Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, who passed away on 19 September 1936, in Bombay, aged 76, was an Indian musicologist who wrote the first modern treatise on Hindustani classical music, an art which had been propagated for centuries mostly through oral traditions. During those earlier times, the art had undergone several changes, rendering the raga grammar documented in scant old outdated texts.
Ragas used to be classified into Raga (male), Ragini (female), and Putra
(children). Bhatkhande reclassified them into the currently used thaat system.
He noted that several ragas did not conform to their description in ancient
Sanskrit texts. He explained the ragas in an easy-to-understand language and
composed several bandishes which explained the grammar of the
ragas.
