Bhairavi

Bhairavi is the raga that gives the Bhairavi thaat its name — the only thaat where every alterable note (Re, Ga, Dha, Ni) is taken komal, leaving Sa and Pa as the sole shuddha anchors. That same fully-flattened parent scale is what Malkauns is loosely classified under, though Malkauns' five notes are a much sparer subset of it. Sources broadly agree Sa is samvadi but hedge on vadi: most give Ma, a few give Pa instead — the pairing used here follows the more commonly cited Ma. Though formally an early-morning raga, Bhairavi's warm, devotional character has made it a near-universal closing item at the end of a concert, a convention almost as strong as its time-of-day classification. Expect heavy meend and andolan on the komal Re and komal Dha, and a generally freer, more ornamented treatment than most ragas — Bhairavi tolerates notes borrowed from outside its own scale (sometimes called Mishra Bhairavi) more readily than almost anything else in the repertoire.