Rag Shankara, Rag Mala in Jogia
album by Ram Narayan

Rag Shankara, Rag Mala in Jogia is a studio album by Indian classical musician Ram Narayan, released in 1990. Recorded on 15 and 16 November 1989 in Wyastone Leys near Monmouth, Wales, the album features a sarangi performance of the solemn night raga Shankara and a ragamala ("garland of ragas") based on the introspective early morning raga Jogiya (or Jogia). On both tracks, Narayan performs a long non-metrical introduction to unfold the raga, during which he adds a pulse, until he is joined by the tabla (percussion) player to perform a composition.
Origin
The album consists of performances of the ragas Shankara and Jogiya (also called Jogia); Jogiya is performed in raga mala form.
Shankara is considered a solemn and dignified raga that is difficult to master. It has been described by Vamanrao Deshpande as representing the "heroic mood". Luiz Martinez José argued that the raga was named for a gentle and guarding incarnation of the Hindu deity Shiva. Shankara is performed in the late night and distinguished by an emphasis on the third (Ga) and seventh (Ni) notes, the upper tetrachord, and several characteristic phrases and slow glides in descend. It has similarities to the South Indian raga Hansadhvani.
Jogiya is considered an introspective raga named for the yogi practice, and is often performed in devotional music and the light classical genre thumri.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rag Shankara, Rag Mala in Jogia” is album by Ram Narayan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shankara, Mala and Jogia, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “album by Ram Narayan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7282777. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rag Shankara, Rag Mala in Jogia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.