Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.257

c6.257

Like Āmīr Khusrau, Akbar himself is credited with the introduction of many Persian melodies to the India rāgas of his time. According to the Akbarnāmā (Beveridge, Vol. J, p. 50), His Imperial Majesty had “composed over 200 of the old Khwarizmite tunes, especially the tunes of Jalasahi, Mahamir, Karat, and Nauroj, which were the delight of the young and the old.” We have no records of their musical characters, but the melody Nauroj, later sanskritized as “Navarocikā” still survives in current practice. The author of the Āīn-i-Akbarī devotes a chapter under heading Sungeet¹ where he cites certain data collected from some contemporary treatises. He mentions six rāgas or ‘musical modes’: Sree Rāg, Bussunt, Behrowng, Punchem, Megh, and Nutnārain. Under each rāga, he cites rāgiṇīs, which he describes not as rāgiṇīs, but as “Variations” of the rāgas. He refers to the two classes of songs marug (mārga) and deysee (deśī). And under the former he cites seven out of the melodies then current in the Deccan: sūrya-prakāś, pañca-taleśvara, sarvato-bhadra, candra-prakāśa, and rāga-kadamba.