Please refer my earlier post about Abheri/Pantuvarali where there was a discussion about the origin of these ragas and their nomenclature. Firstly I had made an erroneous conclusion on ‘Karnataka’ being added by Mysore Vasudevachar. Thanks to Arunk for pointing that out. Arunk was also kind enough to come up with some interesting info and my later research into the same yielded the following. Instead of burdening the comments with more of that I though I can start up a separate thread here just on the above topic.
My source for this has been entirely Hema Ramanathan’s Ragalakshnasangraha, fantastic work, that collects the raga descriptions from various musical treatises.
1. Sangraha Chudamani (SC) – Karnata Devagandhari – Born from Keeravani mela 2. Sangeetha Sara Sangrahamu (SSS) – Karnataka Devagandhari – Born from Keeravani mela 3. Mahabharata Chudamani (MC) – Karnataka Devagandhari – Born from the Keeravani mela 4. Raga Lakshana – Karnataka Devagandhara – No raga description but the verse on Malavi (under the 21st mela which is Keeravani) ends with the Andhra text version of three ragas one of which is Karnataka Devagandhara.
So this was probably a completey different raga as opposed to the Devagandhari of the 22nd mela! So now all musician has to do is sing an RTP in the scale s g m p n/ s n d p m g r in the Keeravani mela and call it the ‘original’ Karnataka Devagandhari!