One of the rarest ragas; not even few compositions known – even there is little confusion in the name itself; whether Gomethakapriya or Gomethapriya. Most suggest the latter is the correct name, but all references available are in the former. Gomethakapriya is a janya of mela ragam (20) NaTabhairavi; who created this raga is not yet seen in my search. None of the Trinities or composers before them have used this; so, it can be inferred that the creation of this raga should be fairly recently.There are references about this raga by Nadamuni Pandithar (Sangeetha Swaraprasthara Sagaramu) as also by P.Sambamurthi. Both of them have given two different scales for the raga: SR2G2M1D1N2S // SN2D1M1G2R2S - Nadamuni Pandithar SR2G2PD1N2S // SN2D1PG2R2S - P. Sambamurthi.
Also, in Raga Pravaham, an outstanding compilation work done by Kalaimamani Smt. D.Pattammal with the support of her husband Dr. M.N.Dhandapani, the Raga Gomethakapriya is said to have two different arohanams and avarohanams: S R2 G2 M1 D1 N2 S / S N2 D1 M1 G2 R2 S S R2 G2 P D1 N2 S / S N2 D1 P G2 R2 S
(They have provided the Arohanam and Avarohanam for over 7000 ragas classified into the representative mela ragas and chakras, referring to over 45 books in 5 languages. Dr. M.N. Dhandapani and Mrs. D. Pattammal have used 59 sources in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and English in their compilation work. Each of the sources have been given a symbol like A, D, AG, etc and these symbols are marked against each Arohanam and Avarohanam. Whenever, any raga has more than one Arohanam and Avarohanam and you want to know the source, please refer the Bibliography to identify the source. Late Sangeetha Kalanidhi Sri. Ramanatha Iyer was an initiator, motivator and the guiding force for this monumental work). At places, this raga gives resemblance to ragam Saramathi also; the main reasons being both are janyas of same NaTabhairavi raga, and also, due to the similarity of notes in both directions.
The only famous composition in this raga is “Vallabha Maha Ganapathe” composed and popularised by the legendary Madurai Somu. Another composition in this raga is ‘Selva Ganapathiye’ by Ganapathi Sachidananda. Dr.K.J.Yesudas has sung the Shyama Sastri composition in Punnagavarali, “Brova samayamu” in Gomethakapriya.
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