Module 5: Tala fundamentals · Lesson 5

Nadai and eduppu

● Confidence: high Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

How a beat is divided: nadai

Beats can be divided into smaller parts, like cutting a loaf into 3, 4 or 5 slices. The way each beat is divided is the Nadai (Gati) , also called gati. The same word Tisra , Chatusra , Khanda , Misra or Sankirna is used again here, this time for the number of parts per beat:

Note the difference from the jati in the previous lesson. The jati says how many beats are in a laghu, and the nadai says how many small parts each beat has. They are separate settings, which is why combining them with the 35 talas gives 175 possibilities.

What it does to the rhythm

Take Adi tala, with 8 beats. The number of small parts per cycle is 8 times the nadai:

The beat that you clap stays the same, but the notes in between speed up or change their grouping. A phrase in tisra nadai sounds like a rolling pattern of threes, and in khanda nadai like a pattern of fives. Percussionists and singers use these changes to create variety within a fixed tala.

Where a piece starts: eduppu

Not every composition starts on the first beat of the cycle. The point where it starts is the Eduppu (also called graha). There are three main possibilities:

• Sama eduppu : starts exactly on the first beat;
• Atita eduppu : starts *before* the first beat, so the melody is already under way when the cycle begins and lands on the first beat a little later;
• Anagata eduppu : starts *after* the first beat, so the cycle has begun and the melody comes in a little later.

Sources agree on which way round these two are: a mridangam teaching blog says atita is the song beginning before the tala beat and anagata the tala beginning first, and a practitioners’ forum describes atita as starting before the samam. Eduppu is one of the main reasons that two songs in the same tala can feel so different when you tap along.

Putting the rhythm module together

You can now describe any tala in four steps: its formula (the angas), its jati (laghu length), its total beats, and its nadai (parts per beat). The eduppu says where the music begins. Those five ideas are enough to read any tala page on this site.