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Historical Development of Indian Music: A Critical Study c8: Chapter Three: Evolution of Indian Music

Historical Development of Indian Music: A Critical Study c8

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English

Chapter Three: Evolution of Indian Music

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'Evolution of Indian Music' pervades the vast field of the origin and progression of different ingredients of Indian music, such as, notes, seminotes, scales, melodies, types of songs, musical limbs and parts, visual forms or pictures of the melodies, rhythm and tempo, musical instruments, dances, hand-poses, gestures and postures or the rhythmic and graceful movements of the body, emotional moods and sentiments, etc. Indian music is a living art. It is the dynamic power of symbolizing the divine intuition of man in sweet and soothing sound. It stimulates and stirs the human depths and awakens a higher consciousness in man.

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Before entering into the discussion on the evolution of music, let us survey the musical aesthetics that impart dynamic impulse and impetus to men to create or project music. The psychic content always predominates over the world of matter. Every creative order is followed and motivated by the impulse of willing of the mind-content, which desings everthing ideally before projecting materially outside. Evolution of music is possible through the self-expressive process of Nature and it comes spontaneously without the deliberate application of rigid rules.

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The process of evolution is known by different terms like creation, re-creation, interpretation, expression, revelation, omission, historical process, progression, etc. The evolutionary process of music comprises the musical anthropology or the ethnic history of music, which deals with the origin and growth of music in the race or country, through different strata of time and space; which deals with the vastly varied rôles of music as progressively unfolded in rising racial cultures.

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Music had its root in the most primitive savage life and evolved through countless strata. Now, what are the progressively evolving concepts of music? What is the conceptual urge of man behind the evolution of music? The foundational urge and concepts of music evolved in man from three sources: (1) primitive impulses and intuitions, (2) gradually emerging scientific findings in concrete situations, and (3) working theories which are direct outgrowth of love of the creative art. There was an intense feeling for the art of singing and dancing in the bosom of the primitive men, and those feelings and love came out in the form of song and dance. The subjective impulse was thus manifested as the objective forms.

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Everything physical and psychical in the world of phenomena emerged through the process of evolution or progress. Music evolved always through the historical progress from the antique prehistoric days up to this time, and it will proceed on to the eternal future, in various changing forms and patterns.

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In the primitive age, music was crude and monotonous, but it is believed that it had a much greater field than the later art-music, bound up with the everyday life of the primitive people. It was connected with many special factors: sociological, psychological, religous, symbolic and linguistic. The primitive people sang and danced when they felt something positive to express and to enjoy. Singing and dancing were the spontaneous outbursts of their simple and sweet thoughts. Song and speech were often mingled in the course of their life and social performances. It also happened that logical thought and the musical motive developed little by little from the indefinite to the definite in the course of the song, as if the initial dream-states were gradually manifesting as waking consciousness.

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Well has it been said by Alfred Einstein that the first beginnings of music lie even deeper in historical obscurity than those of speech. Yet we shall have to gather knowledge of the origin and evolution of music for our historical study and culture. The musical medium is the music proper, as executed in the form of physical sounds, which have their physiological and psychical correlates. Sound forms the base of musical manifestation, or it will be correct to say that material sound forms the physic or corporeal body and impulse or emotion, the *psyche* or soul of music. So when inarticulate speech is developed into the use of certain sounds as symbols for impulse or emotion, we have the beginning of speech, as distinguished from tonal manifestation or music. It may be said to be an intellectual development in the field of articulate speech, leaving music for the expression of emotion or emotive feeling of man. In fact, the will to create music is an intellectual message or inspiration to man and when he creates music, his feelings are moulded in pure tone-experience, and the musical material and form take the shape of a stimulus for feeling of the beauty of tone or music in itself, aside from formal art or meaning. A similar process also originated in the minds of the primitive men, at the beginning of the manifestation of music on earth.

