Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.164

c6.164

The beginning of the fourteenth century marks the most significant stage in the development of Indian music. The differentiation in the classification of the rāgas had already marked a cleavage between the Northern and the Southern systems, two centuries before. But the new contact with Persian melodies in the fourteenth century further accentuated the differences, so that while the Southern system remained immune from the contact of Persian music, the Northern system received the new-comers with open arms, and absorbed and assimilated many new melodies imported from Persia, and incorporated them in the indigenous rāga-system, giving them their places in the classified lists, according to their structural affinities. Indeed, this was not the first time, that Western Asiatic melodies were adopted by Indian musicians. As we have seen, the Śaka rāga and the Turuṣka-Toḍī indicate that in earlier times, melodies from Chinese Turkestan had already established contacts with Indian music. The comparative era of peace established by the Khiliji dynasty afforded opportunities for cultural developments. And the new contacts with Persian music was an interesting phase of this cultural revival. The great pioneer of this contact was Hazarat ’Amīr Khusrau, the great Persian poet, musician, and administrator who was associated with the reign of Sultan Alauddīn Khilijī (1296-1315 A.D.). To ’Amīr Khusrau, a liberal-minded connoisseur, we owe the first pioneer effort of foreigners to approach Indian culture and to understand and appreciate the principles of Indian music. The later royal patronage of the art under Akbar seems to be anticipated by this cultured poet and administrator. The part that ’Amīr Khusrau took in developing the growth of the Indian melodies is indeed valuable. By a judicious combination of Persian airs (muqqams) and Indian rāgas, ’Amīr Khusrau introduced many derivative melodies, hitherto unknown to the Indian rāga-system. Having acquired sufficient proficiency in Indian musical science, ’Amīr Khusrau made very interesting innovations by producing a number of mixed melodies (saṅkīrṇa rāgas), in which Indian rāgas were crossed with Persian airs.