If ever there was an artistic approach to theory of music, well, it can be said to be the concept of defining a raga and its constituents through a verse/song called ‘Lakshana Geetam.’
Very much in keeping with the ancient system of propagating knowledge through oral tradition, memory and reproduction, our ancestral musicologists believed in ‘Lakshya pradhana geetha shastram’, where the ‘lakshya’ (composition/song) is life and ‘lakshana’ derived out of the former, is the body of art. The musical composition is an ordained faculty; the incidental grammar and technical aspects that form the body of the composition is musicology, ie. lakshana. It covers the entire gamut: shades of swara (solfa syllables) and gamaka (oscillating notes), correct intonation, distinctive musical phraseology, right tempo, rhythmic subtleties and so on.
Our Indian system of music believes in supplementing and not supplanting as far as teaching through the ages goes.
This very aesthetic way of bringing the disciple’s mind to the syntax of a raga was through making him/her learn and sing ‘lakshana geeta’ which incorporates a basic analysis and composition of a particular raga within the construction of a song (geetam). A ‘lakshana geeta’ highlights the characteristic of the ragas — Janaka and Janya (parent and offshoot).
The lyric or sahitya of the ‘lakshana geeta’ describes the lakshana of the raga to which this ‘geetam’ is set.
The sahitya is not devotional like that of the normal ‘geetam’ or ‘kirtana’ or ‘kriti’; instead it details in an alliterative, poetic manner, the raga’s contours, its ‘moorchana’, (flow of syllables), ‘vakra swara’ (odd note) if any, the ‘graha’ (starting note), ‘nyasa’ (ending note) , ‘jeeva, amsa swara’, the origin of the raga (parent if it is a ‘janya raga lakshana geeta’), the type of raga-audava, shadava or sampoorna, its classification, all of which in toto contribute to the essential characteristics of a raga. Almost all raga have a ‘lakshana geeta’ assigned to them.
An instance of a lakshana geeta/sloka of the raga Tharangini penned around 1700-1750 AD (in ‘Raaga lakshana anubandha’ of Caturdandi Prakashika musical treatise), not only shows the antiquity of our musical grammar but also illuminates the of Tarangini: ‘poornastarangini’, ‘raagarohe’, ‘ri-ga-varjitha’, ‘avarohe’, pa-dha-ni-dha, ri-ga-ma-ga-ri samyutha, gaayathe sarva kaleshu, sa graha cauchyathe budhaiah|| It simply means the raga Tarangini is ‘sampoorna’ (takes all the seven notes in both ascent and descent), it drops the rishabha (ri) and gandhara (ga) notes in the ascent (aarohana) and ropes in the panchama, daivatha, nishada (pa-dha-ni-dha) phrase along with rishabha, gandhara, madhyama, (ri-ga-ma-ga-ri) order in the descent (avarohana), the nishadha and madhyama are vakra (odd notes); its shadja (Sa) as graha swara (starting note) can be sung at all times and this is a raaganga raga of the 26th melakarta ( Charukesi).
Later versions have changed this lakshana geeta but that is not of consequence here.
