A raagmala (garland of raags) is both a musical and a painterly idea. In the treatises, raags were organised into families — six parent raags, each with wives (raaginis) and sons (raagputras). Painters of Mughal South Asia turned this genealogy into album folios: each raag became a person in a scene whose mood, hour and season matched the music. Bhairvi is a woman at worship before a Shiva shrine; Megh is Krishna dancing in the rain; Todi is a woman whose vina draws deer from the forest.
The six families in Saarey's raagmala follow the classical ordering — Bhairon, Maalkons, Hindol, Deepak, Shree and Megh — each with its raaginis and raagputras. Every folio in our collection is a real catalogued museum painting, quoted and credited as the museum records it, and paired with the raag's musicology and listenable recordings.