a) What is Murchana in ancient Indian music? Explain it in your words.

b) explain about Mel classification and Thaat Raag classification

C) Ancient Murchana and modern Mel/ Thaat systems have an inter relationship, give your own
ideas mentioning the similarities and dissimilarities

a. Firstly, let us talk about how Murchana came to be in the world of Indian music. In the
beginning we hear naada and from that naada, we can break it down to shruthi, from
that shruthi we bring out swara from said swara, we can bring out grama, and from
graama, we finally can talk about Murchana. Before looking into what murchana is we
first have to look into what graama is in Indian music. Grama literally means a
civilization. It is a combination of swara,shruthi and murchana. It is the interrelated
characteristics between them. In the 17th century, Pandit Ahobal, who was the author of
Sangeet Parijat had this to say about graama.

“ a group of notes or swara is called graama. There are 3 types of swara which
are known as shadja grama, Madhyama grama and Gandara grama”

In these three types of grama, both shadja and madhyama gramas were commonly used
and gandara grama slowly vanished away since they believed that the gandara grama
belonged to the gods. In bharathi music, there are 2 types. Desha and marga, where
desha means ‘belonging to the people’ and marga means ‘belonging to the gods’.
Desha music had shadja grama and Madhyama grama while Marga music had Gandara
grama. Let us look into one such Graama.

Shadja Grama

According to Pandit Saranga Deva in his book Sangeet Ratnaakaraya, ‘Sa’ is believed to
be the starting Swara in the Shadja Grama(as the name suggests). Its characteristics
are as follows,

I. Sa, Ma and Pa carry 4 shrutis ( shruti- a small measurement of pitch, lesser

values than of the semitone system)
II. Ri and Dha carry 3 shrutis
III. Ga and Ni carry 2 shrutis

A similarity is shared between the shadja grama and the kafi rag because in both, Ga
and Ni are komala. And this is to be sung in the mornings of winters. Also, the consonant
pairs of this grama are known to be,

(Sa and Pa) (Ri and Dha) (Ga and Ni) (Ma and Sa)
After such derivations had come along, we arrived at murchana, where it was considered
a most important concept in ancient music. Sangeet Ratnakar of Sharang dev defined
what murchana was.
“Kramat Swarana Saptakanam Arohasch Avrohanam”

Which translates and derives into,

“The arohana and avarohana of 7 swaras or the recitation of swaras in ascending
and descending order is known as Murchana”

Murchana order basically starts from one note and finishes by ascending and
descending. To start another, it basically drops itself down one swara and does it again.

Eg: S R G M P D N S N D P M G R S
N(Mandra) S R G M P D N D P M G R S N(Mandra)
Also;

M P D N S R G M G R S N D P M (BOLD-Mandra)
Since there are 7 swaras in each scale, there are 7 murchanas for each scale. Ancient
murchanas were produced out of Gramas. That is why I thought it was important to
share about Graama in this question since each graama had 7 murchanas. Also, as I
mentioned above, these murchanas were ordered in the descending manner shown
above.

There were 7 murchanas to each Graama. Since there are 3 Gramas as mentioned
earlier, there is a total combination of 21 murchanas. But, after Gandhara graams
disappearance, the total number came down from 21 to 14 murchana and all 14
murchana were given names.

Murchana became important later for the harmony of Raga. From murchana, the 72
‘mela’ was born and Pandit Bhathkande made 10 thaat.
b. Let's first look into how the mela system was brought into place by Pandit Lochan and
how the That system was brought out by Pandit Bathkande in the 20th Century. Let's
look into why we needed the mela system. Before the mela system came into place,
there was another classification system known as the Raga Ragini Classification(4th to
19th centuries) since there wasn’t any form to classify Raga, this classification was born
(male classification and female classification)

According to ancient beliefs, 5 main raga were born from the Pancha Mukha Lord of
Shiva and the 6th Raag was born from the goddess Pravathi(Lord Shiva’s wife). In the
9th century, Narad Muni’s Sangeeth Makarand treatise has given 3 Raag classifications
as,
● Purusha Raag
● Sthree Raag
● Napunsaka Raag

New Raags have said to be put into these categories according to what feelings they
brought out. For example, if the new Raag brought feelings of emotion and care, it was
put into Sthree Raag category. There were different opinions of raag ragini (widely
known as ‘matha’). These opinions were,
1. Shiva matha
2. Bharat matha
3. Kallinaat mata
4. Hanumat mata

In addition to varying opinions, Later it became untrue scientifically to categorize certain

new raag according to this system, so since this did not pan out accordingly, the mela
system was introduced by Pandit lochana. There were 12 mela and from it, 75 Raag
were created. Pandit Srinivas rejected the Raga Ragini and focused on helping Pandit
lochanas work on creating the mela system. ‘Mela’ is a combination of swara which is
capable of producing a raga. From there on, south indian scholar Pandit Vyankat
Mukkhi, the author of Chaaturdandi Prakshitha, mathematically systematized it and
introduced a 72 mela system, which carnatic musicians still use in their music.
The sapthak was divided into 2, known as Poorva Melardha and Apara Melardha.

