The Chaturdandiprakashika (IAST: Caturdaṇḍīprakāśikā; "The Illuminator of the Four Pillars of Music") is a Sanskrit treatise written by the musicologist Venkatamakhin in the mid-17th century.
It introduced a theoretical melakarta system to classify and organise ragas in the Carnatic music tradition of India.
In Carnatic music, a mela is a scale of svaras in ascending order in a melodic unit forms the basis and gives birth to ragas.
While the concept of melas is said to have been introduced by Vidyaranya in the 14th century, and a number of other musicologists before Venkatamakhin had expounded on the subject, there was a lack of a standard work that systematically classified the ragas of classical music.
[3] The work led to the creation of the melakarta system of classification and the formulation of the 72 mela (or parent) ragas that are the foundation of the classical music of South India today.