most famous is the kanal vari which is a duet between the hero Kovalan and his lady-love Madavi. Cilappatikaram contains musical terminology such as, azhaku and matthirai referring to the musical pitch and the smallest fraction of an audible sound distinguishable by the human ear. From these evolved the scales. Development of scales One of the first scales employed by the ancient Tamils was the Mullaippann, a pentatonic scale composed of the notes sa ri ga pa da equivalent to C, D, E, G and A in the western notations. These fully harmonic scales, constitutes the raga Mohanam in the Carnatic music style. Mullaippann further evolved into sempaalai, a scale based on seven notes by the addition of two more notes, ma and ni to the pentatonic scale. Sempaalai pann corresponds to the Carnatic raga Harikambhoji. In ancient Tamil, the seven notes were termed , , , , , and . The seven basic notes are then developed into twelve swaras corresponding to the twelve houses of the zodiac. The ancient Tamils also derived new panns by the process of modal shift of tonic and by the process of reallocating the pitch and beat of the notes. Cilappatikaram has an example of this in the chapter Arangetrukadai, where the Pann Mercharupalai is changed to derive a new Pann. By the model shift of the tonic (பண்ணுப்பெயர்த்தல்) the ancient Tamils devised the seven major palais. Using the process of the cycle of fifth (called aaya palai) or the cycle of fourth, five semitones were developed. For example, if the cycle is started with kural (sa), the fifth note will yield iLi (pa), the sa-pa relationship. In the cycle of fourth, kural (sa) will give uzhai (ma), the sa-ma relationship. These five semitones were added to the original seven notes giving 12 notes of the ancient Tamil musical octave. Among the 12 notes, the flats were called kuRai (குறை) and the sharps were called nirai (நிறை). The seven major palais or parent scales of the music of the ancient Tamils are: Sempalai (corresponding to the present Harikambhoji), Padumalai Palai (Natabhairavi), Sevvazhi Palai (Hanumatodi), Arum Palai (Sankarabharanam), Kodi Palai (Kharaharapriya), Vilari Palai (Hanumatodi), and Merchem Palai (Mechakalyani). The four original panns of maruthappann, kurinchippann, sevvazhi and sadari thus evolved into 103 panns with varying characterisations. In all of these PaNs, Uyir SurangaL (Jeevaswarams: Life Notes) exist. The life note of a PaN is