Poorva Melardha Apara Melardha

SRGM PDNS

SRGM PDNS

SRGM PDNS

SRGM PDNS

SGGM PDDS

SRRM PNNS

By repeating the process mentioned above with all the poorva and apara melardha, 36
mela were created. And this is not all. As I mentioned earlier, there are a total of 72 mela
created. And this is how it was made.

Poorva Melardha Apara Melardha

S R G ‘M PDNS

S R G ‘M PDNS

S R G ‘M PDNS

S R G ‘M PDNS

S G G ‘M PDDS

S R R ‘M PNNS

By repeating the same system mentioned above, there were 72 mela created by Pandit
Vyankat Mukkhi. Another small form of classification is raaganga paddathi which was
classified according to the similar qualities between two raaga.

Various thaat was made from the mela we can see here on these charts.
Eg; Kalyaana thaat was made from the Major Kalyaana (65th mela)
Bilaawal thaat was made from Becra Shankaraabaranam
Khamaj thaat was made from Hari Khaambooj
 Now lets look at the thaat system brought out by Pandit Bathkande in the 20th Century.
If we look at how all this has come so far, we can see it all started from
NAADHA

SHRUTHI

SWARA

GRAAMA

MURCHANA

JATI

RAAGA RAGINI

MELA RAGA(RAAGANGAL)

72 MELA

THAAT 10

The most popular and the common Raaga come under the 10 thaat system. This is also known
as the ‘Janak Janya Paddathi’ where Janak means mother thaat and the Janya means Child
thaat. where ,

From the 10 thaat A main Raag was created from the main Raag,
creating Sub Raags were
created having similar
characteristics.
For example; the allahiya bilaawal raag was created from the Bilaawal Raag
C.
When we start to compare the ancient Murchana system and the modern day mela/thaat
systems, we are certain to see many similarities and differences. This is due to the fact
that they are both systems to overlook the raag system and since evidently, mela and
thaat came from the birth of murchana years before, we are bound to see many
similarities and differences.
Firstly let us look into the similarities we can see when we research these two systems.
Both murchana and mela/thaat systems have swaras going in the ascending and
descending orders. When we look at ancient murchana systems and some examples of
it, we see from “uttaramanda” to “abhirudgutaa” murchanas that the arohana and
avarohana style is peasant. When we compare that to the mela and thaat systems of the
modern day, we see that they both have ascending and descending forms.

Another similarity we can identify is that they both consist of the 7 swaras. In both
murchana and mela/thaat systems it is required to have all 7 swaras present in order to
be complete. Since all swaras give out a specific feeling in each note, it is required to
make raagas.

A final similarity i would like to share is that it is not meant to be a performance, or, it is
not pleasing to the ear of the listener, in short, there is no melodic beauty or an image
cannot be created by simply singing a murchana or a mela/thaat. It is what they produce
that becomes a masterpiece. This is merely a guide to harness the potential of what
those murchana and thaat/mela can be. So in short, I would like to present these cases
to be the focal points of this answer.

Now let's move on to the differences we can identify when looking at ancient murchana
and mela/thaat systems. The first difference I would like to point out is how murchana
starts on the note given. For example,
“If the note given in the murchana is
(mandra) M, {MANDRA NOTES IN BOLD}
The Murchana goes like this;
(Mandra) M P D N S R G M G R S N D P M”
As to how a mela/thaat system runs is completely opposite. A mela/thaat system has a
key starting swara, the “shadjaya” or “sa”, no matter what key you are in, the tonic note
of that key, becomes or takes the image of tonic note. That tonic note becomes “Sa” no
matter what.
Another difference is the sheer number of murchana and the number of mela/thaat.
There are 56 murchana in history and when we look at thaat, there are 10 major thaat
and 72 melas. So this amount can be considered another difference in these two
systems.

These similarities and differences are what make them unique and important. So I
believe all these systems were important for the stature of Indian music.