Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.287

c6.287

(3) It is generally asserted that this fanciful system of classification of dividing the melodies into groups of ‘families’, consisting liest to adopt this mode of classification. For, he builds his rāga-system on the earlier phase of ten major melodies, described as ten masculine rāgas: Śrī-rāga, Vasanta,, Pañcama, Bhairava, Kauśika, Megha-rāga, Naṭa-Nārāyaṇa, Hindolā, Dīpaka, and Haṃsaka. This classification he attributes to Nārada.¹ The author proceeds to give the contemplative verses (dhyāna) the verbal image of each masculine rāga, and then enumerates five wives for each, and four sons for each couple. (See Appendix 19).