Udayaravichandrika is a rāgam in Carnatic music. It is an audava rāgam. It is a janya rāgam, as it does not have all the sevenswaras. The equivalent of Udayaravichandrika in Hindustani music is Dhani.
Structure and Lakshana
Udayaravichandrika is a symmetric rāgam that does not contain rishabham or dhaivatam. It is a pentatonic scale and is equivalent to the Minor Pentatonic Scale in Western Music. Its structure is as follows : The notes used in this scale sadharana gandharam, shuddha madhyamam, panchamam and kaisiki nishadham. Udayaravichandrika is considered a janya rāgam of Kharaharapriya, the 22nd melakarta rāgam, though it can be derived from other melakarta rāgams, Hanumatodi, Natabhairavi or Natakapriya, by dropping both rishabham and dhaivatam. Udayaravichandrika and SuddhaDhanyasi are closely related, so much that many performers treat the two as interchangeable. Some contemporary practitioners consider Shuddha Dhanyasi as more inflected, and Udayaravichandrika to be more in the Hindustani tradition with almost bare notes. Puritans, however, refer to the fact that Udayaravichandrika is an ancient raga in the Venkatamakhin tradition and was reputed to be created by Muthuswamy Dikshitar himself. However, at that time, it had kakali nishadam rather than the kaisiki nishadam of Suddha Dhanyasi. However, the Kaisaki nishadam is used in this topic making more towards Sudha Dhanyasi. The Udaya Ravichandrika, in its pure form should have the following arohana and avarohana: arohanam = avarohanam = In recent years this distinction seems to have blurred, and both ragas are considered roughly equivalent.
Popular compositions
Here are some popular kritiscomposed in 'suddha dhanyasi
This section covers the theoretical and scientific aspect of this rāgam.
''Graha bhedam''
Udayaravichandrika's notes when shifted using Graha bhedam, yields 4 other major pentatonic rāgams, namely, Mohanam, Hindolam, Madhyamavathi and Shuddha Saveri. Graha bhedam is the step taken in keeping the relative note frequencies same, while shifting the shadjam to the next note in the rāgam. See Graha bhedam on Mohanam for more details and illustration of this concept.
