Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.306

c6.306

While Svara-kalā-nidhi cites 20 melas, (generic melodies which unify the derivatives under a genus-species system), Rāga-vivodha cites 23 mela-kartā rāgas; by the time of Govinda Dikṣit, 72 melas had been evolved. Though the system of Melakartās had been in existence before, Dikṣit gives it an emphatic status, and appears to have codified it, and given it a proper name, calling it, after the name of his patron, as ‘Raghunātha-mela’. The author is said to have introduced some new rāgas, e.g., Jayanta-sena and others.¹