Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.97

c6.97

This would be a convenient and appropriate place to notice the rāga data offered by the unpublished manuscript of the Nāṭya-locana, a compendium of dramaturgy of somewhat uncertain date, not earlier than the ninth century and not later than the thirteenth.² The rāgas enumerated in this text, offer some peculiar features, which suggest an early stage. They belong to a time, when the distinction between 'male' or 'female' rāgas had not come into existence. It purports to cite 44 rāgas, of which eight are stated to be śuddha rāgas, sixteen of the sālamka class (chāyā laga), and twenty-two are said to be sandhi rāgas.³ In the muti-