The 72 melakarta system is a unique feature of Carnatic music and has existed for several centuries. The present standardised system that is popularly used is said to have been formulated by Govindacharya in the 18th Century…
The Katapayadi Sankhya naming system proves to be useful to find out the position assigned to each raga in a sub-system known as the Chakra system…
Using this system thus helps one to trace the Ri-Ga and Da-Ni swara combinations in any raga…
Thus, with this system, one can trace the swaras of a raga by using its Melakarta number. If one needs to find out what swaras are contained in Melakarta no 38, the classification is M2 (1,2). The number combination can be remembered simply if one visualizes the residential building setup which is a depiction of the graph…
Sridhar’s conclusion is that practitioners will find that using this numerical mnemonic for a Melakarta raga will provide the corresponding swaras instantaneously…