Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c10.102

c10.102

Having taken a bird's eye-view of the available texts of *rāga-mālās* in Sanskrit, we will proceed to make a show survey of Hindi texts, with the data so far available. It must have been realised from very early times in the practice of the rāgas, that the Sanskrit texts of the *rāga-mālā* could only be accessible to a very few of the practising musicians learned in Sanskrit literature, who could study the theory of the musical science from the original texts. The necessity of translating the Sanskrit texts into a popular vernacular must have been felt, with the growing popularity of music during the period immediately preceding the advent of the Moghuls. The Hindī Language had already lent itself to a complete vulgarization of the classical 'Sanskrit' culture in terms of a popular folk-psychology, accessible to the general public to whom the academic classical culture was a *terra incognita*. With the development of a wide-spread interest in musical culture and development, a group of Hindī poets devoted themselves to unlock the key to the Sanskrit musical texts and to render them in easily accessible popular versions in Hindī quatrains and couplets (*copaī* and *dohās*). In this way, short popular recensions in Hindī verses opened to all and sundry the secrets of musical theory and sciences hitherto locked up in learned treatises in Sanskrit. This duty of popularising the academic knowledge and culture for popular apprehension was undertaken by well-known and talented poets, and also by lesser luminaries. One would expect Tānsen, (c. 1520-1589 A.D.) the great exponent of Indian music, and a Hindī poet of some distinction (who composed several Dhrupada songs in old Braja bhāṣā), should have been the first composer of *rāga-mālā* texts in Hindī as foundations for pictorial illustrations. Unfortunately, his hand as an iconographer has not been discovered in any Hindī compositions visualising the melodies. Of poets of distinction who condescended to write these popular guidebooks on music, the most famous name is that of Deo-Kavi, a bright luminary in Hindī Literature. But he seems to be forestalled by another poet, of considerable talent, but whose name and fame was not hitherto known to the history of Hindī Literature. This was the poet Harivallabha, the author of an elaborate treatise on Indian music. His work introduces a new name in Hindī literature, as he is totally ignored in all known anthologies and histories of literature.