Raga system

A raga in Carnatic music prescribes a set of rules for build a melody very similar to the Western concept of mode. It specify rules for actions up and down, the scale of which notes should figure more and which notes should be used more scarcely, which notes may be sung with gamaka, which phrases should be used, phrases should be avoid, and so on. In effect, it is a series of necessary musical events which must be observed, either absolutely or with a particular frequency.

In Carnatic music, the sampoorna ragas are classify into a method called the melakarta, which groups them according to the kinds of comments that they have. There are seventy-two melakarta ragas, thirty six of whose madhyama is sadharana, the residual thirty-six of whose madhyama is prati. The ragas are group into sets of six, called chakras group according to the supertonic and mediant scale degrees. There is a scheme known as the katapayadi sankhya to establish the names of melakarta ragas.

Ragas may be divided into two modules: janaka ragas and janya ragas. Janya ragas are subclassified into different categories themselves.