Janya raga · parent: 65. Mechakalyani

Hamir Kalyani

◐ Confidence: medium 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: R and G in the ascent; none in the descent; vakra (zigzag) in both directions; bhashanga (borrows M1, outside its parent).

Beginner's explanation

Hamir Kalyani is a janya raga : it is derived from the melakarta Mechakalyani (number 65), which means it takes its notes from that parent's scale. It also uses a note from outside the parent (M1), which makes it a Bhashanga raga: that note is an foreign note to the parent scale.

Going up, its notes are S P M2 P D2 N3 S'; coming down, S' N3 D2 P M2 M1 G3 P M1 R2 S. Its ascent uses 5 different notes and its descent 7. Notes of the parent that it leaves out are Varjya : R and G going up, none coming down. The path is Vakra (zigzag) in both directions: some notes are visited out of straight order.

If Sa is C on a keyboard, the notes it uses fall on C, D, E, F, 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. Hamir Kalyani is placed under Mechakalyani (melakarta 65) by karnatik.com, the source for this page's parent. It uses all of the parent's notes.

A borrowed note. Hamir Kalyani uses M1 although its parent has a different M. In theory this is what makes a raga bhashanga. No single melakarta holds all of its notes, so its parent is the one it is felt to grow from, by convention.

Same notes, different raga. Saranga uses exactly the same set of notes as Hamir Kalyani but differs in the path, the ornaments or the phrases.

Why start here? How likely you are to meet it

●●○ (rating 2 of 3: 1 = met very often)

Rating 2 of 3 (editorial, a rough guide to how often you are likely to meet this raga): karnatik.com's tally of compositions per raga (based on a list of 38,000 songs) places it in the top 100, with 132 compositions. 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

• 65. Mechakalyani
• Saranga

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

• Parimala Ranganatham Rupaka·Sanskrit
• Purahara Nandana Adi·Sanskrit

Papanasam Sivan

• Nathan Tal Tamil
• Yadukula Tilaka Adi·Tamil

Swati Tirunal

• Gangeya Vasana Adi

Tyagaraja

• Manamu Leda Adi·Telugu
• Mutyala Cavikelo Telugu
• Ni Dasanudasuda Desadi·Telugu

How this was checked

• Sources agree: Scale of Hamir Kalyani: ascent S P M2 P D2 N3 S'; descent S' N3 D2 P M2 M1 G3 P M1 R2 S. Sources: Royal Carpet: Carnatic Ragas. Only one source printed this scale (no match found in the second source), so it is not independently confirmed.
• Sources agree: Hamir Kalyani is a janya of melakarta number 65, Mechakalyani. Sources: Royal Carpet: Carnatic Ragas; Royal Carpet: Introduction to Carnatic Raga (the melakarta ragas). Parent per karnatik.com. The raga borrows M1 from outside the parent, which is what bhashanga means.