Graha bhedam

Graha bedham of a rāgam, in Carnatic music, is the process (or result of the process) of shifting the Tonic note to another note in the rāgam and arriving at a different rāgam.

Definitions

Modal shift of the Tonic note of a rāgam to higher notes of the same rāgam, while retaining the note's positions (swara sthanas - sthana means position/ pitch), results in different rāgams. This is called Graha bedham.

Practical demo

A simple practical demonstration of Graha bedham can be taken up by playing the structure of a rāgam with the drone set to Sa (Shadjam). Then if we keep playing the same keys/ notes, while shifting the drone to another note in the rāgam to form the new Tonic note, the result is a different rāgam.

Example Illustration

When Graha bedham is applied on Sankarabharanam's notes, it yields 5 other major Melakarta rāgams, namely, Kalyani, Hanumatodi, Natabhairavi, Karaharapriya and Harikambodhi.

Rāgam	Mela #	C		D		E	F		G		A		B	C		D		E	F		G		A		B	C
Sankarabharanam	29	S		R2		G3	M1		P		D2		N3	S
Karaharapriya	22			S		R2	G2		M1		P		D2	N2		S
Hanumatodi	08					S	R1		G2		M1		P	D1		N2		S
Kalyani	65						S		R2		G3		M2	P		D2		N2	S
Harikambodhi	28								S		R2		G3	M1		P		D2	N2		S
Natabhairavi	21										S		R2	G2		M1		P	D1		N2		S
Invalid Melakarta	--												S	R1		G2		M1	M2		D1		N2		S
Sankarabharanam	29													S		R2		G3	M1		P		D2		N3	S

Notes on above table

• C as the base for Sankarabharanam is chosen for above illustration only for convenience, as Carnatic music does not enforce strict frequency/note structure. The Shadjam (S) is fixed by the artist as per the vocal range or the instrument's Tonic note. All the other swarams are relative to this Shadjam, falling into a Geometric progression-like frequency pattern. This note is applicable to ALL tables that are illustrated further below in this page.
• The 7^th Graha bedham of Sankarabharanam has both Madhyamams (Ma) and no Panchamam (Pa) and hence will not be considered a valid Melakarta (ragam having all 7 swarams and only 1 of each). This is only a classification issue with respect to Melakarta, while this structure could be theoretically used well to create good music (probably needs an expert).
• The gaps in the above table are for the missing swara positions in these ragams, which happens to be the Sharp / Flat notes in western music.

Melakarta rāgams

Graha bedham can be applied on most of the Melakarta to yield other Melakarta rāgams. When applying such modal shift of tonic note, some results are not valid Melakarta rāgams (rules of the definition of Melakarta are violated). Example scenarios are missing Panchamam (Pa) or two of particular note (Rishabham (Ri), Gandharam (Ga), Madhyamam (Ma), Dhaivatham (Da) or Nishadham (Ni)).

Graha bedham on Sankarabharanam

See above Example Illustration in previous section.

Graha bedham on Kanakangi

Rāgam	Mela #	C		D		E	F		G		A		B	C		D
Kanakangi	01	S	R1	G1			M1		P	D1	N1			S
Kamavardhini	51		S	R1			G3		M2	P	D1			N3	S