Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c5.22

c5.22

and a stated time of the day for its performance. It is a common practice, after singing an air in a Rāga, to improvise a series of free fantasia passages each returning in due course to a characteristic snatch of the melody, only to wander off again in still more elaborate variations. The whole performance must be "within the Rāga," that is, without transgression of the elaborate rules governing its structure."