Melakartha Raga index (Continuition to my previous post)

There are hundreds of ragas in Carnatic music.But the 72 Melakartha ragas (மேளகர்த்தா ராகம் ) are the mother ragas from which others are born. Such derived ragas are called as 'Jenya raga' (ஜென்ய ராகம் ). While the melakartha ragas have all 7 swaras, jenya raga may or may not have all 7 swaras.

A raga is defined by its aarohanam (ஆரோஹணம்) and avarohanam( அவரோஹணம்) which is nothing but the boundary of the raga from its lowest to highest swara.

E.g. Mohanam is defined as:

Aa : Sa Ri Ga Pa Dha Sa (Lowest to highest swara)
Ava: Sa Dha Pa Ga Ri Sa (Highest to lowest swara)

It is not necessary that aarohanam and avarohanam needs to have same swaras in the reverse order.

The following table shows some numbers assigned for each Sanskrit syllable.





If you closely look at each row, they follow the similar pattern in our Tamil/Hindi alphabets.

Row 1: ka, kha...til nya
Row 2: ta,tta till na...so on and so forth

So this is known as "KaTaPaYa"dhi Sankhyay( கடபயாதி ஸாங்கியை named after the first syllable in each row.

Now,

1.Pick out a melakartha raga from the list below E.g. Nattabhairavi
2.Refer திindex value of its first two syllables in the above table. For Nattabhairavi - 0 for Na and 2 for ‘tta’
3. Now interchange the numbers assigned to the syllables. It is 20 in this case; hence the raga’s number is 20!

So meet you soon in my next post with another interesting topic!

Melakartha Raga Index:

1 Kanakangi
2 Ratnangi
3 Ganamoorti
4 Vanaspati
5 Manavati
6 Tanarupi
7 Senavati
8 Hanumatodi
9 Dhenuka
10 Natakapriya
11 Kokilapriya
12 Roopavati
13 Gayakapriya
14 Vakulabharanam
15 Mayamalavagowla
16 Chakravakam
17 Sooryakantam
18 Hatakambari
19 Jhankaradhwani
20 Nattabhairavi
21 Keeravani
22 Kharaharapriya
23 Gourimanohari
24 Varunapriya
25 Mararanjani
26 Charukesi
27 Sarasangi
28 Harikambhoji
29 Dheerasankarabharanam
30 Naganandini
31 Yagapriya
32 Ragavardhini
33 Gangeyabhusani
34 Vagadheeswari
35 Sulini
36 Chalanata
37 Salagam
38 Jalarnavam
39 Jhalavarali
40 Navaneetam
41 Pavani
42 Raghupriya
43 Gavambodhi
44 Bhavapriya
45 Subhapantuvarali
46 Shadvidhamargini
47 Suvarnangi
48 Divyamani
49 Dhavalambari
50 Namanarayani
51 Kamavardhini
52 Ramapriya
53 Gamanasrama
54 Viswambhari
55 Syamalangi
56 Shanmukhapriya
57 Simhendramadhyamam
58 Hemavati
59 Dharmavati
60 Neetimati
61 Kantamani
62 Rishabhapriya
63 Latangi
64 Vachaspati
65 Mechakalyani
66 Chitrambhari
67 Sucharitra
68 Jyotiswarupini
69 Dhatuvardhini
70 Nasikabhusani
71 Kosalam

72 Rasikapriya