Indian art has always been considered a sacred means to reach the Brahman (the Divine One). The practice of music is actually considered spiritual, a path taken to know the Divine Light. Each Indian raga (melody) was personified as a kind of demi-God. Each of these melodies was further assigned a typical male or female form and then sung with that form in mind.

This gave rise to the raga parivara (family) system, where male ragas were assigned certain raginis or female ragas as wives. This, in turn, created the connection between poetry, painting and music, thereby leading to the creation of the miniature Ragamala paintings.

In the Ragamala paintings, ragas and raginis were given a form on canvas and were painted either as a male or female as the raga specified.

Seen here is one such portrait of a Ragini, who is seen strumming her Tanpura (drone instrument), leaning against a branch.