Kafi raga

The raga Kafi is an important raga of the Hindustani classical music.

Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande’s classification of the Ragas has ten different logical groups, consisting of various closely related ragas; Kafi is one of them. The raga, Kafi, is the principal one, which essentially describes the nature of the Kafi. Kafi is not quite an ancient raga. According to Pandit Bhatkhande, the name of the raga first appears in the Raga Tarangini of Lochana Pandit who lived in the Mithila district around the fifteenth century (common era).

Raga Kafi has direct lineage with the folk music of India. Various folk musics (Tappa, Hori, Dadra, Kirtan, devotional songs) from different parts of India are continuously being composed in this raga form for ages.

Nowadays, quite a few variations of Kafi exists. Contamination with 'vivadi' swaras are judiciously being used to increase the listening pleasure. This sort of 'forced' contamination has given rise to Mishra Kafi. Hence, a 'pure' form of Kafi is seldom heard in recent performances.

Description(Parichay)

Jati

Kafi is a sampoorna-sampoorna or heptatonic raga, with 'komal'(soft) "Gandhar"(g) and "Nishad"(n).

Arohana

SRgMPDnS

Avarohana

SnDPMgRS

Vadi & Samavadi

"Pancham"(P) is the vadi swara and "Shadaj"(S) is the samavadi swara.

Pakad

A typical improvisation of Kafi starts asnD,PmgR *, SS RR gg mm P, P m g R, g m P g - R.

The phrases below and termination in R are characteristic of the raga. S R g M P D n.S, RgMP, M P D (M)g R

Chalan

The typical chalan of the raga can be illustrated as follows

S R R g g M M P, P M P (M)g R, n D n P D M P (M)g R.M P D n D P, n P (M)g R, g R S n' D' n' S.

Organization & Relationships

Various distinguished ragas like Bhimpalasi, Bageshree are associated with this raga. Few important tributaries of this raga are Sindhura, Barwa, Neelambari and Piloo.

Behavior

Samay (Time)

Evening and the first part of Night.

Seasonality

The raga is suitable to be performed in any season.

Rasa

The principal rasa for this raga is shringar.

Historical Information

Origins

Important recordings

Debashish Bhattacharya, "Raga Mishra Kafi", 1996;

References

1. "Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati and his concise commentary, A Comparative Study of Some of the Leading Music Systems of the 15th, 16, 17th, & 18th Centuries" by Amitava Chakraborty's "A Brief Introduction to Indian Ragas" [http://www.camitava.0catch.com/ ]