Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.313

c6.313

Passing over Harivallabha’s Hindī treatise (1653 A.D.) interesting only for its iconographic data, we come to the most important text of the South, the *Caturdaṇḍi prakāsikā* by Veṅkaṭamakh¹ the son of Govinda Dīkṣit. The work was composed about 1660 A.D., and offers a very pungent criticism of the *Svaramelakalānidhi*. The author develops the *melas* into as many as 72 different types.² These 72 *melas*, the author considered as final, and exhaustive. He had asserted that ‘even Śiva could not add to the 72 *melas*’.³ This challenge has however been taken up by a later theorist the nameless author of *Melādhikāra-lakṣaṇa*. Many musicians hold that 72 *melas* are not possible. Veṅkaṭamakhi’s system is based on the following 12 *sthānas*: (1) Ṣaḍja, (2) Śuddha-ṛṣabha, (3) Catu-śruti ṛṣabha=Śuddha-gāndhāra, (4) Ṣaṭ-śruti-ṛṣabha=Sādhāraṇa gāndhāra, (5) Antara-gāndhāra, (6) Śuddha-madhyama, (7) Pratimadhyama, (8) Pañcama, (9) Śuddha-dhaivata, (10) Catuśruti-dhaivata=Śuddha-niṣada, (11) Ṣaṭ-śruti-dhaivata=Kaiśika-niṣāda, (12) Kākali-niṣāda. “The point to be noticed about this scheme is that with these twelve *sthānas* allotting two for Ri, Ga, Ma, Dha, and Ni, we can have only 32 *melas* in all, and in fact that position has been taken by some of the musicians of the present day. But Veṅkaṭamakhi intended to provide for both the Ris, or Gas, or Dhas, or Nis, occurring in the same *mela*, and so he classified the same *sthāna* both as Ri, Ga, Ga; and as Dha, or Ni. Thus we get Śuddha-gāndhāra, Ṣaṭ-śruti-ṛṣabha, Śuddha-niṣāda, Catuḥ-śruti-dhaivata. Thus the seventy-two *melas* are made up”. (T. L. Venkatarama Iyer, in *Journal Music Academy*, Madras, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 42). He sets out a table of 19 *melas* (Appendix 24) which were current when he came into the field.⁴