There are hundreds of ragas ending in ’priya’; even a dozen mela ragas end in the same phrase. Many of them refer to a deity; so the meaning becomes ‘loved by or favourite’ of that deity. In that sense, this may be considered a raga loved by cupid (no idea whether it is so). Anyhow, Ratipathipriya is a minor raga, janya of mela (22) ragam Kharaharapriya, well loved for its swara jumps and zig-zag patterns of progress. This raga is fairly recent, not found in older text books. It is oudava-oudava and symmetrical raga, having same notes in arohanam and avarohanam. The notes in this raga include shadja, chatusruti rishabha, sadharana gandhara, panchama, and kaishiki nishada. The RG-PN harmonies are well-loved in this scale, and, often, the shadja varja is used to make phrases more interesting.The identity of this raga is defined in the song ‘Jagajjanani’ composed by Sri Ghanam Krishna Iyer and popularised by M.M. Dhandapani Desikar; which is still the only popular krithi, though more than twenty krithis are available in this raga, making it an Eka krithi in this raga. The structure can be seen as:
S R2 G2 P N2 S // S N2 P G2 R2 S
As there is no Dhaivatham used, this raga can be obtained from mela (20) NaTabhairavi (Ragapravaham).
Compositions available:
Arputam aghiya virunde harinama - Suddhananda Bharati
Brindavana - ?
Dayakinta gunavilla - Vidyaprasanna Tirtha
Hari amsane hara vamshane - K.Ramaraj
Ini nalame tamizh ma maghale - S.Doraiswami Pillai
Jagadamba sharaNam - Suddhananda Bharati
Jagajjanani sukhapani kalyani - Ghanam Krishna Iyer
Karedare o ennabarade - Purandaradasa
Mati kodu tande - Bangalore S.Mukund
Muttalamma muttalamma - Indira Shrinivasan
Niraja nayani nirupama mohini - Ashok R.Madhav
Padidalo - ?
Prabhakara sama - Bangalore S.Mukund
Shrinivasa patni shri - Indira Shrinivasan
Shri raama ramana - Madurai G.S. Mani
Shrtajanara - Bangalore S.Mukund
Shuttum vizhi chudar tan - Subramania Bharati
Yarige yaruntu eravina samsara - Purandaradasa
Kaveri Thatavasi - Gayathri-Veena
Venu gAnaLOlam Gopalam - B.Sasikumar(chandrapothar)
dhIm tanana dhirdhir dhIm (t) – TV Gopalakrishnan
Being the most popular krithi, holding the ‘Eka’ status, we shall discuss the Ghanam Krishna Iyer’s composition, “jagajjanani suka pAni kalyani”; which is on Goddess Meenakshi of Madurai.
Meaning:
Pallavi
Mother of the world,
Who is pleasant and brings all that is good.
Anupallavi
Form of pleasure having sweet voice,
Who is the Goddess Meenakshi,
Who makes the mind of Sokka Nathar happy.
Charanam
Daughter of Pandya , Bhavani , my mother,
The greatest Goddess who is consort of Shiva,
Don’t you have sill mind to give the boon that I want,
Oh Goddess who is the form of the sound of Vedas and Vedantha.