page_title: Melakarta
section_title: Chakras
hierarchical_section_title: Melakarta / Chakras
caption_attribution_description: English: Melakarta is a collection of fundamental ragas (musical scales) in Carnatic music (South Indian classical music). The Katapayadi sankhya is a hashing method to determine the number of a melakarta raga from the first two syllables of the name of the raga. Read the chart from the circumference to the centre to identify the 7 composite swaras. On the prati-madhyamam side, please read d3n2 as d2n3.
context_page_description: Mēḷakarta is a collection of fundamental musical scales in Carnatic music. Mēḷakarta ragas are parent ragas from which other ragas may be generated. A melakarta raga is sometimes referred as mela, karta or sampurna as well, though the latter term is inaccurate, as a sampurna raga need not be a melakarta.
  In Hindustani music the thaat is equivalent of Melakarta. There are 10 thaats in Hindustani music, though the commonly accepted melakarta scheme has 72 ragas.
context_section_description: The 72 Mēḷakarta ragas are split into 12 groups called chakrās, each containing 6 ragas. The ragas within the chakra differ only in the dhaivatam and nishadam notes (D and N), as illustrated below. The name of each of the 12 chakras suggest their ordinal number as well.
  Indu stands for the moon, of which we have only one – hence it is the first chakra.
  Nētra means eyes, of which we have two – hence it is the second.
  Agni is the third chakra it indicates three kinds of Agni.(Dakshina, Ahavaniyam and gArhapatyam)So agni indicates 3rd Chakra.
  Vēda denoting four Vedas is the name of the fourth chakra.
  Bāṇa comes fifth as it stands for the five Arrows of Manmatha.
  Rutu is the sixth chakra standing for the 6 seasons of Hindu calendar, which are Vasanta, Greeshma, Varsha, Sharat, Hemanta and Shishira.
  Rishi, meaning sage, is the seventh chakra representing the seven sages.
  Vasu stands for the eight vasus of Hinduism.
  Brahma comes next of which there are 9.
  Disi Chakra indicates Ten directions(East, West, North, South, North East, North West, South East, South West, Above and Below). Hence it is 10th Chakra.
  Eleventh chakra is Rudra of which there are eleven.
  Twelfth comes Aditya of which there are twelve.
  These 12 chakras were also established by Venkatamakhi.
caption: Melakarta chart as per Katapayādi system. (On the prati-madhyamam side, all instances of ni2da3 should instead say ni3da2.)  (Sarasangi and Harikamboji should be swapped. That is Sarasangi is the 27th raaga and Harikamboji is the 28th)
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