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Mēḷakartā is a collection of fundamental musical scales (ragas) inCarnatic music (South Indian classical music).Mēḷakartā ragas are parent ragas (hence known asjanaka ragas) from which other ragas may be derived. Amelakarta raga is sometimes referred asmela,karta orsampurna as well, though the latter usage is inaccurate, as asampurna raga need not be amelakarta (take the ragaBhairavi, for example).
InHindustani music thethaat is the rough equivalent ofMelakartā. There are 10thaats in Hindustani music, though the commonly acceptedmelakarta scheme has 72 ragas.
Ragas must contain the following characteristics to be consideredMelakarta:
Themēḷa system of ragas was first propounded by Raamamaatya in his workSvaramelakalanidhi c. 1550. He is considered the father ofmela system of ragas. Later,Venkatamakhin, a gifted musicologist in the 17th century, expounded a newmela system known today asmēḷakarta in his workChaturdandi Prakaasikaa.[3] He made some bold and controversial claims and defined somewhat arbitrarily 6svaras from the known 12 semitones, at that time, to arrive at 72mēḷakarta ragas. The controversial parts relate to double counting of R2 (and similarsvaras) and his exclusive selection ofmadhyamas for which there is no specific reasoning (also known asasampurna melas as opposed tosampurna ragas). However, today the 72mēḷakarta ragas use a standardized pattern, unlike Venkatamakhi's pattern, and have gained a significant following. Govindhacharya is credited with the standardization of rules and known for giving different names for standard ragas that have a different structure but the same swaras as those proposed by Venkatamakhi.[3] The scales in this page are those proposed by Govindaacharya.
A hundred years after Venkatamakhin's time theKatapayadi sankhya rule came to be applied to the nomenclature of themēḷakarta ragas. Thesankhya associatesSanskrit consonants with digits. The digits corresponding to the first two syllables of the name of a raga, when reversed, give the index of the raga. Thus the scale of amēḷakarta raga can be easily derived from its name. The Sanskrit rule of “Sankhyānam vāmatò gatihi” means for arriving to digits, you read from right to left.
For example,Harikambhoji raga starts with syllablesHa andri, which have numbers 8 and 2 associated with them. Reversing them we get 28. Hence Harikambhoji is the 28th Mēḷakarta rāga. SeeKatapayadi sankhya for more details and examples.
Eachmēḷakarta raga has a differentscale. This scheme envisages the lower Sa (Keezh Shadja), upper Sa (Mael Shadja) and Pa (Panchama) as fixedswaras, with the Ma (Madhyama) having two variants and the remaining swaras Ri (Rishabha), Ga (Gandhaara), Dha (Dhaivata) and Ni (Nishaada) as having three variants each. This leads to 72 seven-note combinations (scales) referred to as theMēḷakarta ragas as follows.
There are twelvesemitones of the octave S, R1, R2=G1, R3=G2, G3, M1, M2, P, D1, D2=N1, D3=N2, N3 (seeswaras in Carnatic music for explanation of these notations). A melakarta raga must necessarily have S and P, one of the M's, one each of the R's and G's, and one each of the D's and N's. Also, R must necessarily precede G and D must precede N (krama sampūrṇa rāga). This gives 2 × 6 × 6 = 72 ragas. Findingmēḷakarta ragas is a mathematical process. By following a simple set of rules we can find the corresponding raga and the scale associated with it.
A raga which has a subset ofsvarās from aMēḷakarta raga is said to be ajanya (means born or derived from) of thatMēḷakarta raga. Every raga is thejanya of amēḷakarta raga.Janya ragas whose notes are found in more than onemēḷakarta raga are assigned (or associated) parentMelakarta based on subjective notions of similarity. This is obvious for ragas that have less than seven notes. For such ragas it can be associated with aMēḷakarta which has any of the different swaras in that position. For example,Hindolam has Rishabha and Panchama missing. Hence, it could be considered a janya ofTodi (also known asHanumatodi) which hasshuddha rishabha or withNatabhairavi which has achathushruti rishabha. It is popularly associated withNatabhairavi.
The 72Mēḷakarta ragas are split into 12 groups calledchakrās, each containing 6 ragas. The ragas within the chakra differ only in thedhaivatam andnishadam notes (D and N), asillustrated below. The name of each of the 12chakras suggest their ordinal number as well.[1][4]
These 12chakras were also established by Venkatamakhi.
The 72Mēḷakartā ragas can be divided into two parts,shuddha madhyama andprati madhyama ragas. When a givenshuddha madhyama raga's M1 is replaced by M2, we get the correspondingprati madhyama raga. SeeKatapayadi sankhya for more information on how to derive the variousswaras of a raga from itsmēḷakartā number.
Seeswaras in Carnatic music for explanation of the notations like R1, G2, N2, and so forth.
Muthuswami Dikshitar school followed a different set of scales as the 72Mēḷakarta ragas.[5] These were taught byVenkatamakhin.[3] Many of the scales wereasampurna (notsampurna ragas) because Dikshitar chose to follow the earlier established structure to mitigate ill-effects of usage of directvivadi swaras in the scales.[3]
