Janya raga · parent: 15. Mayamalavagowla

Gowri

● Confidence: high Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

Scale

Derived from the printed scale: audava in the ascent and sampurna in the descent (5 notes up, 7 down); varjya: G and D in the ascent; none in the descent; upanga (only notes of its parent).

Beginner's explanation

Gowri is a janya raga : it is derived from the melakarta Mayamalavagowla (number 15), which means it takes its notes from that parent's scale. It uses only notes of its parent, so it is an Upanga raga.

Going up, its notes are S R1 M1 P N3 S'; coming down, S' N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S. Its ascent uses 5 different notes and its descent 7. Notes of the parent that it leaves out are Varjya : G and D going up, none coming down.

If Sa is C on a keyboard, the notes it uses fall on C, D♭, E, F, G, A♭, B. This only shows where the notes sit: a raga is more than its notes, and its ornaments and phrases are not shown here.

A bit deeper

Its parent. Gowri is placed under Mayamalavagowla (melakarta 15) by karnatik.com, the source for this page's parent. It uses all of the parent's notes.

Same notes, different raga. Chayagowla, Gowlipantu, Gundakriya, Gurjari and Lalitapanchamam use exactly the same set of notes as Gowri but differ in the path, the ornaments or the phrases.

Why start here? How likely you are to meet it

●●● (rating 3 of 3: 1 = met very often)

Rating 3 of 3 (editorial, a rough guide to how often you are likely to meet this raga): it is not among the top 100 ragas in karnatik.com's tally of compositions per raga (based on a list of 38,000 songs), so a beginner will meet it less often. A 1 means met very often and 3 means met rarely. It says nothing about how hard the raga is to sing, which depends on its ornaments and is not rated here. The tally counts songs by raga name and dates from 2011.

Characteristic features

Key notes, characteristic phrases and ornaments are not recorded here yet: they could not be confirmed from two sources, and this site leaves them out rather than guess.

Where the notes sit

Related ragas

• 15. Mayamalavagowla
• Chayagowla
• Gowlipantu
• Gundakriya
• Gurjari
• Lalitapanchamam

Compare with another raga

Notable compositions (titles only)

Songs listed for this raga on karnatik.com by composers covered on this site. Lists are community-compiled, so a missing song does not mean it does not exist. Talas are as the source names them; no lyrics are reproduced.

Muthuswami Dikshitar

• Gauri Giriraja Kumari Rupaka·Sanskrit
• Shri Minaksi Gauri Rupaka·Sanskrit

Swati Tirunal

• Bajat Badhayi Adi
• Hanta Jnyanendu Rupaka
• Sarasa Dala Nayana Matya
• Shankara Shrigiri Adi

Tyagaraja

• Jaya Jaya Shri Raghurama Adi·Telugu

How this was checked

• Sources agree: Scale of Gowri: ascent S R1 M1 P N3 S'; descent S' N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S. Sources: Royal Carpet: Carnatic Ragas; List of Janya ragas. The ascent and descent printed by karnatik.com match the scale in Wikipedia's table.
• Sources agree: Gowri is a janya of melakarta number 15, Mayamalavagowla. Sources: Royal Carpet: Carnatic Ragas; Royal Carpet: Introduction to Carnatic Raga (the melakarta ragas). Parent per karnatik.com. Consistency check: every note of the raga is in the parent's scale (the parent's own scale is confirmed in two sources).