Sahana and Pillappan
Sahana is a quintessential carnatic ragam. We don't find this ragam in Hindustani music. Ofcourse we can't expect such vakra ragas in Western music. Any phrase of Sahana is enough to give you a sense of joy and peace. This raga is well suited for portraying 'karuna rasa'. As you know, in Carnatic music we have both kalpana sangeetham and kalpita sangeetham. In case of kalpita sangeetham, pre-composed music, the greatest Sahana must be 'meragadu rammanave', the kshetragnar padam. The best rendition of it, no surprise here, was by Brinda and Mukta. There is a CD of Brinda Mukta, AIR recording of Padams and Javalis. The rendition in that is outstanding with both of them in top form. In the clip below, this padam starts around the 1hr 35m mark. From the krithi perspective, the most famous Sahana would be 'Giripai' and MD Ramanathan's rendition is generally accepted as the golden standard for this krithi. The record he gave of this song (for HMV)