Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.293

c6.293

work in the North, or in the South.¹ He classifies the melodies by selecting 23 melodies as major melodies (*pravartaka-rāga*) and Mela-kartās (‘unifiers’, or genuses), taking the Mukhārī as the Śuddha scale,² and derives the other melodies, by classifying them under one, or other of these 23 types or classes. He does not, however, give any exhaustive enumeration of all the melodies which he remarks are innumerable according to the various ancient schools (*mata*), and incidentally cites Matanga, Niśaḥnka, and *Rāgārṇava*, in his commentary (Ch. IV, pp. 1-3). He also cites the classification into six major rāgas, with five rāginīs each, making up a system of 36 rāgas, and also cites the classification of six rāgas, with five wives, and five sons each, making up a total of 66 melodies.³ He however follows the Carnatic system by devising a scheme of generic rāgas (*melas*), giving a system of 23 Mela-rāgas from which he derives the other melodies. (See Appendix 20).