Puriya Dhanashree - Raga Puriya Dhanashree

Raga Puriya Dhanashree

Raga Poorvi, the "type-raga" of Purvi Thaat contains all seven notes (i.e. Sharaj, Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat and Nishad). But the rishabh and the dhaivat are komal both in ascent and descent and the madhyam varies from tivra to shuddh whereas the gandhar and the nishaad stay shudh throughout.

In Puriya Dhanashree, however, the aarohan or the ascent is as follows - N r G M d N S. This shows that pancham is not used very often in the aarohan thereby making it a shaadav aarohan or an aarohan with six notes. Rishabh and Dhaivat are komal or flat in Raag Puriya Dhanashree wheres the Madhyam is tivra or sharp. The descent or the avarohan is as follows: S N d P M G M r G r s, the descent bears all seven notes with komal Dhaivat and Rishabh and a tivra Madhyam. The vadi of this raga is pancham and the samavadi is sharaj. Raag Purvi's structure is very close to that of raga Puriya Dhanashree therefore in order to differentiate between the two shudhha madhyam is often used in raga purvi unlike the tivra madhayam used in raga Puriya Dhanashree.

The gayan samay or the time of singing this raga is at dusk. Raag Puriya Dhanashree is sung at time of transition from the afternoon to the evening and thus it is known as a Sandhiprakash Raga.The pakad of this Raga or the catch phrase of this Raga under the Bhatkande system is N r G, M r G P, M d P, M G M r G d M G r S . While expounding the uttaranga part of this Raga the phrase M d N d S is used to move into the taara saptak (higher octave). The transition from the taara saptak Re to the Madhya Saptak Ni is commonly through the use of a meendh.