Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c8.67

c8.67

Since, *rāgas* connote different and differentiated states of feelings, or emotive flavours (*rasas*), Indian theorists lay great stress on their relative difference in note-structures, corresponding to their relative emotive significances. A correct apprehension of the form of an individual *rāga*, therefore, involves an accurate understanding of its differences from cognate and other forms of related *rāgas*. The grouping and classification of *rāgas*, according to some principles or other, have, therefore, provided important chapters in all ancient text-books. These principles have varied from time to time, and have led to a bewildering variety of catalogues, groups, and classifications. For the purpose of convenient comparisons, we have set out a large variety of groups, or classifications in tabulated forms, arranged as far as practicable in a chronological sequence in the Appendices, (a list of which is summarised on the page opposite). It is not always possible, without accurate informations as to the note-structures of *rāgas* current at different periods of evolution, to discover the principles on which *rāgas* have been grouped, or classified. Various principles of