Mēḷakarta is a collection of fundamental musical scales in Carnatic music. Mēḷakarta ragas are parent ragas from which other ragas may be generated. A melakartaraga is sometimes referred as mela, karta or sampurna as well, though the latter term is inaccurate, as a sampurna raga need not be a melakarta. In Hindustani music the thaat is equivalent of Melakarta. There are 10 thaats in Hindustani music, though the commonly accepted melakarta scheme has 72 ragas.
Rules for ''Mēḷakarta Ragas''
Ragas must contain the following characteristics to be considered Melakarta.
The ascending and descending scales must have the same notes
History
The mēḷa system of ragas was first propounded by Raamamaatya in his work Svaramelakalanidhi c. 1550. He is considered the father ofmela system of ragas. Later, Venkatamakhin, a gifted musicologist in the 17th century, expounded a new mela system known today as mēḷakarta in his work Chaturdandi Prakaasikaa. He made some bold and controversial claims and defined somewhat arbitrarily 6 svaras from the known 12 semitones, at that time, to arrive at 72 mēḷakarta ragas. The controversial parts relate to double counting of R2 and his exclusive selection of madyamas for which there is no specific reasoning. However, today the 72 mēḷakarta ragas use a standardized pattern, unlike Venkatamakhi's pattern, and have gained a significant following. Govindhacharya is credited with the standardization of rules and known for giving different names for standard ragas that have a different structure but the same swaras as those proposed by Venkatamakhi. The scales in this page are those proposed by Govindaacharya.
Determining the ''Mēḷakarta''
A hundred years after Venkatamakhin's time the Katapayadi sankhya rule came to be applied to the nomenclature of the mēḷakarta ragas. The sankhya associates Sanskrit consonants with digits. The digits corresponding to the first two syllables of the name of a raga, when reversed, give the index of the raga. Thus the scale of a mēḷakarta raga can be easily derived from its name. For example, Harikambhoji raga starts with syllables Ha and ri, which have numbers 8 and 2 associated with them. Reversing them we get 28. Hence Harikambhoji is the 28th Mēḷakarta rāga. See Katapayadi sankhya for more details and examples.
''Mēḷakarta'' scale
Each mēḷakarta raga has a different scale. This scheme envisages the lower Sa, upper Sa and Pa as fixed swaras, with the Ma having two variants and the remaining swaras Ri, Ga, Dha and Ni as having three variants each. This leads to 72 seven-note combinations referred to as the Mēḷakarta ragas as follows. There are twelve semitones of the octave S, R1, R2=G1, R3=G2, G3, M1, M2, P, D1, D2=N1, D3=N2, N3. A melakarta raga must necessarily have S and P, one of the M's, one each of the R's and G's, and one each of the D's and N's. Also, R must necessarily precede G and D must precede N. This gives 2 × 6 × 6 = 72 ragas. Finding mēḷakarta ragas is a mathematical process. By following a simple set of rules we can find the corresponding raga and the scale associated with it. A raga which has a subset of svarās from a Mēḷakarta raga is said to be a janya of that Mēḷakarta raga. Every raga is the janya of a mēḷakarta raga. Janya ragas whose notes are found in more than one mēḷakarta raga are assigned parent Melakarta based on subjective notions of similarity. This is obvious for ragas that have less than seven notes. For such ragas it can be associated with a Mēḷakarta which has any of the different swaras in that position. For example, Hindolam has Rishabha and Panchama missing. Hence, it could be considered a janya of Todi which has shuddha rishabha or with Natabhairavi which has a chathushruti rishabha. It is popularly associated with Natabhairavi.
''Chakras''
The 72 Mēḷakarta ragas are split into 12 groups called chakrās, each containing 6 ragas. The ragas within the chakra differ only in the dhaivatam and nishadam notes, as [|illustrated below]. The name of each of the 12 chakras suggest their ordinal number as well.
Indu stands for the moon, of which we have only one – hence it is the first chakra.
Nētra means eyes, of which we have two – hence it is the second.
Agni is the third chakra it indicates three kinds of Agni.So agni indicates 3rdChakra.
Vēda denoting four Vedas is the name of the fourth chakra.
Bāṇa comes fifth as it stands for the five Arrows of Manmatha.
Rutu is the sixth chakra standing for the 6 seasons of Hindu calendar, which are Vasanta, Greeshma, Varsha, Sharat, Hemanta and Shishira.
Rishi, meaning sage, is the seventh chakra representing the seven sages.
Disi Chakra indicates Ten directions. Hence it is 10th Chakra.
Eleventh chakra is Rudra of which there are eleven.
Twelfth comes Aditya of which there are twelve.
These 12 chakras were also established by Venkatamakhi.
Table of ''Melakarta'' ragas
The 72 Mēḷakarta ragas can be divided into two parts. viz.,. suddha Madhyama and prati Madhyama ragas. When a given suddha madhyama raga's M1 is replaced by M2, we get the corresponding prati madhyama raga. See Katapayadi sankhya for more information on how to derive the various swaras of a raga from its melakarta number. See swaras in Carnatic music for explanation of the notations like R1, G2, N2, etc.
Alternate ''Mēḷakarta'' scheme
school followed a different set of scales as the 72 Mēḷakarta ragas. These were taught by Venkatamakhin. Many of the scales were asampurna because Dikshitar chose to follow the earlier established structure to mitigate ill-effects of usage of direct vivadi swaras in the scales.
