Chandra Kauns

Chandra Kauns is a modern raga created by Pandit Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso who became arguably the most influential figure in bringing Hindustani classical music to global audiences in the 20th century — his collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison of The Beatles, and his performances at Monterey Pop and Woodstock transformed Western perceptions of Indian classical music.

Building on the ancient pentatonic Malkauns (Sa, komal Ga, Ma, komal Dha, komal Ni), Ravi Shankar introduced a distinctly romantic and lyrical quality through new characteristic phrase patterns and a lighter emotional temperament — transforming the grave, solemn austerity of Malkauns, which is associated with the deepest midnight and the subconscious, into something luminous and tender, as if moonlight had entered a cave.

The name 'Chandra Kauns' means 'the Kauns of the moon' (Chandra being the Sanskrit word for moon), and the raga was conceived to evoke the serene, romantic shimmer of moonlight reflecting on still water — not the darkness of a moonless night, like Malkauns, but the silver-lit darkness of a full-moon night.

Ravi Shankar featured this raga extensively in his concert programs and recordings from the 1960s onward, and his sitar treatments became the definitive template for how the raga should be approached — with a slower, more meditative opening than festive ragas but a warmer, more outward-facing quality than austere night ragas.

The raga demonstrated his conviction that the classical framework contained vast unexplored creative territory, and that new ragas could legitimately join the canon if they possessed a genuinely distinct melodic personality.