Janya raga · parent: 36. Chalanata

Nattai

◐ Confidence: medium Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

Scale

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

Beginner's explanation

Nattai is a janya raga : it is derived from the melakarta Chalanata (number 36), 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 R3 G3 M1 P D3 N3 S'; coming down, S' N3 P M1 R3 S. Its ascent uses 7 different notes and its descent 5. Notes of the parent that it leaves out are Varjya : none going up, G and D coming down.

If Sa is C on a keyboard, the notes it uses fall on C, E♭, E, F, G, B♭, 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. Nattai is placed under Chalanata (melakarta 36) by karnatik.com, the source for this page's parent. It uses all of the parent's notes.

Why start here? How likely you are to meet it

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

Rating 1 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) gives it 428, one of the most-composed ragas. 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

• 36. Chalanata

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.

Purandara Dasa

• Jaya Jaya Jaya Janakikanta Sanskrit

How this was checked

• Sources agree: Scale of Nattai: ascent S R3 G3 M1 P D3 N3 S'; descent S' N3 P M1 R3 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: Nattai is a janya of melakarta number 36, Chalanata. 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).