As I mentioned earlier, There are “three” (3) main Jaties (Categories) of Indian Raags:

1. Heptatonic or Sampooran or all seven notes
2. Hexatonic or Chhadav or 6 notes
3. Pentatonic or Audav or 5 notes

Nine (9) subcategories or Jaties are created by pairing the above three to make ascending and descending (aroh/avroh) pairs.

1. Sampooran-Sampooran (7-7)
2. Sampooran-Chhadav (7-6)
3. Sampooran-Audav (7-5)
4. Chhadav-Sampooran (6-7)
5. Chhadav-Chhadav (6-6)
6. Chhadav-Audav (6-5)
7. Audav-Sampooran (5-7)
8. Audav-Chhadav (5-6)
9. Audav-Audav (5-5)
10. Let’s explore these Jaties before proceeding any further. Let’s see how many alterations of a scale (Thaat) are possible in each Jati.

1. Sampooran  (7):  A Sampooran (or heptatonic) scale uses all seven notes in Ascending and Descending (Aroh-Avroh). So there is only one type of Sampooran scale in each Thaat. A sampooran scale looks like this:

1. S,R,G,M,P,D,N

2. Chhadav : Chhadav (or hexatonic) scales are made by omitting one note from the Suptak (septave). A Suptak has seven notes. Sa, or the keynote cannot be omitted. So there are six Chhadav scales in each Thaat.

1. S,G,M,P,D,N
2. S,R,M,P,D,N
3. S,R,G,P,D,N
4. S,R,G,M,D,N
5. S,R,G,M,P,N
6. S,R,G,M,P,D,

3. Audav: An Audav scale uses five out of the seven notes. There are 15 Audav scales in any Thaat. In the following list, the notes (2nd through 7th) are omitted in the following order:
2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6, 2-7, 3-4, 3-5, 3-6, 3-7, 4-5, 4-6, 4-7, 5-6, 5-7, 6-7. Once you understand the pattern, it is very easy to build these 15 scales:

1. S,M,P,D,N
2. S,G,P,D,N
3. S,G,M,D,N
4. S,G,M,P,N
5. S,G,M,P,D,
6. S,R,P,D,N
7. S,R,M,D,N
8. S,R,M,P,N
9. S,R,M,P,D,
10. S,R,G,D,N
11. S,R,G,P,N
12. S,R,G,P,D,
13. S,R,G,M,N
14. S,R,G,M,D,
15. S,R,G,M,P,

Go over these lists until it makes perfect sense. Next we will pair them to create Sub-categories.

sangtar.com > Music Theory > Basic Theory