2-999-922 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Ragini Bhairavi, 1600-1625. Melodic musical themes known as modes ("raga") were important subjects in sets of miniatures produced for the regional courts of India in the 17th-19th centuries. The name of one "raga" is Bhairava - a god who is also the lord of music. Bhairavi (spouse of Bhairava) gives her name to a "raga" - variation ("ragini"). In art, she personifies the "ragini." She appears here worshipping at a shrine containing a "linga," the phallic emblem of the great god Shiva. The inscription at top says, "The fair and pure Bhairavi worships Shiva with songs accompanied by cymbals in a crystal shrine beside a lake." A sculpture of Nandi, the bull ridden by Shiva, sits outside the shrine.