From 12 musical notes to 16 svaras in Carnatic music — the brilliance of Venkatamakhi

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KavyaVriksha

12 min readJul 26, 2022

When we listen to this beautiful and composition by Dikshithar in the rare raga Dhavalangam, we immediately realize there is something unusual in its haunting melody.

In this lecdem, Prof S R Janakiraman shares an intriguing explanation that “Dhavalangam is a cross-pollination of the ragas Purvikalyani and Kamavardhini.” and elaborates that “the nishadha N1 the raga svara in Dhavalangam, would be the sthana svara(musical note position) D2 when played on an instrument.”

When we look at its ascent and descent, we realize it is the Raganga Raga 49

Dhavalangam : S R₁ G₃ M₂ P D₁ Ṡ — Ṡ N₁ D₁ P M₂ G₃ R₁ S which is essentially S R₁ G₃ M₂ P D₁ Ṡ-Ṡ D₂ D₁ P M₂ G₃ R₁ S.

Source: Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini by Subbarama Dikshithar

It is a vivaadi raga since the two Dhaivata svaras (D1 and D2) create a level of dissonance when sung consecutively together. It also explains why this raga Dhavalangam is an amalgam of PurviKalvani and Kamavardhni since it shares the same S R₁ G₃ M₂ P of both those ragas and the D1 of Kamavardhini and the D2 of PurviKalyani(transformed as its raga svara N1).

These extraordinary, vivaadi ragas like Dhavalangam hold the key to how the 12 musical notes got extended to 16 Carnatic music svaras. They have been a hotly debated topic amongst musicians and musicologists for the past century, with some musicians even going to the extent of refusing to sing them for superstitious reasons. This shunning of vivaadi ragas is baffling since Dikshithar has composed such hauntingly beautiful compositions in all the vivaadi Raganga ragas, many centuries ago. These compositions are a masterclass in handling vivaadi ragas and include concrete techniques to minimize the dissonance such as skipping the vivaadi note on ascent, usage of janta (doubling) and vakra(zigzag) svara patterns. Thankfully, a lot of this hesitation has been overcome in the latter half of the twentieth century and today, we hear the exposition of many vivaadi ragas.

Multiple foundational elements of Carnatic Music can be traced back to this monumental text — Chaturdandiprakshika authored around 1650, by Venkatamakhi, a brilliant musician, musicologist, composer and mathematician.

In her lecdem, Sumithra Vasudev summarizes the key contributions of Venkatamakhi and their link to the creation of Dikshithar’s lilting kritis in raganga ragas like Dhavalangam:

Venkatamakhi cemented a total of 12 musical notes and also formulated many of the alankarams that we still sing today
Venkatamakhi extended these 12 musical notes to 16 named svaras, thus establishing the permitted combinations of notes to result in 72 melas (40 of which are vivaadi); we still use the same mnemonics that he created for the svaras
Catalyst for the 72 mela framework; however, Venkatamakhi only named 19 melas that existed before or during his time; Venkatamakhi is said to have tested his hypothesis by discovering the mela simhavaram(which later became the 58 Raganga Raga Deshisimhavaram (equivalent to melakarta Hemavathi)
The rest of the melas resulting in the 72 Raganga Ragas were identified by Muddu Venkatamakhi who also named them according to the katapayadi formula (hence simhavaram was renamed to deshisimhavaram to yield its mela number 58)
Ramaswamy Dikshithar (father of Muthuswami Dikshithar) received a copy of the Chaturdandiprakashika manuscript from one of Muddu Venkatamakhi’s descendants. Hence Muthuswami Dikshithar studied it too and followed the Raganga Raga school and composed songs in those ragas, including songs in the vivaadi ragas.

As we know, Dikshithar includes the raga mudra(name of the raga) and these raga names in his compositions align with the raganga ragas.

For example, kusumadyuti in his kriti Kamakshi since sumadyuti is the name of the 57th Raganga Raga (equivalent melakarta’s name is Simhendramadhyamam).

