Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.85

c6.85

One is inclined, not without some diffidence, to place the text of the *Pañcama-sāra-saṃhitā*,² attributed to Nārada, after the *Saṅgīta-makaranda*. It has some archaic features, particularly in the peculiar absence of the Bhairava rāga.³ On the other hand, the allusions to names of some rāgas which distinctly bear the impress of later times (e.g. Koḍā, Kānoḍā, Sindhuḍā, Āsāvarī, Māhārāṭi etc.) tend to pull the date of the text towards a period, centuries later than the *Saṅgīta-makaranda*. This apparent contradiction may, perhaps, be explained by the fact that the melodies mentioned in this text were current, as suggested by the author, in an area embracing some parts of Rajputana, Guzerat, Cutch and the regions near the sea,⁴ that is to say, surviving in a small area, long after other developments had overtaken other musical centres of Northern India. The text evidently relates to musical theories prevalent in the North, at the time, and belongs to a period, when out of the large mass of floating melodies, six had been selected as major melodies