found: Oxford music online, Dec. 10, 2014:(Rāga: In Indian musical theory and practice a melody-type or mode, suitable for expressing aesthetic ethos and religious devotion; provides the melodic material for the composition of vocal or instrumental melodies and for improvisation; characterized by a variety of melodic features, including a basic scale (perhaps with additional or omitted notes), grammatical rules governing the relative emphasis of different scale degrees and the sequence of notes in ascending and descending contexts, distinctive ways of ornamenting or pitching particular notes, and motifs or formulae from which complete melodies or improvisations can be constructed; each has a unique aesthetic identity, sometimes described in terms of the classical rasa aesthetic system)
