Acknowledgements Thanks for stopping by. We would like to thank everybody who made this exhibition possible.

Where are the images and audio from?

The Exhibition draws on the images and music collections of the two research centers of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)- the Center for Art and Archaeology (CA & A) and the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicoloy (ARCE) - to weave the musical experience of viewing and listening to moods of Ragas. The CA & A has a repertoire of 200,000 images of monuments and antiquities including paintings of Ragamalas, which have been photographed by the Center’s documentation team during the last 50 years.

We are beholden to the Alwar Museum, Jaipur Museum, National Museum, New Delhi, Allahabad Museum and the Bikaner Museum whose Images constitute the main ingredient of the visual galleries. The Exhibition could not have been possible without the generous contributions of these museums to the show.

ARCE is an ethnomusicology archives which holds about 25000 hours of recordings of all genres of music and musical performance. The collections for the most have been voluntarily deposited by scholars and collectors. Sample recordings of ragas have been made possible from the James Stevenson Collection and the Coates India Collection. These are under copyright and performer right to be only referred to online and downloading will be treated as a violation of Copyright.

Where is the text from?

The Exhibition text is written by Dr. Anjan Chakraverty who did his post-graduation in Painting from the Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. His doctoral research was on Landscapes in Indian Miniature Painting. His publications include, Indian Miniature Painting (eds.1996, 2003) Sacred Buddhist Painting (eds.1998, 2006) and a monograph, Ali Hasan-the Master Naqshaband of Banaras Brocades (2002). In addition, he has edited several catalogues including the one, Indian Art Treasures: Suresh Neotia Collection (2006). His articles have been published in several art journals that include Marg and BAR (British Archaeological Reports).

Dr. Chakraverty has also exhibited his paintings in many important shows held in all the major art galleries of India and abroad, particularly at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts, Oxford; Festival of Indian, U.S.; 4th Asian International Art Exhibition, Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, Korea; International Graphics Biennale, Korea; Divine Carriers- Recent Art from India & Nepal, Los Angeles; Exhibition of Indian Art, Oak House Museum, Birmingham; Siddhartha Art Gallery, Kathmandu; Nehru Centre, London.

He had the priviledge of learning vocal music under Pandit Mohan Mishra, an exponent of Banaras Gharana of music. He was initiated into the intricacies of Indian Aesthetics and history of Indian Music by Thakur Jaideva Singh and Prof. M.A. Dhaky, the two great interpreters of the subject.

Currently, his study focuses on 18th – 19th century Indian Textile History and Painting.

He lives in Varanasi and teaches Art History at the Faculty of Visual Arts, his alma mater. He has just completed his term as the Dean of Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University.

The team:

We are grateful to Dr. Pradeep Mehendiratta, Vice President, AIIS and Mrs. Purnima Mehta, Director General, for facilitating the Exhibition team with their administrative support; Dr. Vandana Sinha, Director Academic, CA & A, for coordinating at several levels with the Admin, the Curator, the Designer, the Developer and the CA & A’s academic and technical staff. We very much appreciate contributions by CA & A staff members- Sushil Sharma, Assistant Director and Technical Officer for pulling out relevant images and the information from the Photo-archive’s image database, Mr. S. Pandian, Senior Draftsman, for scanning the slides, Mr. Omprakash, Senior Photographer for editing and Mr. N. Ravi, Senior Draftsman for resizing the images, Mr. Syed Ehtesham Rizvi, Librarian for culling published reference to Ragamalas and digitizing the materials for the show, and Ms. Nandini Rajan, Research Assistant, for cleaning and organizing the data.

The musical content has been made possible through the coordination by Shubha Chaudhuri, Associate Director General (Academic), by the digitization and creating of samples and metadata by Umashankar and Niharika Ghai of the ARCE.

We are obliged to the Exhibition Designer, Gautam Malik and the Developers of the Media Galleries, PI Softek Ltd. for putting together this brilliant show.