« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2016, 01:13:48 PM »
Shankarabharana Ragaputra, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies). India, Maharashtra, Aurangabad, circa 1675.
Best view (click and enlarge): http://collections.lacma.org/sites/default/files/remote_images/piction/ma-31956333-O3.jpg
"Shankarabharana's patron God is Shiva; the literal meaning of Shankarabharana is "the ornament of Shiva," and each swara is associated with one of the seven ornaments of Shiva." http://everything2.com/title/Dhirashankarabharana
A peek into the makings of Sankarabharanam and Bilawal ragas.
Ranee Kumar
Owing to its origin from the Sama Veda, Indian classical music is essentially spiritual in nature.
It has been conceived and later formatted to provide succour to the yearning soul and is often quoted to be the closest means to realization. Many of our ancient composers have time and again proved that music had great healing powers on the body and mind and was means to a greater end, the ultimate reality called Brahman.
Cross cultural currents have soaked into the Indian music making for a bi-fork into northern and southern streams. Refinement of each individual stream has led to specific identification of the systems of Hindustani and Carnatic music. Yet certain ragas have a common root with variations in rendition. One such raga is Sankarabharanam in the Carnatic order and Bilawal in the Hindustani. Both are equivalent to the Western Ionian mode (C major scale) and are sampoorna ragas in as much as they carry all the seven sol-fa syllables. Sankarabharanam means the ‘ornament of Lord Shiva'. Its seven notes or swaras are associated with the seven ornaments of Lord Shiva: the shadja (sa) with the serpent, the rishabha (ri) with the rudraksha, the gandhara (ga) with Ganga, the shuddha madyamam (ma) with mriga, the panchamam (pa) with pushpa or flower, the daivatham (dha) with the damaru and the nishadham (ni) with the crescent moon. Every raga has an emotive quality and Sankarabharanam is supposed to evoke shringara. It is one of the oldest ragas. In the Carnatic table, Sankarabharanam is listed as the 29 raga in the Melakarta (parent raga) chart and falls into the Agni chakram category (panchagni). It is a ‘shudda Madhyama' raga. This is a raga with symmetrical pair of tetra chords, each being separated by an interval of a major tone. The poorvanga (sa, ri, ga, ma) and the uttaranga (pa, dha, ni, sa) match to a T in uniformity. This majestic raga is often quoted as the king of all Carnatic ragas. It has given rise to many janya (off-shoots) ragas. The Hindustani raga Bilawal, the counterpart of Sankarabharanam is also the basic thaat (parent raga). The notes are seven in number and the pitches are all shuddh. The komal or flat note or the teevra or sharp pitch occurs in the interval pattern of this thaat. The ‘Vadi' is ‘dha' and the ‘Samvadi' is ‘Ga'. The Pakkad or chalan is like this: Ga Re, Ga Ma Dha Pa, Ma Ga, Ma Re Sa. The etymology of Bilawal can be traced to a tribe called the Velavulli who were supposed to have migrated from the north to south. This mode was their prime melody. According to one school of thought, Bilawal, despite its resemblance to Sankarabharanam has shades of Bilahari in it, especially when it comes to omitting ‘ma' in the arohana, the importance of ‘ga' and ‘dha' and the use of ‘ni' in the descent. Bilawal is a morning raga in the ‘prahaar' scheme of things. It is usually sung with deep devotion and repose hence it was vastly used by the Sikh guru in their hymns. For those of us who are not strictly into classical music of either stream, here are a few film songs to identify the ragas: Omkaara naadalu sandhanamau gaaname…. in the Telugu movie Sankarabharanam is titled after the raga by the same name; similarly our national anthem is set to Bilawal (Alahaiya Bilawal), and the song Dil hai chota sa, choti is aasha… 'from Hindi version of movie Roja and another one Tu hi tu… from ‘Dil Se' and an old-time favourite dil, dil se keh raha hai aa bhi ja…. are taken from these two Melakarta ragas.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-fridayreview/of-sankarabharanam-and-bilawal/article3381738.ece(a lot of this is over my head, but for the sake of thorough-ness wanted to get it down here.)
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