Finding your next listening moment…
Library
86 ragas and devotional collections to return to. Browse by time of day or emotional colour, with recordings and classical sources close at hand.
Prahar Time of day
Showing 20 of 86 collections
Clear filtersA dawn raga of the Bhairav thaat that joins Bhairav's komal Re to a komal Ni traditionally traced to Ahiri folk melody. Serene and prayerful, sung in the first prahar as the day begins.
Sources draw on Sangita Ratnakara, Natya Shastra, and Bhatkhande’s Sangeet Paddhati. Dosha mappings from Charaka Samhita / Ashtanga Hridaya.
The 'queen of ragas' — a sampurna morning raga of the Bhairavi thaat using komal Re, Ga, Dha and Ni. So flexible that all twelve swaras may appear in practice; sung in devotion and surrender, and traditionally offered to close a concert.
A daybreak sandhi-prakash raga of the Marwa family with Bhairav touches, sung as night gives way to dawn. It blends both madhyams and a vakra, wandering sanchara into a solemn, awakening mood. (Treatment varies by gharana.)
A rare Bilawal-anga morning raga preserved mainly in dhrupad and temple singing. Its note-forms are taught with real variation across gharanas, so the scale is left unstated here rather than fixed wrongly.
A dawn raga (prabhat = daybreak) drawing on the Bhairav family — komal Re and Dha lend a prayerful, meditative serenity to the first light. A less widely codified name; this metadata reflects its Bhairav-family dawn character.
A gentle pentatonic raga of first light — komal Re and Dha with shuddha Ga, omitting Ma and Ni (this common Bhairav-anga form; a Marwa-anga variant with shuddha Dha also circulates). Sung as the sky brightens.
A major sandhi-prakash raga of the Purvi thaat sung at dusk — komal Re, komal Dha and tivra Ma give it a rich, intense sweetness that gathers the mind for evening worship.
The quintessential sunset (sandhi-prakash) raga of the Purvi thaat. Komal Re and Dha paired with tivra Ma, on a vakra movement around Sa–Re–Pa, produce a grave, devotional twilight mood revered for its depth.
A stately raga of the early night joining Shyam's Kafi-anga echoes to Kalyan — both madhyamas, Re and Pa as pillars, Ga and Dha skipped while rising. Its name endears it to Krishna-bhakti; sung in the Yaman hours.
A serene night raga of the Kalyan thaat built on the Sa-Ma axis, moving vakra through both madhyams with Ga nearly absent. Beloved of bhajan singers — Meera's 'Payoji maine Ram Ratan' is traditionally sung in Kedar. Its vakra chalan resists a simple jati label.
The hymn to the heart of Aditya, taught by the sage Agastya to Rama on the battlefield before he faced Ravana, and preserved in the Yuddha Kanda of Valmiki's Ramayana. Aditya is the son of Aditi; the stotram praises Surya as the one light standing behind every deity. It is a stotram, not a codified raga — the melodic material varies by reciter, so no thaat, aaroha, vadi or chakra is claimed here. Sung above all on Ravivara, Sunday, the day of the Sun, and on Ratha Saptami (Magha Shukla Saptami), which marks Surya's northward turn. The nakshatra pins are the three ruled by Surya in the Vimshottari scheme: Krittika, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha. Hasta and Punarvasu were considered and set aside — their claim runs through the presiding deity (Savitr, the Sun, for Hasta; Aditi, mother of the Adityas, for Punarvasu) rather than through Surya's lordship, and mixing the two criteria would blur a distinction the classical scheme keeps separate.
A beloved Carnatic ragam, janya of Natabhairavi (mela 20), rich in gamaka and considered deeply auspicious — sung at weddings and in devotional music. Carnatic practice assigns it no fixed hour, and its gamaka-borne svarupa resists Hindustani scale notation, so scale and prahar are left unstated.
Invocations to Ganapati — Vighnaharta, remover of obstacles, invoked before any beginning. Sung above all on Chaturthi, his tithi, and through Ganesh Utsav in Bhadrapada. These are bhajans and traditional compositions, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha or vadi is claimed here.
Stotras and bhajans to Shri Hanuman — Mahavira, Anjaneya, Pawanputra — above all the Hanuman Chalisa of Tulsidas. These are stotras and bhajans, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha, vadi or prahar is claimed here. Tuesday and Saturday are both firmly his, but on different grounds: Mangalavara for Mangala, whose vigour he shares as Bajrangbali and against whose affliction he is invoked; Shanivara on the Ramayana episode in which Hanuman freed Shani from Ravana's captivity, after which Shani pledged to spare his devotees. His birth nakshatra is genuinely disputed between regional traditions rather than uncertain within any one of them: the North Indian reckoning places his birth at Chaitra Purnima just after sunrise on a Tuesday, in Chitra nakshatra with Mesha lagna, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala hold that he was born in Mula nakshatra at the Margazhi amavasya. Both are pinned. Chitra sits a little ahead only because that reckoning is the more widely observed and is internally consistent with the Tuesday association — not because the southern tradition carries less authority. Chaitra Purnima takes the tithi pin for the same reason. Rama's own marks are carried at reduced weight — Sunday, Navami and Punarvasu — because the Chalisa is Rama-saturated and is sung on his days, but those are Rama's marks and not Hanuman's.
