Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c7.10

c7.10

Nomenclature of Rāgas: As Nārada has remarked, ‘curious, indeed, are the names of Rāgas’.¹ If we study their names we find three distinct phases. At the first stage, about the time of the Nāṭya-Śāstra the melodies took their names from the dominant or significant note prevailing in their compositions. Thus, one of the grāma-rāgas is called Ṣaḍjī, from the note Ṣaḍja; Ārṣabhī, from the note Ṛṣabha, Gāndhārī, from the note Gāndhāra, and so on. The last-named melody still survives in current practice. The name ‘Madyamādi’ (now regarded as a rāgiṇī of Bhairava) is so-called as it begins with the note ‘Madhyama’ (F). Vibhāṣā, originally a generic name for a class of derivative melodies (a sub-division of bhāṣās) now survives as a proper name for a rāgiṇī. In the second stage, the melodies derived their names from the ancient tribes inhabiting various parts of India. Thus the Śakas, the Pulindas, the Ābhīras, the Savars, and the Bhairavas² appear to have lent their names to the following rāgas: Śaka-rāga (with variants called Śaka-tilaka, Śaka-miśrita), Pulindi-rāga, Ābhīrī, Sāverikā (Sāvirī) and Bhairava-rāga. Three of the earliest rāgas, (a) Mālava (with its derivatives Mālavikā, Mālavaśrī, Mālava-pañcama, Mālava-vesara, Mālava-kaiśika,³ vulgarized into Mālkausa), (b) Āndhrī, and (c) Gūrjarī, may have come from the ancient tribes known as the Mālavas, the Andhras, and the Gurjaras respectively. As is well-known, the Mālavas the *Goths*, the *Vandals*, the *Suevi*, the *Burgundians*, the *Alani*, the *Huns*, the *Franks*, the *Saxons*, the *Thuringians*, the *Rugians*, and the *Heruli*. The names of these tribes are familiar to the reader, but their origin, their migrations, and their settlements are involved in the deepest obscurity. The most probable opinion is that they were all of German or Scythian extraction, and that they had been driven from their native seats by the pressure of the Huns, a formidable nation of Tartars, who had crossed the Volga and the Tanais, and were advancing with rapid strides towards the frontiers of the Roman empire.