Define raga

What will be an ideal response?

• The word is from the Sanskrit word for "coloring, dyeing, tingeing" or "that which colors the mind."
• a kind of expressive entity with a musical personality all its own, a "portfolio of characteristic musical gestures and phrases"
• a collection of notes, a scale, intonation, ornaments, pillar tones (the tonal center, sa, and the tone a perfect fifth above the tonal center, pa); the basic "parent"/"mother" scale of a raga has seven tones—sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, da, ni—by lowering or raising the scale degrees of ri, ga, ma, da, or ni up to 72 different raga scales may be produced.