Raga
[13] The term also connotes an emotional state referring to a "feeling, affection, desire, interest, joy or delight", particularly related to passion, love, or sympathy for a subject or something.
[15][17] The term rāga is also found in ancient texts of Buddhism where it connotes "passion, sensuality, lust, desire" for pleasurable experiences as one of three impurities of a character.
[23] The Brihaddeshi describes rāga as "a combination of tones which, with beautiful illuminating graces, pleases the people in general".
[26] Bharata describes a series of empirical experiments he did with the Veena, then compared what he heard, noting the relationship of fifth intervals as a function of intentionally induced change to the instrument's tuning.
His methods of experimenting with the instrument triggered further work by ancient Indian scholars, leading to the development of successive permutations, as well as theories of musical note inter-relationships, interlocking scales and how this makes the listener feel.
[32] Indian classical music has ancient roots, and developed for both spiritual (moksha) and entertainment (kama) purposes.
[36] Some of its ancient texts such as the Sama Veda (~1000 BCE) are structured entirely to melodic themes,[33][37] it is sections of Rigveda set to music.
[38] The rāgas were envisioned by the Hindus as manifestation of the divine, a musical note treated as god or goddess with complex personality.
[29] During the Bhakti movement of Hinduism, dated to about the middle of 1st millennium CE, rāga became an integral part of a musical pursuit of spirituality.
It includes two or more musical instruments,[41][42] and incorporates various rāgas such as those associated with Hindu gods Shiva (Bhairav) or Krishna (Hindola).
[43] The early 13th century Sanskrit text Sangitaratnakara, by Sarngadeva patronized by King Sighana of the Yadava dynasty in the North-Central Deccan region (today a part of Maharashtra), mentions and discusses 253 rāgas.
[51][52] The Buddha discouraged music aimed at entertainment to monks for higher spiritual attainment, but encouraged chanting of sacred hymns.
[53] The various canonical Tripitaka texts of Buddhism, for example, state Dasha-shila or ten precepts for those following the Buddhist monkhood.
[53] A rāga is sometimes explained as a melodic rule set that a musician works with, but according to Dorottya Fabian and others, this is now generally accepted among music scholars to be an explanation that is too simplistic.
According to them, a rāga of the ancient Indian tradition can be compared to the concept of non-constructible set in language for human communication, in a manner described by Frederik Kortlandt and George van Driem;[56] audiences familiar with raga recognize and evaluate performances of them intuitively.
[57] In 1784, Jones translated it as "mode" of European music tradition, but Willard corrected him in 1834 with the statement that a rāga is both modet and tune.
According to Walter Kaufmann, though a remarkable and prominent feature of Indian music, a definition of rāga cannot be offered in one or two sentences.
[6] A musician playing a rāga, states Bruno Nettl, may traditionally use just these notes but is free to emphasize or improvise certain degrees of the scale.
Theoretically, thousands of rāga are possible given 5 or more notes, but in practical use, the classical tradition has refined and typically relies on several hundred.
[62] The goal of a rāga and its artist is to create rasa (essence, feeling, atmosphere) with music, as classical Indian dance does with performance arts.
"[64] Nazir Jairazbhoy, chairman of UCLA's department of ethnomusicology, characterized rāgas as separated by scale, line of ascent and descent, transilience, emphasized notes and register, and intonation and ornaments.
[66] These are envisioned to parallel the god-goddess themes in Hinduism, and described variously by different medieval Indian music scholars.
In the Meskarna system, the masculine and feminine musical notes are combined to produce putra rāgas called Harakh, Pancham, Disakh, Bangal, Madhu, Madhava, Lalit, Bilawal.
This idea of aesthetic symbolism has also been expressed in Hindu temple reliefs and carvings, as well as painting collections such as the ragamala.
Music is discussed as equivalent to the ritual yajna sacrifice, with pentatonic and hexatonic notes such as "ni-dha-pa-ma-ga-ri" as Agnistoma, "ri-ni-dha-pa-ma-ga as Asvamedha, and so on.
[88] However, the Gandhara-grama is just mentioned in Natyashastra, while its discussion largely focuses on two scales, fourteen modes and eight four tanas (notes).
The North Indian style is closer to the Western diatonic modes, and built upon the foundation developed by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande using ten Thaat: kalyan, bilaval, khamaj, kafi, asavari, bhairavi, bhairav, purvi, marva and todi.
[93] Recently, a 32 thaat system was presented in a book Nai Vaigyanik Paddhati to correct the classification of ragas in North Indian style.
[citation needed] In Carnatic music, the principal rāgas are called Melakarthas, which literally means "lord of the scale".
Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna who has created raga in three notes[97] Ragas such as Mahathi, Lavangi, Sidhdhi, Sumukham that he created have only four notes,[98] A list of Janaka Ragas would include Kanakangi, Ratnangi, Ganamurthi, Vanaspathi, Manavathi, Thanarupi, Senavathi, Hanumatodi, Dhenuka, Natakapriya, Kokilapriya, Rupavati, Gayakapriya, Vakulabharanam, Mayamalavagowla, Chakravakam, Suryakantam, Hatakambari, Jhankaradhvani, Natabhairavi, Keeravani, Kharaharapriya, Gourimanohari, Varunapriya, Mararanjani, Charukesi, Sarasangi, Harikambhoji, Sankarabharanam, Naganandini, Yagapriya, Ragavardhini, Gangeyabhushani, Vagadheeswari, Shulini, Chalanata, Salagam, Jalarnavam, Jhalavarali, Navaneetam, Pavani.
