron Rajah Rao Ranbha. The text is followed by a commentary, possibly added to it the 19th century when it was housed in its current binding (Savita Ananthan).

Contents:

1. f.1v-24v: [Rāgamālā text and illustrations]

2. f.25v-43v: [Commentary]

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Collation: Paper, iv (19th-century paper) + 43 + iv (19th-century paper); 1⁸ 2² 3⁸ 4⁴ 5¹² 6⁸(+1); early foliation in ink (f. 2-24), 2-8, 11-12, 9-10, 13-24, lower center recto; modern foliation in pencil, [1-43], upper left recto. References in this record are to the modern foliation. Catchwords on each leaf, lower left verso.

Layout: Written in 4 columns of 19 lines; text block enclosed in narrow frame of silver and double lines in red ink, outer edge of margins delineated with single line of red ink..

Script: Written in nastaʻlīq script in black and red ink by a single hand.

Decoration: Illuminated headpiece (f. 1v) and 52 miniatures: 14 scenes of rulers or nobles (f. 2r-8r, 18r-24r), 1 of a lute (f. 5r), 36 of families of Ragas and Raginis (f. 8r-17r), and 1 group of 6 small landscapes (f. 17v). Paintings by court artist Haji Mir Ghulam Hasan (identified in painting on f. 24r (Savita Ananthan)).

Binding: 19th-century gilt morocco; binding label of Ghulam Qutabuddin Ahmad (label inside upper cover, transcribed and translated by Sudev Sheth), associated with Salar Jung III (also known as Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, 1889-1949) (Savita Ananthan).

Origin: Written in the former princely state of Hyderabad in the Deccan region of India (Nizam of Hyderabad pictured on f. 2r), in 1799 (f. 24v, 43v), with the miniatures added by 1804 (dated signature, f. 24r).

Local Notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 33 (LJS 63).

Publications about:

Schofield, Katherine Butler, "'Words without songs' : the social history of Hindustani song collections in India's Muslim courts c. 1770-1830," in Theory and practice in the music of the Islamic world : essays in honour of Owen Wright, edited by Rachel Harris and Martin Stokes (Abingdon, Oxford; New York: Routledge, 2018),

Schofield, Katherine Butler, Music and musicians in late Mughal India: histories of the ephemeral, 1748–1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. IX, 51, 52, 119, 1125, 139 (figs.).

Cited as:

Khushhāl Khān, Rāg darshan (LJS 63). Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

OCLC:

706130569

Online:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page