Learn With Purpose Series:
Pancharatna Kritis
Every Carnatic musician, at some point, sits in a circle and sings Endaro Mahanubhavulu with a hundred others. The Pancharatna Kritis are the closest thing our music has to a shared anthem: five compositions by Tyagaraja, sung together every year on his aradhana day in Tiruvaiyaru and in gatherings around the world. To know them is to be able to join that circle anywhere.
They are also, quietly, a complete course in Carnatic music. The five ragas are the ghana ragas, Nata, Gowla, Arabhi, Varali, and Sri, whose weight and clarity make them the traditional foundation of a concert’s opening. Each kriti is set to Adi tala, but the charanams are built like swara-sahitya, so learning them trains the ear to hear melody and text as one thing. Students who complete the set come away with sharper laya, a firmer sense of raga identity, and stamina for long-form pieces.
The beauty is in the range of feeling across the five. Jagadananda Karaka is a stream of Rama’s names in unbroken praise. Dudukugala turns inward, a composer listing his own faults. Sadhinchene is affectionate and teasing. Kanakana Ruchira lingers on a single image, the loveliness of Rama’s form. And Endaro ends the cycle not with the deity but with a salute to every great soul who came before, which is why it is sung last and why the room always fills.
Our Learning with Purpose series takes the five kritis one at a time, five weeks each, from raga to full concert-tempo rendition, and ends with the class singing them together in order. If you have wanted to learn them properly rather than in fragments, this is the place to start.
Please fill up the form below (or click on the button) to express your interest in joining our new batch: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScU6-kySr4_UDYTNxC-JduMdzWpDCOUhzVDTRGDMNz8tNp2WA/viewform?usp=publish-editor
Pedagogical Structure we will follow (5-Week Model per Kriti)
Every kriti follows a uniform, intensive instructional framework:
- Week 1: Raga lakshana, sahitya context & meaning, Pallavi, and Anupallavi (with sangatis).
- Week 2: First round of Charana Swaras (shorter passages, rhythmic gait/layam foundations).
- Week 3: Middle Charana Swaras (longer melodic phrases, intricate sangatis).
- Week 4: Climax Charana Swaras (speed transitions, complex poruttams, sahitya alignment).
- Week 5: Complete consolidation, swara–sahitya switching, singing at multiple speeds (vilamba to madhyama/durita), and mock rendition.
A note from Chethana
The Pancharatna Kritis are the heart of the Carnatic repertoire — five compositions of Saint Tyagaraja that every serious student aspires to sing, and that bind our community together every year at Thyagaraja Aradhana. Learning them is a milestone. Learning them well, with correct sahitya, sangati, and bhava, is a lifelong gift.
That is why we built this series the way we did. Rather than rushing through the kritis, we devote five full weeks to each one — twenty-five weeks in all — meeting once a week on Zoom for an hour. Each kriti is taught phrase by phrase, with attention to meaning, structure, and the subtle details that separate a memorized song from a truly understood one. Students who complete the series will know all five Pancharatnas end to end, and will be ready to sing them with confidence in any group rendition.
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This is the first offering in our Learning with Purpose program, which brings structured, goal-oriented learning to the Raaga community. Whether you are a current student looking to add depth to your practice, an adult returning to music after years away, or a parent who wants to sing alongside your child, this series is designed for you.
Classes begin in October 2026. Seats are limited so that every participant receives individual attention. I invite you to register below and join us on this journey.
Chethana Krishna
Chief Operating Officer, Raaga School of Music
