The other panchama

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 14 Mar 2009, 08:04

About two years ago, I attended an SRJ lecture on Classification of Ragas. In the lecture, he made a mention of this lower panchama which, if I remember, is positioned near the pratimadhyama. He sang mAyAmAlavagauLa with this panchama to demonstrate.

What exactly is this panchama called, and what are ragas containing this called? Why in spite of a general craze for vivAdi ragas is this panchama not popular? Can we get an electronic drone for such a panchama? Is there any loopable drone recording available?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 14 Mar 2009, 22:42

I attended that lecdem too but now I cannot recollect all of it, but some of it. He was referring the pancama of the madhyama-grama (i.e. in the early grama-murchana system practiced before 13th-14th century). This pancahama was slightly lower than the pancama of the Sadja grama. We are pretty sure that the panchama of the Sadja-grama is our regular pancama. Researchers theorize that the pancama of the madhyama-grama was lower than it, but however sharper than today's prati-madhyama, and that "over time" it is this panchama which actually became prati-madhyama.

IIRC, Prof SRJ was saying that he thinks that mayamalavagowla could have risen out of a (variation?) of the some murchana of madhyama-grama i.e. graha-bedham on one of the swaras of the madhyama-gramna. Note that MMG cannot arise "simply/naturally" out of any of the gramas since the spacing for "r1-g3" interval (and d1-n3) is not there in both Sadja or madhyama grama.

I think SSP (?) says that mangalakaisiki uses a ma that is (or used to be) this pa. But I think current practice is such that we would interpret this as M2 only (we had a discussion on this long ago, may be on sangeetham.com). Same case for varali madhayama - people say that this madhyama is an remnant/evolution of the madhayama-grama pancama.

A possible example for what you want is the dvi-madhyama mela ragas that Tanjore S.R. Kalyanaraman used to sing. Here M2 is used in-lieu of pa - and I guess that is sort more in spirit with the madhyama-grama - atleast the Sadja-murchana of it (i have mentioned this earlier, in the grama system Sa was just another swara, not the all important, perpetual tonic as it is now).

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 15 Mar 2009, 17:52

vidya raja,

Perhaps you misunderstood my earlier post. This pancama is not really in use today, be it in mayamamalavagowla or otherwise - probably has not been in use for quite some time. Like I mentioned prof SRJ thinks that the scale of mayamalavagowla (as we know today i.e. S R1 G3 M1 P D1 N3 S and with the regular pancama) could have risen out of a graha-bedham (murchana) of an earlier scale that incorporated this panchama.

Arun

vainika · Post by **vainika** » 26 Mar 2009, 00:19

I believe it was called the chyuta (=fallen) panchama. Of course these days we only have the achyuta panchama and call almost everything between M1 and P the prati madhyama, with the exceptions of the one played by nokku or kampitam on M1 (e.g. gauLipantu, gaurI, etc.) or on G3 (e.g. bEgaDa, etc.)

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 14 Apr 2009, 10:10

arunk wrote: IIRC, Prof SRJ was saying that he thinks that mayamalavagowla could have risen out of a (variation?) of the some murchana of madhyama-grama i.e. graha-bedham on one of the swaras of the madhyama-gramna. Note that MMG cannot arise "simply/naturally" out of any of the gramas since the spacing for "r1-g3" interval (and d1-n3) is not there in both Sadja or madhyama grama.

Prof RS says that Mayamalavagoula arose as a kAlalyantara mUrchanA of Shadja grAma. I have not understood the concept. This involves not just making a mUrchane of Shadja grAma, but also exchanging the gAndhAra and nishAda to anatra and kAkali values. If any one here (Sri MSAkella? Vainika? Uday Shankar? Vidya? davalangi?) can explain this, that would be great,

arunk wrote:
I think SSP (?) says that mangalakaisiki uses a ma that is (or used to be) this pa. But I think current practice is such that we would interpret this as M2 only (we had a discussion on this long ago, may be on sangeetham.com). Same case for varali madhayama - people say that this madhyama is an remnant/evolution of the madhayama-grama pancama.

Yes. SSP does assign chyuta panchama to Mangala kaishiki, as well as other rAgas such as vasanta, and a few other MMG janya rAgas IIRC.

arunk wrote: A possible example for what you want is the dvi-madhyama mela ragas that Tanjore S.R. Kalyanaraman used to sing. Here M2 is used in-lieu of pa - and I guess that is sort more in spirit with the madhyama-grama - atleast the Sadja-murchana of it (i have mentioned this earlier, in the grama system Sa was just another swara, not the all important, perpetual tonic as it is now).

And also it seems madhyama had the all important place now given to shadja during grAma times.

-Ramakriya

Ashwin · Post by **Ashwin** » 27 Apr 2009, 21:06

SRJ Mama demonstrating the chyuta pancama found in what he calls the "pre-rAgA" version of vEgavAhini:

http://www.sangeethapriya.org/Downloads ... ustaka.mp3

Ashwin

karthikbala · Post by **karthikbala** » 13 May 2009, 18:05

During a lecdem on Bhairavi, Sri SRJ referred to the lowered Panchamam as "Shuddha Panchamam". The specific context was the Bhairavi Swarajati, where phrases like M,PNDM see a marginally lowered Panchamam (i.e. between pratimadhyamam and panchamam). This is not universally followed. If I'm not mistaken, MDR's recordings of the Swarajati illustrate this usage.

Incidentally, this reminds me of the "22 Sruthis in Bhairavi" lecdem by Late Sri Rajam Iyer. This lecdem with controversial content, and lively participation of Sri SRJ, Prof. Ramanathan, Sri VV Srivatsa, and other luminaries had everything short of fisticuffs

rajesh_rs · Post by **rajesh_rs** » 23 Jul 2009, 22:31

Fascinating. I couldn't imagine how a second swara could exist in that spot!