The Music of Hindostan c10.44

Language: English

c10.44

‘Altered’ modes. The words *chāyālaga* and *sālanka* mean different things. *Chāyālaga*, lit. ‘shadowy’, is used in the Panjab, and probably elsewhere, to mean a mode in which the B has been flattened (or the B♭ sharpened). *Sālanka* is not a Sanskrit word at all. It is a piece of *memoria technica*.¹ The seventy-two *melakartas* are divided into thirty-six with F♮, *Śuddhamadhyama*, and thirty-six with F♯, *Pratimadhyama*; and *Sālanka* is the first *melakarta* of the *Pratimadhyamas*. It therefore came to be used as a general term for any *Rāg* that had the F sharpened. At present *Chāyālaga* seems to be used in Hindostan for both the adventitious B♭ and F♯, and *Sālanka* similarly in the Carnatic. Simple instances would be:

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