[Book Chapter] This short article on Indian/Bharatiya music was originally delivered as a talk in the weekly online talk series organized by Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Samity, Assam, India during the Covid lockdown period 2020. It is a short concise presentation of the basic contours of Bharatiya music. This will help readers to appreciate how Bharatiya music is different from western music. This talk and article was in Assamese and I have translated it to English. Later, this and other talks were converted to English articles and published in the form of an edited e-book titled Itihas Sankalan: Articles on Indian History and is available on Amazon (ASIN B09JKHTV2N). Print copy of this e-book is also available in Amazon USA (ISBN 979-8497253542).
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The tradition of composing musicological texts and treaties is undoubtedly a glorious part of India's cultural heritage. At the very beginning the oldest documents of Indian literature, the Vedas, convey the first written information on Indian music. It is seen that, since the early days a set of specific rules have been adopted by the scholars and performers to maintain clarity in certain distinct forms of chanting, singing, dancing, instrument playing and other allied activities in the field of performance. 1 This system leads to originate the textual tradition of Indian performing art. The creative diversity became more prominent later on with the establishment of the heterogeneous system of Rāga-Rāgiṇī classification in Indian music. A large number of texts written in ancient and medieval India paid quite a little attention to Rāga-Rāgiṇī classification system. Doctrines of Hanumān, Śiva or Brahma or Someśvara, Bharata, Kallinātha, Indraprastha, Gaṇesa and many such scholars came up in this context. The vivid picture of Rāga-Rāgiṇī classification with explanation is undoubtedly helpful for understanding the origin, development and importance of this cultural practice in respect of the broader canvas of Indian music. A host of eminent scholars have been successful to unfold the profound mysteries embedded in the concept of Rāga-Rāgiṇī classification with the help of available textual documents. However, the work is still far from completion due to lack of available information. A good number of texts on Indian musicology are still lying confined in manuscript form. Rāgamālā, a descriptive work on Indian Rāga-Rāgiṇīs by Kṣemakarṇa is one such unnoticed treasury of medieval India. The work under discussion interestingly represents the existence of the age old concept of Rāga-Rāgiṇī classification system. The present paper is therefore sincerely aimed at tracing out the significance of the said text in researching the unrevealed elements of Indian music. History of musical activities is nothing but a part of human's cultural evolutions. Records of the history collected from different sources of information are helpful to understand how people lived and worked from the earliest times to the present day. The various sources of history are like the many pieces of a puzzle. These sources can be broadly classified into two groups – archaeological and literary. Among the literary sources manuscripts are major components. Handwritten records of the past in the form of books are known as manuscripts.
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Music – Politics – Identity (Universitätsverlag Göttingen)
The “classical” music of South India is an amalgam of regional traditions and practices. Increasingly codified in the past five centuries, it is now known as Carnatic or Karnatak music. Like the Sanskrit term Karnâtaka Sangîtam, these Anglicisms denote “traditional” music besides distinguishing South Indian music from its northern (Hindustani) counterpart. Progressive scholars have long espoused the common goal of making teaching more effective for both idioms while safeguarding “authentity”. It may therefore seem odd that detailed notation has not been embraced by practitioners. This paper probes the resilience of oral transmission in the face of modernity. It looks into the concerns shared by musicians who, while belonging to different cultures and periods, have much in common as far as performing practice is concerned: close integration of vocal and instrumental music. The role of manuscripts in Minnesang, as described by McMahon, also applies to Carnatic music: “songs were handed down in an oral tradition [and] the manuscripts were not intended to be used by performers.” (The Music of Early Minnesang Columbia SC, 1990.) It will be argued that this fact is not just a question of some musicians’ conservatism, ignorance or irrationality; nor would it put the continuity of a living tradition at risk. On the contrary, Carnatic music reaches global audiences today while “ancient” roots are claimed even by those who cherish its association with musicians from other cultures throughout the 20th century.
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