Continuous Hare Krishna mahāmantra kirtan — not bound to a single raga, but sung in flowing melodic medleys for sankirtana and japa. Suitable at any time of day.
Invocations to Devi Lakshmi — Shri, goddess of prosperity, beauty and auspiciousness, who arose from the Kshira Sagara at the samudra manthan. Sung on Fridays (Shukravara, the day of Shukra and of the Devi) and on the nakshatras traditionally held dear to her. These are stotras and bhajans, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha or vadi is claimed here. The nakshatra association is Puranic and muhurta tradition rather than a single codified list: Pushya has the firmest footing (Guru-Pushya and Ravi-Pushya are the classical yogas for Lakshmi puja and for buying gold); Dhanishta is named for dhana, wealth itself; Shravana belongs to Vishnu, whose consort she is, and carries Varalakshmi Vratam; Rohini is the Moon exalted, the nakshatra of abundance; Purva Phalguni's deity is Bhaga, the Aditya of fortune; Purva Ashadha's is Apas, the waters she rose from. Swati is included at reduced weight — its link is by way of Diwali Lakshmi Puja and is contested, some traditions assigning it to Saraswati. Bharani is deliberately excluded despite being Shukra-ruled: it is Yama's nakshatra, avoided for auspicious rites.
Braj kirtan and bhajan to Shri Radha and Krishna, the divine couple of Vrindavan, sung in the Gaudiya and Braj devotional streams — whether addressed to the pair together or to either of them alone. These are bhajans and kirtans, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies entirely by singer, so no thaat, aaroha, vadi or prahar is claimed here. The calendar association is Puranic and sampradaya tradition rather than a codified list, and is graded accordingly. On Krishna's side the firmest footings are Ashtami, his birth tithi (Janmashtami), and Rohini, his birth nakshatra; Ekadashi follows as the great Vaishnava vrata tithi, though it belongs to Vishnu broadly rather than to Krishna alone, and Purnima is included for Sharad Purnima, the night of the Maha Raas. Wednesday (Budhavara) is the weekday given to Krishna in popular North Indian practice — widespread, but not codified the way Shukravara is to Shukra — and Thursday (Guruvara) follows at reduced weight as Vishnu's own day, firm for Vishnu but indirect for Krishna as Krishna. On Radha's side, Vishakha carries real weight as the nakshatra given to her in Gaudiya tradition and the name of her principal sakhi; this is sampradaya tradition and not Vedic nakshatra lore, whose presiding deities for Vishakha are Indra and Agni. Anuradha is deliberately excluded despite the appeal of its name reading as anu-Radha, 'following Radha' — that link is folk etymology, and the nakshatra's deity is Mitra. Shravana is shared ground, belonging to Vishnu. The Lakshmi weights carried here — Friday and her nakshatra set — are inherited from the lakshmi-vandana bucket by choice, on the Gaudiya understanding that Shri Lakshmi is an expansion of Radha's own splendour; that is a theological reading of the sampradaya, not a muhurta rule.
An invocation to Devi Saraswati — goddess of knowledge, music, speech and wisdom, the presiding deity of this very art. Sung in the morning before study, on Fridays (the Devi's day), and above all on Panchami, her tithi (Vasant Panchami).
Bhajans and kirtans to Shri Sita and Rama — Janaki and Raghunandan — from the Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas devotional streams. These are bhajans, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha, vadi or prahar is claimed here. The calendar association rests on unusually firm ground for a devotional bucket. Navami is the birth tithi of both, so it is pinned once and serves them together: Rama on Chaitra Shukla Navami, Sita on Vaishakha Shukla Navami (Sita Navami, also called Janaki Navami). Punarvasu is Rama's birth nakshatra as recorded in the Balakanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, which places his birth at noon in Punarvasu with five planets exalted; Pushya is the nakshatra traditionally given for Sita's birth. Sunday (Ravivara) is Surya's day and Rama belongs to the Suryavamsha, the solar line of Ikshvaku — a dynastic association rather than a muhurta rule, and named here as such. One thing is deliberately not claimed: a wedding nakshatra. Vivaha Panchami, the day of their marriage, is fixed by tithi (Margashirsha Shukla Panchami) and not by any nakshatra tradition agrees on, so none is pinned for it.
The Sri Venkatesha Stotram — 'Kamalakucha choochuka kunkumato…' — is the second movement of the four-part dawn liturgy of Tirumala: Suprabhatam, Stotram, Prapatti, Mangalasasanam, attributed to Prativadi Bhayankaram Annangaracharya (15th c.). It is offered at the Suprabhata Seva, the first seva of the temple's day, to wake Sri Venkateswara — Srinivasa, Balaji — the form of Vishnu who stands upon the Tirumala hill. These are stotras, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha or vadi is claimed here, and no ritu either, since the hymn belongs to every dawn rather than to a season. Of the weekdays, Saturday is Venkateswara's own across the whole of India and carries full weight; Thursday is Guruvara, Vishnu's weekly day, but it belongs equally to every Vaishnava hymn and so is pinned at half. The nakshatra is Shravana alone, at full weight: Shravana's presiding devata is Vishnu himself, and Tirumala tradition holds it as Venkateswara's janma nakshatra, keying the monthly abhishekam to it. No second nakshatra has comparable footing — Uttara Ashadha belongs to the Vishvedevas, Punarvasu to Aditi, Rohini to Prajapati. None of them is Vishnu's, and none is claimed here.