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The
origin and inspiration of music in India, like that of all other
classical arts, is attributed to divinity. Shiva is considered to
have created sound, rhythm and dance which he revealed to the ancient
sages who in turn taught them to men. The sage Narada was the most
accomplished heavenly musician and singer who is said to have written
Naradasiksa the great treatise on music. Sage Barata was the master
of dance and wrote the Natyasastra which elaborates the laws of
music, dance and drama which were all closely related. Both these
works have been written in the early years of the Christian era but
are traditionally believed to be much older. They continue to be
referred to by scholars even today.
A tradition which from
its origin has been purely oral, is difficult to evaluate and trace.
The sources of Indian music however can be traced back to the Sama
Veda. This work is a compendium of hymns which were chanted
by a special category of Brahmin priests during the worship of vedic
divinities. It belongs to the later Vedic Period (around 100 B.C. –
600 B.C.) The Sama Veda makes references to the scale of seven notes
and three instruments – the vina (a seven stringed instrument),
the veni (flute) and the dundubhi (drum). All three came to be
associated with deities of the later Brahmanical pantheon. The vina,
believed to be invented by the sage Narada, became the instrument of
Saraswati, the Goddess of music, culture and learning. The flute and
drum were both deified as Krishna’s murali with which he
enchants the world and as Shiva’s damaru which he plays while
dancing the cosmic dance which destroys the world and create a new
one. It is from the sound of this damaru played by Shiva that
Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, is believed to have heard all
the possible sounds which he then systematized into consonants,
vowels, semi-vowels and dipthongs on which the Sanskrit language is
based.
The flute and the drum
are even today the most popular amongst the people. The vina,
however has remained a classical instrument and one that can be
played by only the most accomplished musician.
After the Vedic period
came the Classical Period when theories of grama (scales),
murcchana (modes) and Jati (species) came into existence.
Music gradually became specialized and more complex. Before the
beginning of the Christian era it was already highly developed as a
secular art. There are six ancient ragas believed to be of
divine origin – five formulated by Shiva and the sixth by his
consort, Parvati. Many new ones have been added since. These new
ragas had their source in folk music or were the compositions of
musical seers.
A raga is the basis of
melody in Indian music and a substitute for the western scale. It
constitutes the ground plan of a song and it is this that the ‘guru’
communicates to his pupil who then has to learn to improvise upon the
theme thus defined. The word raga suggests the idea of mood and each
composition is based on a particular raga. In some cases it can be
based on two or more ragas as well. Every raga represents a
universal emotion, one which is not limited to any particular country
or people. The purpose of the song is to express and arouse
particular passions of body and soul in nature. Some ragas are
associated with particular seasons or have definite magic effects.
Others have fixed hours of the day for their performance and this
rule is never broken by musicians.
A raga has three
important notes: the graha or the note on which it begins, the
nyasa or the note on which it ends and the amsa which
is the predominant note of the raga and which, in fact, constitutes
the soul of the raga. A raga is introduced by alap – a
slow, ever-unfolding exposition of the raga which prepares the ground
for further elaboration of the melodies in the succeeding movements.
Since Indian music is unwritten, the exposition and colouring of a
raga depend entirely on the creative powers and inspiration of the
performer. So, in reality, the Indian musician is both a composer
and a performer. In the case of vocal music, the words of the song
or the quality of the voice are not of primary importance. They are
just the vehicles of the music whose purpose is to crate a mood
rather than narrate a story. The words of the song are used to
support the music with little regard to their own logic.
To this Classical period
of music are attributed a number of treatises on music. Besides the
famous Natyasastra of Bharata and Naradasiksa of Narada, we have
Sarangadeva’s Sangitratnakara, and Subhankara’s Sangita
Sagar, to name just a few.
With the establishment of
Muslim rule in India a new phase began in the history of Indian
music. Indian music was divided into two schools, the north Indian
or Hindustani school and the south Indian or Carnatic school. In the
north, the Muslim rulers brought a new culture which left its imprint
on traditional Indian arts. In the field of music, there was a
fusion between the ancient music of India and that of Arabia, Persia
and even Egypt. Many new ragas were created. New instruments and
new forms of music came into being. Amir Khusrau, poet, musician and
statesman at the court of Alauddin Khalji, invented the sitar which
is a modification of the vina. The sitar has become one of themost
popular instruments in north Indian music. Tansen, the court
musician of the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, and one of the greatest
musicians of medieval India, created the instrument rabab and his
son, also a gifted musician, and his descendants adapted the rabab
and became founders of the “Rababi School”. His daughter
Saraswati and her husband, vinaplayer Misri Singhji, took up the vina
as their family instrument and became known as the “Vinkars”.
These two branches of the Tansen family founded the two most
important north Indian schools of music and some of India’s
greatest musicians of later times are found amongst their descendants
and disciples.
Based on the vina and the
rabab, other instruments such as the surbahar, the sarangi, and sarod
were also created. New forms of music were introduced, such as the
Kawali by Amir Khusrau, and the Sankirtan and Nagarkirtan which were
influenced by the development of the Bhakti movement. The Dhrupad
style was introduced by Raja Man Singh of Gwalior. Another important
development of classical music was the delinking of vocal and
instrumental music and dance. In the preceding centuries, all three
arts were closely linked and were also intimately related to drama.
Perhaps one of the most
interesting developments of this period is the association between
music and painting. The Indian mind which so easily personified the
river, trees, the sun and the Himalayas, now personified or rather
characterized in pictorial images each different raga and a new
category of miniature paintings – the ragamala – was born.
In the words of a western scholar, a raga is “ a work of art in
which the tune, the song, the picture, the colours, the season, the
hour and the virtues are so blended together as to produce a
composite production to which the west can furnish no parallel.”
In south India, the arts
continued to develop outside the sphere of foreign influence. As a
result, south Indian classical music retained its purity and ancient
traditions. The close link between the different branches of music –
vocal, instrumental and dance – remained. Even today, all south
Indian songs can be adapted as accompaniments to dance. The pure
scale which underwent change in the north continued in the south as
the Kafi of the Sama Veda. There are differences in the theories of
ragas in the two schools of music and in the nomenclature of the
theories of tala or time-measure. But in both cases, music remained
an oral tradition with its very; special relationship between the
guru and the shishya.
South India also produced
its great masters such as Tyagaraja and Govinda Marar. Several
important treatises on south Indian music were compiled such as the
Manikkavachakar, the Paripadal and the Svaramela-Kalanidhi of
Ramamatya.
In modern times, no new
innovations have revolutionized Indian music. Rabindranath Tagore
did give it a certain impetus with his compositions of some 2000
songs earlier this century. Although he founded a new school of
music, the ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ which continues to exist
today, it remains a product developed within the traditional
framework.
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