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Music can reveal many things of the human world, which words or speech cannot. So the primitive people did everything through words and speech, but when they sang the songs, they did it through tones and tunes, forming the narratives or stories of their daily lives. They observed the rhythm by the clanking of stones, the pounding of wood or by the dashing of stone spearheads against wooden shields. Possibly getting the idea from the hide-covered shield, they stretched skins across the two open ends of the hollow trunks of tree or covered the open mouth of the earthen ditches and thus invented the musical instruments like drum, which accompanied their songs and dances. To keep time and to create stirring emotion, they clapped their hands, nodded their heads and moved the limbs of their bodies, and from them they gradually gathered the sense of measure of time, which, in turn, gave rise to the idea of rhythm. The primitive nations did not know at first the ratios and distant measures of the tones, but yet they used to add the notes to the words or speech, making them suitable for music. They knew the proper modes of utterances or the process of intonation. Just as a word was sometimes a sentence to the primitive men, so was a tone in songs something of a melody. Gradually they observed the forms and beauty of cadences of rise and fall in words and tones, and from the succession of words and tones, they discovered the laws and forms of melody, though in a crude form. The growth of melody was one of the main reasons why music was so significant in the life of primitive people. Prof. Marius Schneider says that primitive melody did not grow out of harmony, harmony was rather the product of melodic variants. Singing and dancing were closely related among the primitive people and they used to generate something which was more than the original movements themselves. All the rites relating to birth, circumcision, marriage, hunting, war, weather, medicine, and death were permeated with musical elements. Among the funeral songs, the women's laments and the songs which men sang in praise of the dead deserved special mention. In primitive cultures it was very difficult to distinguish musically the various kinds of songs since there was still so little differentiation of form. Often the type of voice used determined the character of a melody. Funeral songs and erotic songs were often sung in a nasal voice; love-songs were accompanied by a significant play of the lips. In more highly developed cultures, formal differentiation was usually determined by the various layers of tradition and that tradition was evident in every society of every nation, whether primitive or advanced. An archaic style survived in animal-songs and hunting-songs, and also in children's songs, funeral songs, epic songs, and in medicine and weather charms. Lamentations had a style of their own. In songs of praise of gods or supermen, the melodic line and volume tended either to rise emphatically or to start very high. Schneider says that the relation between the musical style and the content of the primitive song i.e. the words lies not in the external occasion like rain, war, etc. but in the prevailing psychological tension. As for example, if the witch doctor implores the spirit of disease to release his patient, the song will be friendly;

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if he fights it with his spear, the song will be war-like; yet both will be medicine songs. In this way it can be shown that songs of different occasions differ in their style and moods for their different situations and different atmospheres.

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From the history of the beginning of civilization we know that the primitive society was at first unable to produce a tone or song clearly and cleanly, and the pitch of the music or tonal voice was invariably wavering. From this almost imperceptible rising and falling of the voice above and below one tone, says Edward Macdowell, we may gauge more or less the state of civilization of the nation to which the song or music belonged. It is also found that the phrase-tone invariably corresponds to the sentence-word, and like it, gradually loses its meaning as a phrase and fades into a tone which, in turn, is used in new phases as mankind mounts the ladder of civilization. Such was also the condition of words and songs in very early times.

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Charles Darwin is of opinion that music evolved from the imitation of the cries and calls of the animals. Alfred Einstein also holds similar views. He says that comparative musicology, which deals with the primitive development of music, has admitted that primitive men may have been attracted by bird-song in the first place and have continued to use it as a model for imitation. Similar belief prevails among the Indian people. It has been mentioned in the Nāradīśikṣā (first century A.D.) : ‘ṣaḍjam vadati mayūro’ etc., i.e., the call of the peacock is similar to the tonality or pitch of the note ṣadja, that of the bull to that of ṛṣabha; that of the goat to that of gāndhāra; that of the crane to that of madhyama; that of the cuckoo to that of pañcama; that of the horse to that of dhaivata and that of the kuñjara or elephant to that of niṣāda. The Śikṣā also shows the physicophysical origin of the musical sounds or notes from the friction of the air with different parts of the human body.

