Ragas

1. Meaning and historical foundations

Raga, conventionally connected with the Sanskrit idea of colouring or delighting the mind, is a distinctive melodic entity. It provides a grammar within which musicians compose and improvise. A raga specifies more than permissible notes: it involves their order, relative importance, characteristic movements, resting points and treatment through ornamentation. Thus, a list of notes alone cannot adequately identify or reproduce a raga.

Indian musical history includes early traditions of chant, notably the Samaveda, but it is misleading to equate Vedic chant directly with the fully developed modern raga system. Bharata's Natyashastra discusses musical concepts such as swara, grama, murchhana and jati. These form part of the conceptual background from which later melodic theories developed. Matanga's Brihaddeshi gives raga a more explicit theoretical position.

Sharngadeva composed the Sangita Ratnakara in the thirteenth century at the Yadava court of Devagiri, in present-day Maharashtra. Its treatment of music and performance became authoritative across subsequent traditions. Hindustani and Carnatic systems acquired increasingly distinct forms over later centuries through regional, devotional and courtly developments. Their separation was gradual, not the result of one ruler or event.

• Jati in early musical theory is historically related to melodic organisation; its meaning should not be reduced to the modern classification by note count.
• Texts preserve theoretical frameworks, while oral transmission through teachers preserves the detailed movement and expression of individual ragas.

2. Musical grammar: how a raga is recognised

The seven basic swaras are shadja, rishabha, gandhara, madhyama, panchama, dhaivata and nishada, commonly abbreviated as Sa, Re or Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni. Sa serves as the reference tonic rather than a universally fixed concert pitch. Sa and Pa are conventionally treated as achala, or unaltered, swaras. In Hindustani terminology, Re, Ga, Dha and Ni may be komal, while Ma may be tivra; the remaining forms are called shuddha.

Aroha and avaroha describe ascending and descending movement. They may differ in note selection or order, and movement may be vakra, or zigzag, rather than straightforward. Audava, shadava and sampurna indicate five, six and seven notes respectively in a specified ascent or descent. Mixed descriptions are possible when the two directions use different numbers of notes.

In Hindustani theory, vadi denotes a principal note and samvadi an important consonant partner. Their identification can vary between traditions. Pakad is a recognisable characteristic phrase, while chalan describes a raga's broader melodic movement. Nyasa refers to a point of repose. These features help distinguish ragas that share the same notes. Their Carnatic counterparts are not always exact, so terminology should not be mechanically transferred between systems.

Meend, a glide between notes, and andolan, a slow oscillation around a note, are important Hindustani devices. Carnatic gamakas comprise characteristic ways of ornamenting and moving through notes; they are integral to many ragas rather than optional decoration. Classical theory also discusses 22 shrutis, but these should not be confused with 22 equally spaced notes routinely used in every raga.

• Scale: an ordered pitch collection; raga: a melodic identity with rules, phrases and expressive treatment.
• Saptak refers to an octave register; common registers are mandra, madhya and tara.
• Raga and tala are independent dimensions: one raga can be rendered in different talas.

3. Hindustani classification and important examples

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande systematised a widely taught scheme of ten thaats during the early twentieth century. A thaat is an abstract seven-note classificatory scale, not a complete raga or a prescribed performance sequence. The ten are Bilawal, Kalyan, Khamaj, Bhairav, Purvi, Marwa, Kafi, Asavari, Bhairavi and Todi. The scheme is pedagogically useful but does not capture every raga relationship without difficulty.

Yaman is associated with Kalyan thaat and characteristically employs tivra Ma. Bhairav uses komal Re and komal Dha, with their treatment contributing strongly to its identity. Bhupali uses Sa, Re, Ga, Pa and Dha, omitting Ma and Ni, and is commonly presented as audava-audava. These examples show why note selection is useful for preliminary identification but insufficient for a complete musical description.

Many Hindustani ragas are associated with particular periods of the day or seasons. Bhairav is conventionally linked with morning, Yaman with evening, and members of the Malhar family with the rainy season. Such associations are aesthetic and performative conventions, not scientific claims that a performance changes the weather. Practice varies with concert settings, teaching lineages and repertoire.

• A thaat generally has seven notes, whereas its associated ragas may omit notes or use distinctive directional movements.
• A gharana is a stylistic lineage or school, not a category equivalent to raga or thaat.
• Bhairav and Bhairavi are distinct ragas and also names of separate thaats.

4. Carnatic classification and comparison

Carnatic music uses the 72-melakarta scheme to organise parent ragas. A melakarta has all seven swaras in both ascent and descent in sequential order, with the same note varieties in each direction. Sa and Pa remain fixed, while permitted combinations of Ri, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni generate the system. The first 36 melakartas use shuddha madhyama and the next 36 use prati madhyama.

Venkatamakhin's seventeenth-century Chaturdandi Prakashika is foundational to the history of the 72-mela framework. The commonly used modern sampurna-melakarta arrangement reflects subsequent developments and should not be treated as identical in every detail to his formulation. The 72 melakartas are organised into twelve chakras of six each.

Janya ragas are conventionally related to parent melakartas but may omit notes, use zigzag movement or employ additional note varieties. Mayamalavagowla, the fifteenth melakarta, is frequently used in introductory teaching exercises. Kalyani is the sixty-fifth melakarta. Mohanam is a pentatonic janya raga using Sa, Ri, Ga, Pa and Dha. Mohanam and Hindustani Bhupali have broadly corresponding pitch collections, but their performance idioms should not be assumed to be identical.

• Thaat and melakarta are both classificatory frameworks, but their theoretical requirements differ.
• A melakarta is itself a raga with a performance identity; a thaat is primarily an abstract classificatory scale.
• Time-of-day prescriptions are generally less central to contemporary Carnatic concert practice than to Hindustani raga discourse.

5. Performance, aesthetics and cultural connections

A raga becomes audible through a performance rather than through its name or scale alone. In many Hindustani presentations, alap gradually explores the raga without a regular tala cycle. Instrumental performances may proceed through jor and jhala before or around composed sections, although sequences vary. A bandish in vocal music or gat in instrumental music provides a composed framework for further elaboration within tala.

Carnatic raga alapana similarly explores melodic identity without a fixed tala cycle. A kriti combines raga with composed musical and lyrical structure. Improvisatory practices include niraval, which elaborates a selected lyrical line, and kalpana swaras, which develop solfa passages within rhythmic organisation. Ragam-tanam-pallavi provides an extended setting for melodic and rhythmic creativity.

Ragas interact with rasa and bhava, but assigning each raga one universal emotion oversimplifies performance. Tempo, register, text, ornamentation and interpretation also shape expression. Their wider cultural presence includes devotional singing, Sikh scripture, dance, theatre and Ragamala painting. These links are particularly useful for UPSC questions connecting music with literature, religion and visual art.

• Ragamala paintings personify ragas and raginis through figures, seasons and narrative settings; they are not musical notation.
• Dhrupad and khayal are vocal genres; kriti is a major Carnatic compositional form; none is synonymous with raga.
• Historical raga-ragini family classifications should be distinguished from the later thaat and melakarta frameworks.

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