In her article Muthuswami Dikshithar And Venkatamakhi’s Tradition, S Sita highlights the significance of the lyrics in Dikshithar’s kriti Sringara rasamanjarim :

dvisaptati raganga raga modinim matanga bharata vedinim

reference to the 72 raganga ragas in the kriti set to tune in the 72nd raganga raga Rasamanjari
reference to the authors of the key ancient music texts, namely Bharata (Natya Sastra with reference to the 7 musical notes ) and Matanga (Brhaddesi, earliest definition of a raga)

Svaras

Source:The Art and Science of Carnatic Music by Vidya Shankar

Source : http://openmusictheory.com/pitches.html and Wikipedia

We are aware of the same 12 musical notes in Indian Classical music as well as Western Classical music.

Explanation of Why Western music uses 12 notes and the importance of the interval between notes
Raina beeti jaye composer, R D Burman. We detect shades of raga Lalit; however, as Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty explains, this tune uses all 12 musical notes resulting in an uncanny blend of ragas Hindustani Todi (similar to Carnatic Shubapantuvarali) and Khamaj.

In this lecdem, Veena Sahasrabuddhe describes the three types of svaras, “natural” (Shudh svaras), komal(lower variation) and tivra(higher variation) svaras that can be found in Hindustani ragas.

raga Yaman (equivalent to Carnatic raga Kalyani) that has all shudh svaras except for tivra Ma
raga Bhairav (equivalent to Carnatic raga Mayamalavagaula) which has alternating shudh and komal svaras.

Carnatic music has different names for each of the svaras and some of the names reference srutis such as chatusruti rishabham.

Vidya Shankar indicates that there are multiple definitions for sruti, namely, “that which is heard, microtone, value of a note in relative frequency.”. [9]

Today, we also refer to sruti as the pitch of the tonic note Sa. Sruti and Svara(musical notes) are intertwined.

“Like the course of fish swimming in the water or of birds flying in the sky, śruti eludes identification, and can be reached only by effort, like the fire latent in wood or the curd in milk.” — Naradiyasiksa, translated by Hema Ramanathan[5]

The table below lists the svaras in Carnatic and Hindustani music and we see that Carnatic music has 16 named svaras for the underlying 12 musical notes.

And these svaras represented on the harmonium keys:

Origin of the vivaadi melas — a talk by M D Ramanathan

In this eloquent talk, on the occasion of Dikshithar’s bicentennial, M D Ramanathan explains the genesis of the vivaadi melas and also illustrates them melodiously with examples. Here is a rough translation of the key points related to this topic since the talk is in Tamil.

About 500 years ago, Vidyaranya mentions 15 melas(we know this from the text that has been found); they then grew to 19 prasiddha melas. It is surprising for us that vakra ragas like Sri, Kambodhi, Gaula were part of these melas. In those days, some of these ragas which were very well known were given the status of mela and rest of the ragas were placed as janyas under them. This Janaka-Janya paddhathi(system) grew and became more structured and ultimately, evolved into the 72 mela framework. This is a great feat. Venkatamakhi, the author of Chaturdandiprakashika had a major role in this.
Mela (sammelanam) means gathering/coming together. In this aspect, Mela refers to bringing together the seven svaras. Sa and Pa have no variation; the rest of the notes Ri, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni, each have two variations komal(lower) and tivra(higher). This results in 12 musical notes (2 +(5x2)). Their names in Carnatic music are Shadjamum, Suddha Rishabham, Chatusruti Rishabham, Sadharana Gandharam, Antara Gandharam, Suddha Madhyamam, Prati Madhyamam, Panchamam, Suddha Dhaivatam, Chatusruti Dhaivatam, Kaishiki Nishadam and Kakali Nishadam.
In today’s veena, these 12 svarasthanas(position of the svaras) occur one after another but when heard in sequence, it will not be pleasant. The reason for that is because these consecutive notes are very near (interval of 2 srutis). When this interval is longer 4,5,6,7,8 srutis, it is called anuvadi; when the interval is 9 or 13, it is called samvadi and this was determined by authors like Bharata in ancient texts, more than 3000 years ago.

