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Book Review
Ready reckoner on 'ragas'
RAGAS AT A GLANCE: S.R. Janakiraman, Edited by Kiranavali Vidya Sankar; Published by Srishti's Carnatica Pvt. Ltd., 10/4, Krishna Enclave, 16th Cross Street, Indiranagar, Chennai-600020. Price not mentioned.
THIS IS a sort of a ready reckoner on the ragas in Carnatic music current these days. These number about 300. For every raga the author has given the arohana and avarohana, the mela to which it belongs, its technical name, like its being an Audava or Shadava raga, antiquity of the raga, examples of the kritis in that particular raga and brief notes giving additional information or any controversy surrounding it.
What is a raga? Venkatamakhi defines it as one that creates happiness. This underlines the emotional basis of a raga. Every swara and raga has a mood — anger, happiness, sadness and so on.
There is no mention of this aspect of our music although in some cases it is mentioned that it is a rakthi raga. The author has in fact tried to tread a risky path when he says that music is an inexact science. When did music become a science and ceased to be an art?
No doubt help can be taken of some scientific aspect to understand or explain things in music but music itself remains an art, or rather a creative art that gives shape to one's emotional feelings.
Where science can be of help can be seen in the following: an octave, for example, between two Shadjas, contains any number of notes that the human ear can perceive. These can be defined scientifically as so many cycles per second and so on. But there ends the role of science.
All the notes that are perceived by the ear, called Srutis (that which is Srutam), are not suitable for Swaras (that which by themselves create happiness — Swayameva ranjayathi). Only 22 of these hundreds of notes have been found to be musically good. Since the swaras create happiness, the whole thing becomes a matter of emotion.
In fact it is the emotional basis of the ragas that is the backbone of our whole music system and a proper understanding of it can resolve many so-called differences.
The author says that everyone who has written a treatise seeks to set at rest or bring about a compromise between conflicting views and that he too has set out to do this. He has not been very successful in this because he has completely ignored the emotional basis of our music.
The following is an example: The number one entry is Abheri. He says while Dikshitar and Papanasam Sivan adhered to the old lakshana of its being a Natabhairavi janya with the Suddha dhaivatha, in practice the raga lakshana has changed with the Chathusruthi dhaivatha replacing the Suddha dhaivatha.
And that Thyagaraja's "Nagumomu" is now being sung in this new raga although "some" people still continue to sing it with the old lakshana. This is far from truth.
In olden days Bhairavi and Sri raga were melakartha ragas. All the ragas that were used to convey the sense of saranagathi were grouped under Bhairavi with only Suddha dhaivatha.
Among these ragas were Abheri and Amritavahini. Since "Nagumomu" is a song of total surrender and pleading to the Lord, it was composed in Abheri. Similar is the case with "Sri Rama Padama" in Amritavahini. These krithis should not be sung with Chathusruthi dhaivatha.
All the ragas that were used for conveying humour, sensuousness (sringara) and such other emotions were grouped under Sri raga. These included Abhogi, Sriranjani and Kamataka Devagandhari, which is a chatusruthi counterpart of Abheri. These ragas are not sung with Suddha dhaivatha.
Also, there was this vital difference between Bhairavi and Sri Raga melas. While Bhairavi and its group of ragas were sung or played with full gamakas, the gamakas for the Sri raga and its allied ragas were the minimum, i.e., just enough to ensure their Karnataka music nature.
If one realised this emotional background of the ragas it is easy enough to see that "Nagumomu" can never be sung in Karnataka Devagandhari and maintain that it is Abheri.
There is also no need to hide the fact that only Musiri Subrahmanya Iyer sang "Nagumomu" in Karnataka Devagandhari. It became very popular for a time. But people like Semmangudi continued to sing it in the raga in which it was composed.
After Balamurali's research and rendering of it in Abheri few people now sing it in the way Musiri did. The professor's note on this is not at all satisfactory.
There are some other drawbacks like no mention being made of Begada's peculiar madhyama and so on. Still, as a ready book of reference this is a handy volume.
G.D.
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