Asampurna Melakarta
Musical system in Carnatic music
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Later Govindacharya came up with a more mathematical and regular system of 72 ragas, which is currently considered fundamental ragas (musical scales) in Carnatic music (South Indian classical music). These melakarta ragas were sampurna ragas. Some of the names of the ragas had to be modified to fit into the Katapayadi system.
Rules for Melakarta
In the Asampurna Melakarta system, there is no set rule for the ragas in contrast to the currently used system of Melakarta ragas. Some ragas though are the same in both systems (like 15 - Mayamalavagowla and 29 - Dheerasankarabharanam), and in some cases the scales are same, while names are different (like 8 - Janatodi and Hanumatodi, 56 - Chamaram and Shanmukhapriya).
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History
The mela system of ragas was first propounded by Raamamaatya in his work Svaramelakalanidhi c. 1550. He is considered the father of mela system of ragas. Later Venkatamakhin expounded in the 17th century in his work Caturdandi Prakaasikaa a new mela system known today as melakarta. He had made some bold and controversial claims and defined somewhat arbitrarily 6 swaras from the known 12 semitones, at that time, to arrive at 72 melakarta ragas. The controversial parts relate to double counting of R2 (and similar swaras) and his exclusive selection of madyamas for which there is no specific reasoning (also known as asampurna melas as opposed to sampurna ragas). However, today the 72 melakarta ragas use a standardized pattern, unlike Venkatamakhin's pattern, and have gained significant following. Govindhacharya is credited with standardization of rules and giving a different name for such standard ragas, which have different structure but same swaras as that proposed by Venkatamakhin. The scales in this page are those proposed by Govindhacharya.
Chakras
The 72 melakarta ragas are split into 12 groups called chakras, each containing 6 ragas. The ragas within the chakra differ only in the dhaivatham and nishadham notes (D and N), as illustrated below. The name of each of the 12 chakras suggest their ordinal number as well.
- Indu stands for the moon, of which we have only one - hence it is the first chakra.
- Netra means eyes, of which we have two - hence it is the second.
- Agni is the third chakra as it denotes the three agnis or the holy fires (laukikaagni - earthly fire, daavaagni - lightning, and divyaagni - the Sun).
- Veda denoting four Vedas or scriptures namely Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda is the name of the fourth chakra.
- Bana comes fifth as it stands for the five banas of Manmatha.
- Rutu is the sixth chakra standing for the 6 seasons of Hindu calendar.
- Rishi, meaning sage, is the seventh chakra representing the seven sages.
- Vasu stands for the eight vasus of Hinduism.
- Brahma comes next of which there are 9.
- The 10 directions, including akash (sky) and patal (nether region), is represented by the tenth chakra, Disi.
- Eleventh chakra is Rudra of which represents the eleven names of Lord Shiva.
- Twelfth comes Aditya of which stands for the twelve names of Lord Surya or the Sun God.
Melakarta table
The 72 melakarta ragas can be divided into two parts: suddha Madhyamam and prati Madhyamam ragas. See Katapayadi sankhya for more information on how to derive the various swaras of a raga from its melakarta number. See swaras in Carnatic music for explanation of the notations like R1, G2, N2, etc.
Popular Melakarta scheme
Govindacharya learnt the 72 ragas scheme above of Venkatamakin and later proposed the symmetrical scales that is more in vogue today in terms of the official Melakarta scheme.