Themes: texts, ragas and tales

Through the Bhakti movement, the worship of Rama and Krishna spread widely. Krishna was worshipped both as God and as the ideal lover; Radha stood for the soul giving itself to God. Many paintings came from poetry about them:

• the Gita Govinda, by Jayadeva (twelfth century, in Sanskrit), full of shringara rasa, the mood of love;
• the Rasamanjari, by Bhanu Datta (fourteenth century), which classifies heroes (nayakas) and heroines (nayikas) by age, type and mood;
• the Rasikapriya (1591, in Brajbhasha) by Keshav Das of Orchha, about lovers' moods, and his Kavipriya, whose tenth chapter, the Baramasa, describes the twelve months;
• Bihari Lal's Satsai, with 700 verses (about 1662).

Ragamala paintings show ragas and raginis (musical modes) as pictures. Each has a mood, a time of day and a season. Albums had 36 or 42 pages, arranged in families: a male raga with his raginis. The six main ragas are Bhairava, Malkos, Hindol, Dipak, Megha and Shri.

Other themes: bardic romances (Dhola-Maru, Sohni-Mahiwal, Mrigavat, Chaurpanchashika, Laurchanda); the epics and Puranas; and court life: darbars, hunts, festivals and portraits.