It includes scenes featuring Western musicians Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison, as well as footage of Shankar returning to Maihar in central India, where as a young man he trained under the mentorship of Allauddin Khan.

In 2010, to coincide with celebrations for Shankar's 90th birthday, East Meets West Music released a fully remastered version on DVD, titled Raga: A Film Journey into the Soul of India.

[3] The latter term reflected the interest that had grown in the West for Indian music and its extended works, known as ragas, over 1966–67,[4] following the Beatles and other rock bands' adoption of the multi-stringed sitar into their sound.

[14][15] The film documents Shankar's concern that while old traditions were dying in India, they were simultaneously being misappropriated by America's youth culture,[16] particularly through many in the West choosing to associate Indian classical music with psychedelic drugs.

[22] The first of these titles referenced West Meets East, Shankar's 1966 album with American violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and the winner of the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

[24] Early in the film, Shankar travels by train to the Madhya Pradesh town of Maihar, to see his father-in-law and esteemed music teacher (or guru), Allauddin Khan,[26] known affectionately as "Baba".

[34] Raga includes footage of a pair of celebrated live performances by Shankar from 1967, a year that Lavezzoli describes as the "annus mirabilis" for Indian music in the West.

[36] The film shows Shankar and his companion Kamala Chakravarty[37][38] circulating among the crowd before his performance,[24] and American musicians Jerry Garcia and Jimi Hendrix among "the enthralled spectators" while he plays, according to Lavezzoli.

[45] Harrison joined Shankar in Madras in April 1968, following the Beatles' stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation ashram in Rishikesh,[46] but a bout of dysentery prevented him from participating in filming for Raga.

[50] While his immersion in Indian music had been the most significant factor behind Shankar's recent rise to international fame,[44][51][52] Harrison would later cite this visit to Esalen as presaging the end of his commitment to the sitar.

[62] Late in 1970,[nb 5] Harrison attended a special screening of the assembled footage and was so moved, according to Worth, that within days he offered the services of the Beatles' own Apple Films as a distributor.

[22][71] In response to a plea for assistance from Shankar, a Bengali by birth, Harrison set about organising the Concert for Bangladesh, held at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 1 August.

[20] Harrison helped promote the film, starting with an interview for New York's WPLJ Radio,[75] and he attended a press screening at Carnegie Hall Cinema on 22 November, along with former bandmate John Lennon and their wives.

[49] While Shankar attended the premiere there the following night, Harrison instead appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, discussing Raga and bemoaning the delay surrounding the release of the live album from the Concert for Bangladesh.

[85] Billboard's album reviewer commented on the packaging's "superb photo folio showing the sitarist's career" but said that, due to the fact that only portions of ragas were present, the soundtrack's "greatest attractiveness may be to those who see the movie or are Shankar collectors".

[88] When asked at the press conference for his and Shankar's 1974 North American tour whether the attendant publicity was likely to lead to a re-release for Raga in the US, Harrison expressed his hope that it would, but lamented that the restrictions imposed on cinema operators by film distributors were "like the way the record industry was ten years ago".

[93] Writing in Songlines magazine, Jeff Kaliss gave the Raga DVD a five-star review and described the film as an "honest, entertaining portrait of a maestro" that was "[as] satisfying musically as it is visually".