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A painted royal couple in a Jain cave temple at Sittanvasal A.D. 670 [After Sivaramamurti].
From early 16th century to the middle of 19th century, in many parts of Rajasthan and in some parts of the Himalayas, there flourished a special painting known as Miniature painting. These small paintings have now come to represent some of the finest achievements in Indian artistic creation. The themes in these paintings are varied but there are innumerable examples of representation of both music and dance.
Several series of Ragas and Raginīs have been most magnificently executed representing these melodic themes in Indian classical music. A Raga is the traditional melody in which the Indian musician weaves his improvisations, and it is a selection of five, six or seven notes distributed along the scale, each Raga symbolizing in rhythmic form some emotion, elemental force or particular aspect of nature when it may be most appropriately sung or played. The Ragini is the feminine form of the Raga; it suggests a condensation of the main theme of the melody. These Rägas and Raginis, in turn, are employed as integral elements in the depiction of dances in these paintings. Some of these paintings show Siva as Nataraja, but principally they focus on Kṛṣṇa and his dances and dalliance with his beloved Radha and other gopis on the banks of river Jamuna.13
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