Raga and emotions
As musical scholars have defined, a basic requirement of a raga is its ability to evoke certain emotions or mood within the mind of a listener. Each raga, through its combination of notes, is capable of invoking a certain emotion – love, dislike, happiness, sadness, bravery, fear, anger, peace, and surprise. Some ragas are capable of expressing more than one emotion. Vasantha is associated with the emotion “peace.” Vasantha ragam is derived from the 17th Mela Suryakantham, which corresponds to the Bhairav Thaat of Hindustani Sangeet. Vasantha is an auspicious raga, best when sung in the evening. This is one of the oldest ragas, reportedly in vogue over 1000 years.
Swaras used are: Shudda Ri, Antara Ga, Shudda Ma, Panchasruti Dha and Kakali Ni.
In the Arohanam, Pa and Ri are omitted: Sa, Ma1, Ga3, Ma1, Dha2, Ni3, SA*
In Avarohanam, Pa is omitted used: SA*, Ni3, Dha2, Ma1, Ga3, Ri1, Sa
Hindustani raga Suddha Sohoni resembles closely Vasantha.
Audio rendering of kritis covered in the workshop
- Bruhadambikaye: Composed by Dikshitar, sung by M. Santhanam.
- Seethama Mayamma: Composed by Thyagaraja, sung by M.S. Subbalakshmi.
Other popular kritis in Vasantha
- Ramachandram Bhavayami– Dikshitar, sung by Unnikrishnan.
- Hari Hara Puthram– Dikshitar, sung by MSS.
Notations
These were notated by V. Radhakrishnan specially for our workshop. Since we’ll be using these versions during our workshop, please bring along a printout even if you have other book versions of the kritis.
- Seethamma_Tamil
- Sethamma_Eng
- Seethamma meaning and additional notes
- Brahambkayai_Vasantha_tamil
- Brahambkayai_Vasantha_english
- Seethamma-Tamil-Simplified
- Seethamma-English-simplified
Kalaranjitham 
Ramachandram Bhavayami is a Dikshitar kriti!
BTW, Guruji also said that Panchashruthi is a finer degree of classification and that it is a less common reference.
Yes! Kudos from Guruji!
Updated accordingly, good catch RC, you should visit the pages more often!