Melody In Carnatic Music - Part 5
By Kiranavali Vidyasankar
Katapayadi SamkhyaFirst of all, I must apologise to the readers for the long gap between my previous
article and this one. I recently relocated to the US, and since then have been tied up with a whole lot
of professional commitments. My sincere thanks to Anita Thakur for not pressuring me unduly, and to
all the readers for their feedback. The latter has definitely been a source of inspiration to keep this
going. I hope to be more regular in future!
Let me quickly recap what we have covered so far. In my first article, I gave a brief account of the
history of Indian music, how it came to be split as Hindustani and Carnatic music, and what the unique
features of Carnatic music are. From the second part onwards, I went a little deeper into the subject
and started off on one of the key features of Carnatic music, namely, the ragas. In that and the
subsequent parts, I have covered the basic 7-swara and 12-swara schemes, and how the 12-swaras have
16 names in Carnatic music, how these 16 swaras give rise to the 72-melakartas.
In this article, I will slightly be going off on a tangent on a subject which I am sure readers will find
very intriguing. It is indeed curious how the Indian mind has worked over the centuries. Our ancestors
not only delved deep into the subject matter, but also made sure that they secured the interest of the
next generation by giving them the necessary keys to unravel the mysteries and also remember the
clues! One such example is the Katapayadi Samkhya.
This is a simple formula for finding out the mela number when given the mela name. To understand
how this works, you need a basic knowledge of how the Indian alphabetical system works. Like most
Indian texts, this formula is also given in Sanskrit, but knowledge of languages like Hindi, Telugu or
Kannada would certainly be of great help. Historically, this scheme originated in Kerala, and then
spread to the rest of south India.
At a bare level, the Katapayadi Samkhya consists of the following, using the Sanskrit consonants (I have
tried to use an easy-to-understand scheme of transliteration here):
Kaadinavam - the 9 letters beginning from k, i.e., k, kh, g, gh .n, ch, chh, j, jh
Taadinavam - the 9 letters beginning from Ta, i.e., T, Th, D, Dh, N, t, th, d, dh
Paadipancham - the 5 letters beginning from p, i.e., p, ph, b, bh, m
Yaadyashtam - the 8 letters beginning from y, i.e., y, r, l, v, sh, Sh, s, h
By this method, we assign values for each letter of the alphabet. For example, k would have the value
of 1, and j would be 8 (8th letter in Kaadinavam). Similarly, N would have a value of 5 (5th letter in
Taadinavam) while ph would have a value of 2 (2nd in Paadipancham). If you notice, two consonants,
namely ~n and n were omitted in the above formula. They are assigned values of 0.
This is then applied in the following manner to the 72-melas:
Let's take for example the 1st mela, kanakAngi. The first two syllables are ka and na. Using this
formula, ka has a value of 1 and na, a value of 0. Inverting this would give you 01.
A few other illustrations:
1. mAraranjani - Ma = 5; Ra = 2. Inverting 52 will give you 25.
2. hanumattodi - Ha = 8; Nu = 0. Inverting 80 will give 08.
3. nasikAbhUShaNi - Na = 0; Si = 7. Inverting 07 will give 70.
Isn't it an interesting way of finding out the mela number? A lot of thought has obviously gone into
devising it. In fact, the present names of the 72-melas were given taking this formula into account.
Like most rules, there are a few exceptions in the uniform application to this formula too. The big
inconsistency is in the usage of half-letters like in the name chakravAkam, where k is the half-letter.
For a person who knows the mela number, he can easily fit it into the formula and say ch equals 6 and
k equals 1, and thereby chakravAkam is the 16th mela. But in another example of a half-letter,
ratnA.ngi, the same doesn't work. Here the letters that are actually taken into account are ra and na,
ignoring the half-letter t altogether. Again, you can fit the answer into the formula only if you are
aware that ratnA.ngi is the 2nd mela and not the 12th mela. Which is what your answer would be if you
applied this formula consistently.
A couple of other examples where the half-letter is ignored is:
1. jyotiswarUpiNI (j = 8; t = 6, i.e., 68, y is ignored)
2. shyAmaLA.ngI (sha = 5; ma = 5, i.e., 55 - here the ya is again not taken into account),
Examples where the half-letter has been taken into account:
1. divyamaNI (di = 8; v = 4)
2. vishvambharI (vi = 4; sh = 5)
3. simhendramadhyamam (si = 7; m = 5, i.e., 57)
In my next article, I will talk about what Ragas are, their different types and what differentiates them
from the Melas. Meanwhile, I welcome questions and comments on this article either in the comments
section below or by email.