Samvadi svaras are most pleasing to the ear, followed by Anuvadi (consonance); vivaadi is opposite of this(dissonance).
In mela prastara(musical notation), if only these 12 musical notes are employed, we will get 32 melas. Since Venkatamukhi packed 16 svaras into these 12 svarasthanas, four svarasthanas have dual names. Hence, as a result of extending these 12 musical notes to 16 svaras, 72 melas are obtained. Suddha Gandhara, Sudha Nishadha, Satsruti Rishabha, Satsruti Dhaivata become vivaadi svaras. The melas that have one or two of these vivaadi svaras are called vivaadi melas. They are total of 40 vivaadi melas.
Tyagaraja and Dikshithar have composed beautiful songs with tremendous skill in many of these vivaadi melas and their rare janya ragas. Dikshithar has leveraged more prati madhyama vivaadi melas(with higher Ma) and he has included the raga mudra in these kritis, as he usually does in each kriti. Syama Sastri has not composed in these vivaadi melas.
These composers have all created great songs in the ragas Nattai and Varali. In these ragas, since they have handled the vivaadi svaras in varja(omitting) and vakra(zigzag) prayogas(phrases) and employed sukshma(delicate and precise) gamakas(svara movement and oscillations), the vivaditvam(dissonance) is reduced and the ranjitvam(pleasantness) increases.
In Tyagaraja’s Pancharatna Kritis, Jagadanandakaraka (Nattai) and Kanakanaruchira(Varali) are very well known.

There are some with the opinion that we dont need any Vivaadi melas. But, that does not feel uccitam(reasonable). If those with robust gnana(knowledge, understanding) and abhyasa(practice) make a focused effort, we can see that they can handle these vivaadi ragas adequately like other ragas.

M D Ramanathan concludes by saying that he has encapsulated the key information related to Dikshithar and Vivaadi melas in the allotted 30 min time. He adds that since this is such a vast topic that can be discussed for 30 hours or even 30 days, this was like trying to fit an elephant into a small cave!

A painting of Venkatamakhi by S Rajam; Source:guruguha.org

Venkatamakhi’s Innovation

A fascinating insight about Venkatamkhi is that he also authored a work on trigonometry as mentioned by S. Sita in Venkatamakhi-and-72 Melakarta. This mathematical expertise helps explain why Venkatamakhi went far beyond explaining about the ragas prevalent in his time to creating a theoretical framework for raga classification that still exists today.

V Raghavan asserts that Venkatamakhi stipulated “that all possible raga varieties could be brought under 72 major and parent modes called Mela ragas and their derivatives being called janya ragas.” [1, page 101]

It is no wonder that so many eminent musicologists hail his work Chaturdandiprakashika as one of the most important Indian Music historical texts.

In her lecdem, Sumithra emphasizes multiple times that Venkatamakhi always kept the musical performance aspects in mind and did not solely focus on theory. This can be seen from the table below with the names of the svaras in Lakshana(theory) and in Lakshya(performance, in a particular raga). (Please note that the Mukhari that Venkatamakhi refers to is not the Mukhari that we hear today but the Mukhari during his time, Also, Venkatamukhi refers to Panchasruti Ri and Dha and now, the notes in use are Chatusruti Ri and Dha.)

Source:Venkatamakhi-and-72Melakarta by S Sita

**From 12 musical notes to 16 Carnatic Music Svaras**

Sumithra shared Venkatamakhi’s cool analogy to help us understand how the same musical note has two different names : “when there are 4 siblings, the eldest and the youngest are always referred to as the eldest and youngest. However, the middle two siblings can each be referred to in two different ways : the second sibling is older than the third and younger than the first and similarly the third sibling is older than the fourth and younger than the second!”

