Historical Development of Indian Music: A Critical Study c2.5

c2.5

Musicology is called the Science of Music, as it helps to understand or realize music in its true perspective and colour. It formulates laws and rules that lead music to its right path, and thus protects and preserves it in its pristine purity and glory as it were. The musicologists and musicians are fully aware that the notes or *svaras* (the word ‘*sva*’ means ‘by itself’ and ‘*ra*’ connotes the idea of *rañjana* which means ‘pleasing’) are the vital elements in the domain of Indian music, and that they design the *rāgas* that form its very basis, nay, the life-force or *prāṇa*. The musicology has moreover devised the microtones long before the advent of the Christian era, and framed the notes that are deeply saturated with emotions, and are nourished by their subtle sentiments. The *rāgas* are formed out of the permutations and combinations of the notes. The notes are, therefore, the norm or matrix of the *rāgas*, and as such the *rāgas* create impressions, and rouse the emotive feelings in the hearts of the sentient beings, and a wave of sublimity sweeps over them when they are sung. The note that generates the greater number of emotion and feeling, is called the sonant or *vādī*. The function of the sonant is to help the manifestation of the *rāga*. The sonant or *vādī* (*vadanāt* vādī, i.e. which speaks of, or determines, or makes manifest the rāga) is the prime thing, and plays a prominant part in Indian music. It helps the living beings to become conscious of their innate delightful nature. It also makes them conscious of their inherent divine energy that lies dormant in the subconscious mind. Samvādī means the consonant of melodic affinity between the notes, first and fourth, or first and fifth, that occurs at the distances of the ninth and thirteenth microtonal units. Samvādī is termed as the consonant, because it brings in the greatest affinity between two allied notes. Anuvādī is termed as the assonant, and it acts next to the sonant or vādī (anu + vādī, i.e. that comes after vādī, the sonant), while the other one is termed as the dissonant or vivādī, for its having a contrary tendency, bent upon destroying the state of equilibrium or the balance of the rāga, and is, therefore, unhelpful in perfecting the emotive feelings.