Dr.S.BHAGYALEKSHMY, M.A.,Ph.D, hails from a musical family. After completing her Masters Degree in Music from Kerala University, she was awarded her Doctorate in Music from Kerala University. She has authored several books on Carnatic Music in English and Malayalam. Prominent among them being Ragas in Carnatic Music, Lakshanagranthas in Music, Approach to Bharathnatayam etc. which have become defacto source reference books in the areas.

Her books in Malayalam on Ragachikitsa has been well appreciated by the Medical profession and the musicians alike. She had edited the encyclopaedia of culutre prepared during her stint at State Institute for Childrens literature, where she retired as editor.

She had prepared books with notations for compositions of Tyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Purandaradasa, Swati Tirunal, Syama Sastri in Englsih and Malayalam. The Preli- minary series Karnatic Music reader in 4 parts in English and Karnataka Sangeetha patamala in 6 parts in Malayalam, have been well apreciated by the learners. These books have gone into several editions. She has edited and brought out the complete works of Tyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar and Maharaja Swati Tirunal in Malayalam.

She has rendered several set of Cds for learning Karnatic Music, Compositions of Tyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, Maharaja Swati Tiriunal, Syama Sastri, Pancharathna kritis and an Audio encyclopaedia for learning Ragas, the Ragadharaaudio encyclopaedia for Carnatic Mela ragas, in English. She presents reegular musical concerts on stages, All India Radio Doordarsan, and and Several television channels. She is an accredited B High artist of All India Radio. She is also an accredited Doctoral Research guide for several universities. More than 15 students have been awarded Ph.D under her guidance.

Indian Music has been included in the curriculum as source reference material for graduate and post graduate studies many years before. Many books on Music in English and other regional languages have been of help for students from both practical and theoretical aspects. UGC have introduced Karnatic and Hindustani Music for NET exam for Music students for Junior Research Fellowship and Eligibility for Lectureship in colleges and University departments. The need for areference book for UGC /JRF was found inevitable when students were preparing for this examination. It is with this intension that the first edition of this book was prepared by me. The welcome response from students and teachers as well as institutions gave me the inspiration to come up with a revised edition of this book. I am immensely happy that many students were able to clear and pass the UGC exam with the help of this reference book published three years ago.

I am happy to bring out a revised edition of the book with more questions and answers added to my earlier edition. The format has been completely reset to make it more accessible for answers. Nearly three thousand questions comprising, Objective type questions, One word answer questions, Fill in the blanks, Assertion and reasoning, matching from lists etc. have been added. The objective questions span the entire area of Hindustani and Karnatic Music and general information on Indian Music, Composers, instruments, and various other aspects. The Essay section have been completely recast and more Essays have been included relating to Hindustani Music and Karnatic Music. Several Essays on other forms of music as Bengali Music, Modern music, Tamil Music and composers too find added in the section. More Essays with new topics of current significance have been included. In addition sample questions are given. The Essays have been selected and written in a way so that they can be made more useful , and also used to answer short paragraph questions as well. Thus it will be mor useful preparing for UGC/NET/ Ph.D entrance, SET, SCEST, Regional State level board entrance examinations , and other competitive examinations as well.

I Hope this new edition of the book will be welcomed by the prospective students as well, and enable them to achieve better results in their endeavour. I will be only happy to hear from them their views and suggestions for making this book more fruitful.

I am extremely thankful to my brother Sri. M.Easwaran, who took the interest and initiative for coming up with the second revised edition of this work. As always he is the main inspiration and encourage- ment for the preparation of many of my books. I am thankful to Smt.M.Girija, wife of Sri.Easwaran, CBH Publications, for taking this work for publishing in aa very limited time. I also my express my gratitude to her.

Last but not least, I am thankful to God, My parents and all my Teachers, who enabled me to complete this work and made this publication possible.