Similarly, as you can see from the image above, when we take Ri and Ga, the highest G and lowest r are only referred to G3 and r1 while the in between notes R and g can be referred to by different names depending on the the raga they are in.

Sumithra Vasudev explains in her Lecdem on Chaturdandiprakashika, that its 10 chapters are logically arranged with the critical Mela chapter being the fourth chapter; before it, the foundation is laid starting with the first chapter on Vina, second on Sruti, third on Svara. After the Mela chapter, comes the chapter on Ragas. And after that, the chapters focus on performance aspects of what is sung based on a Raga such as Ālāpa(precursor to Raga Alapana or improvisation of a raga), Ṭhāya(precursor to Tanam), and composition genres of Gīta and Prabandha. The final chapter on Tala is unfortunately not available. Since Venkatamakhi states upfront that he will be writing on these 10 specific chapters, it is known that the tenth chapter was on Tala though it has not been found.

S Sita adds : “The fact that Venkatamakhi opened his work with a chapter on vina proves its paramount importance in defining the svara system of the scales. The instrument was not only used during the author’s time for performing the chaturdandi compositions, gita, alapa, thaya and prabandha, the four-fold channels of raga expression but was mainly the instrument that helped to solve the confusing svara nomenclature. The 12 svara systems as obtaining in the modern fretting is based not on the equal, but on the approximate semi-tonal difference between them. The Sampradaya Pradarsini is the monumental source material for tracing the history of music since the period of Venkatamakhi. The credit of having recorded the theoretical knowledge and musical practice available during his time goes to Subbarama Dikshitar(grand-nephew of Muthuswami Dikshithar).”[2]

From Venkatamakhi’s hypothesis to the 72 Raganga Ragas and later 72 melakartas

Though he formulated the foundation for the 72 melas, Venkatamakhi only named 19.

R Hemalatha explains how our current mela schemes emerged:, “Two lists of names for the 72 melas have come down in history. One school of thought (Venkatamakhi) seems to have been content with assigning the mela the name of the most prominent or popular raga classified under it. This raga is referred to as a raganga-raga. With respect to raganga ragas in the mela system, the term is used by only a particular school of thinkers in the post Venkatamakhi period. This school of thinkers is represented by Muddu Venkatamakhi, whose lakshanas of the 72 mela ragas and the janya ragas are available in a Raga Lakshanam text appended to the Chaturdandiprakasika, published by the Madras Music Academy. The names of the 72 raganga-ragas, Kanakambari-Rasamañjari are associated only with the compositions of Muttusvami Dikshithar and his followers. (Please note that in Wikipedia these ragas are mis-named as Asampurna melakartas; they are not melakartas, they are Raganga Ragas and they were considered to be Sampurna since they contain all 7 notes in the combination of ascent+descent.)
The other school (Govindacharya)seems to have carried the identification of mela with raga to a greater extent. In this school, the raga which gives its name to the mela is called melakarta. Taking all the svaras continuously in ascent, as well as in descent, must be permissible in a melakarta. The nomenclature starting with Kanakangi as the first and Rasikapriya as the 72nd melakarta, has come to stay” [Ragangaragas in Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini, by R Hemalatha] It is interesting to note that the corresponding Raganga raga is noted as the first janya of each melakarta.

N Ramanathan maps the 19 melas named by Venkatamakhi to the 72 mela scheme.

Caturdandiprakasika of Venkatamakhi: A Note, by N Ramanathan

And hence we see that the Mukhari that Venkatamakhi refers to is equivalent to first Raganga Raga Kanakambari. We also see that the original Pantuvarali is mapped to today’s Subhapantuvarali and the raga Suddharamakriya to today’s Kamavardhini. This explains why in his elaboration about Dhavalangam as a “cross pollination of Purvi Kalyani and Kamavardhini”, S R Janakiraman says he will will only call it Kamavardhini or Ramakriya and never call it Pantuvarali!