Prescribed Ragas: Theoretical Description and Comparative Study
How to describe a prescribed raga
For each raga, prepare a fixed card: thaat, aroha, avaroha, jati, vadi, samvadi, pakad, samay and principal rasa. Then add one distinguishing phrase. The exam rewards precise phrase-level description, not a scale listing.
Comparative method
Compare ragas by shared notes first, then by the note that changes the identity. Yaman and Bhairav both use Re and Dha, but Yaman has shuddha Re and Dha plus tivra Ma; Bhairav has komal Re and Dha plus shuddha Ma. Yaman is Kalyan thaat, Bhairav is Bhairav thaat. Their pakads move differently: Yaman dwells on G and N; Bhairav oscillates around komal Re and komal Dha with andolan.
Worked example
Yaman: S R G M^ P D N S; vadi G, samvadi N; night, first prahar. Bhairav: S r G M P d N S; vadi d, samvadi r; morning, first prahar. The comparison should say: same tonal area, opposite treatment of Re/Dha and Ma; different time and mood; different pakad. That earns more than listing two scales.
Traps
Comparing only aroha; ignoring vakra phrases; assigning the same thaat to both; forgetting samay; writing a pakad that belongs to a different raga; treating a similar raga as identical.