The Rāgas of Early Indian Music: Modes, Melodies, and Musical Notations from the Gupta Period to C. 1250

The concept of raga, the traditional basis of melodic composition and improvisation in Indian classical music, has become familiar to listeners and musicologists throughout the world, but its historial origins and early development have been little explored. The author draws on written documents from the pre-Islamic period in India, including musical treatises (especially that of the thirteenth-century theorist, Sarngadeva), literary works, and a remarkable inscription comprising musical notation. These documents bear witness to the development of the earlier ragas, which they name, classify, define, and in some cases illustrate with melodic examples. The melodies, which have not previously been studied in detail, form the focus of the book, which analyses their notation, musical structure and relationship to the theoretical tradition in which they are embedded, as evidence for the early history of melodic compostion and improvisation in the Indian tradition.