Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande 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 During those earlier times, the art had undergone several changes, rendering the raga grammar documented in scant old outdated texts.

A raga is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a melodic mode. Rāga is central to classical Indian music and a unique feature of the tradition: no equivalent concept exists in Western classical music. Each rāga consists of an array of melodic structures with musical motifs; and, from the perspective of the Indian tradition, the resulting music has the ability to "colour the mind" as it engages the emotions of the audience.