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Shree ragam

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Shree ragam

Shree ragam is an ancient ragam in the Carnatic tradition. It is also written as Sri or Shri. This scale is a janya rāgam (derived scale), as it does not have all the seven swaras (musical notes) in the ascending scale. Shree is a janya rāgam of Kharaharapriya, the 22nd Melakarta rāgam. It is the last of the 5 Ghana rāgams of Carnatic music. It is a pleasing and popular rāgam. It is considered to be highly auspicious.

Contents

It is not related to the Hindustani raga, Shree. Notably, Carnatic Shree takes the lower madhyamam being a janya raga of Kharaharapriya.

Structure and Lakshana

Shree is an asymmetric rāgam that does not contain gāndhāram or dhaivatam in the ascending scale. It is a audava-vakra-sampurna rāgam (or owdava, meaning pentatonic in ascending scale), where vakra indicates the zig-zag nature of jumping notes in descending scale. Its ārohaṇa-avarohaṇa structure (ascending and descending scale) is as follows (see swaras in Carnatic music for details on below notation and terms):

  • ārohaṇa: S R2 M1 P N2 S
  • avarohaṇa: S N2 P M1 R2 G2 R2 S or S N2 P D2 N2 P M1 R2 G2 R2 S

    • This scale uses the notes chatushruti rishabham, sadharana gandharam, shuddha madhyamam, panchamam, chatushruti dhaivatam and kaisiki nishadam.

    Shree rāgam has been decorated with compositions by many composers. A few of the popular kritis are listed here.

  • The fifth Pancharatna Kriti Endaro mahanubhavulu composed by Tyagaraja in Telugu , the last of the 5 gems
  • Sami ninnekori, a Varnam by Karur Devudu Iyer in Telugu
  • Nama kumusumamula by Tyagaraja in Telugu
  • Yuktamu gAdu by Tyagaraja in Telugu
  • Sri Varalakshmi and Sri Kamalambikaye by Muthuswami Dikshitar in Sanskrit
  • Bhavayami Nanda and Reena Madadritha by Swathi Thirunal
  • Karuna Cheyvanenthu Thamasam Krishna by Irayimman Thampi
  • Karuna judu ninnu by Shyama Shastri in Telugu
  • Mangalam arul by Papanasam Sivan in Tamil
  • Vande Vasudevam by Annamacharya in Sanskrit

    • This section covers the theoretical and scientific aspect of this rāgam.

    Scale similarities

  • Madhyamavati is a rāgam which has a symmetric ascending and descending scale, which matches the ascending scale of Shree. Its ārohaṇa-avarohaṇa structure is S R2 M1 P N2 S : S N2 P M1 R2 S
  • Manirangu is a rāgam which has gāndhāram in the descending scale, while all other notes in both the ascending and descending scale are same as Madhyamavati. Its ārohaṇa-avarohaṇa structure is S R2 M1 P N2 S : S N2 P M1 G2 R2 S

    • References

    Shree ragam Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA