rAgams tidbits

Last Updated On: June 24, 2000

Added some MP3 samples on June 24, 2000. The information on these pages were last updated on May 24, 1999. Click on the underlined rAgams for a sample of their ArOHanam and avarOHanam.

The notation used in this page is same as that used in all pages in this site and is described in rAgams page. The terms graha bEdham and sruthi bEdham are described with examples in the audava rAgams analysis page. An analysis of audava-sampUrna rAgams and sampUrna-audava rAgams has been compiled too.

Dhikshitar school rAgams

There are quite a few minor items of concern to us that there is more than one system in vogue. There are rAgams which have the same name in the two systems whose structures are different, while at the same time there are rAgams with same structure but different names. The names used by the Dikshitar school are also important to us, since Muthuswami Dhikshitar has woven the names of the rAgams into most of his compositions. You can read more about the specific rAgams in a separate page titled Dhikshitar school rAgams, where a detail description has been provided.

Some examples:
(a) shanmuKapriyA is known as chAmaram in Dhikshitar school. The mudrai "chAmaram" can be found in Muthuswami Dhikshitar's song "Sidhdhi vinAyakam anisham".
(b) shudhDha sAveri in the Dhikshitar school is a pure janyam of kanakAn'gi, with svarams S R1 M1 P D1 S (this is called karnAtaka shudhDha sAveri). The common shudhDha sAveri is considered a janyam of karaHarapriyA and takes the svarams S R2 M1 P D2 S.

mOHanam and its graha bEdham group

All the rAgams of the mOHanam group can be generated from any one of them by using svara bEdham only! That is why I had mentioned that I had given the graha bEdham transformations first, and also performed it first in generating the non-repetitive tree in the audava rAgams analysis page. Let us see how that works, in a tabular form.

mOHanam group
mOHanam		S	_	R2	_	G3	_	_	P	_	D2	_	_	S+
shudhDha sAvEri	G3 to M1	S	_	R2	_	_	M1	_	P	_	D2	_	_	S+
madhyamAvathi	D2 to N2	S	_	R2	_	_	M1	_	P	_	_	N2	_	S+
shudhDha dhanyAsi	R2 to G2	S	_	_	G2	_	M1	_	P	_	_	N2	_	S+
HindhOlam	P to D1	S	_	_	G2	_	M1	_	_	D1	_	N2	_	S+

AndhOlika and madhyamAvathi

The rAgam AndhOlika has only one minor difference from madhyamAvathi. In the avarOHanam, AndhOlika has a chatusruthi dhaivatham instead of the panchamam of madhyamAvathi. The rAgam svarAs are given below.

ArOHanam	madhyamAvathi	S	_	R2	_	_	M1	_	P	_	_	N2	_	S+
ArOHanam	AndhOlika	S	_	R2	_	_	M1	_	P	_	_	N2	_	S+
avarOHanam	madhyamAvathi	S+	_	N2	_	_	P	_	M1	_	_	R2	_	S
avarOHanam	AndhOlika	S+	_	N2	D2	_	_	_	M1	_	_	R2	_	S

Madurai T N Seshagopalan's innovation at IIT, Chennai

Let us look at the rAgams gamanashrama, HamsAnandhi, sunAdhavinOdhini & HindhOLam.

HamsAnandhi can be derived from gamanashrama, which is the 53rd mELakarthA rAgam, by removing the panchamam in both ArOHanam and avarOHanam. If we further remove the rishabham from both ArOHanam and avarOHanam we get sunAdhavinOdhini. By shifting the shadjam up by one svara sthAna, we get HindhOLam from sunAdhavinOdhini. The rAgam svarAs are given below (only the ArOHanam).

gamanashrama	S	R1	_	_	G3	_	M2	P	_	D2	_	N3	S+	R1+
HamsAnandhi	S	R1	_	_	G3	_	M2	_	_	D2	_	N3	S+	R1+
sunAdhavinOdhini	S	_	_	_	G3	_	M2	_	_	D2	_	N3	S+	_
HindhOlam	_	S	_	_	G2	_	M1	_	_	D1	_	N2	_	S+

Why did I bring in HindhOLam? There was an interesting rendition by Madurai T N Seshagopalan at IIT, Chennai during IIT's festival of arts and music (I forget the name, but it is not Mardi Gras or Sarang), sometime in Jan-Feb 1995. In that concert one of the rAgams he sang was HamsAnandhi, as part of rAgamAlika svaras following a rAgam thAnam pallavi. In that piece of HamsAnandhi he took everyone in the world of HindhOLam by singing the svaras without the shadjam.

R1 G3 M2 D2 N3 in the above table clearly occupies the same relative svara sthanas as S G2 M1 D1 N2.

Seshagopalan's rendition of the 5 svaras R1 G3 M2 D2 N3 was brilliant with control and lot of variation which brought out a wonderful effect and tickled the spine. After about 1 minute on just these 5 svaras he brought in the shadjam with a dramatic effect, that not only thrilled theorists, but evoked a roaring response from the whole crowd as well.

These kinds of innovations are just a few and far in between, but they are definitely worth a wait.

K J Yesudas and rAgam-thAnam-pallavi

Refer Carnatic Concert Notes page for this piece.

More to come . . .

Keep an eye on this page. I will try to update this page on a regular basis with more. Email me if you like to discuss any of the theoretical bits or the tidbits I have placed in these pages.