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The Western savants like Roussau, Harder and Herbert Spencer are of opinion that speaking with a raised voice was the beginning of song or music, i.e. music evolved from the raised voice speech in the most primitive society of all nations and a kind of speech-song or chant-like recitative was indeed to be found among the primitive men. Specially the Spencerian theory is an idealization of the natural language of passion. So, according to this theory, music is an extension of the primitive desire to communicate; consequently its whole artistic function is related to the communication of human emotions and passions. Rowbotham does not accept the views of Spencer and he points out that impassioned speech is the source of music and it works as a vehicle for everyday emotions. Wallaschek, on the other hand, advances the theory that the original musical impulse was purely aesthetic, growing out of the rhythm. Some others hold that the very ancient sound-language ‘is the older element from which developed both speech and song: speech striving towards free rhythm and music towards a more regulated one’. Dr. Burney is of opinion that music is anterior to word and language. He says in his *General History of Music*: ‘Vocal music is of such high antiquity that its origin seems to have been coeval with mankind; at least the lengthened tones of pleasure and pain, of joy and affection, must long have preceded every other language, and music. The voice of passion wants but few articulations, and must have been nearly the same in all human creatures, differing only in gravity or acuteness according to age, sex and organization, till the invention of words by particular convention, in different societies, weakened, and by degrees rendered it unintelligible’. In fact, we know very little about the true languages of the primitive cultures of different nations. Various races might have displayed the elements of sound-languages, but so far only a small number of examples have been collected.

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Now, music that evolved in the remote primitive time can be divided into two classes purely emotional and sensuous; the one arising from the language of heroes, and the other from the swaying or wavering of the body and the patter of feet. To both of these classes or elements, says Macdowell, if we may call them so, metre (dance) and melody brought their power; to declamation, metre brought its potent vitality, and to the dance, melody added its soft charm and lulling rhyme. So these are the two ways of looking at the primitive music: one, as impassioned speech, the nearest psychologically complete utterance of emotion known to man, and the other, as the dance, comprising as it does all that appeals to our nature. Nature exists with its exquisite beauty and grandeur, while simple hearted primitive man lives in it to enjoy it and also to conquer it. It is the strain of Nature in primitive man that gave him the dance and vocal music, and it is his godlike fight against Nature that gave him impassioned speech, beauty of form and motion on one side, and all that is divine in him on the other. The conception of an ordainer of the universe was already present in him. The universe around him, the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky and the ordered system of Nature created within him a great wonder and unbounded joy. He had realized the utility of a greater power, and, therefore, amid joys and sorrows, the hope of peace and solace led him utter the inmost converse of his heart to the world-ordainer. The language of his songs was meaningful and sincere. At first he used to sing and dance for his material prosperity.

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With the dawn of civilization his intellect and understanding became shining and acute, and his outlook was changed and, consequently, his motive of offering music. His music was gradually enriched with more notes, grace and emotion. The monotonous ārcika type of music, containing only one note, was replaced by the gāthika type, possessed of two notes. Afterwards a new type of sāmika music, with three notes, evolved out of the remains of the gāthika. Gradually for the growing taste and temperament of the more civilized Vedic people, the sāmika was replaced by the svarāntara type of music, possessed of four notes. Music with five notes, auḍav type of music, then evolved and it was again replaced by the ṣāḍava type of music, possessed of six notes. Upon the skeleton of the ṣāḍava type of music, the music with seven notes, sampūrṇa type at last flowered into full sweep and beauty.

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A review of the Brāhmaṇa, Saṃhitā and Āraṇyaka literature shows simplicity in form and in the presentation of music of early days. Music consisted of recitative hymns or stotras, songs, prayers and lays in the early stage. With the progress of civilization and human intellect, the cultural sphere was lit up with a ‘heavenly’ glow. The conception of various deities and gods came into being and man paid his homage to them in words and tunes.

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The sun-worship was prevalent in the remote antiquity. The sky (*ākāśa*) was conceived as *Varuṇa-devatā* in the early Vedic society and the sun as *Mitra* or *Mithra*, the friend of the universe. Again the sun and the sky were known as the twin god, *Mitra-Varuṇa*. The sky was often looked upon as the ocean of milk or *kṣiroda-samudra* and the sun as the celestial god. The fire-worship gradually evolved as the prototype (*pratinidhi*) of the sun-worship and fire was regarded as the sacred symbol of the sun, nay, the god of the nether world. Different rites and sacrifices (*satra* and *yajña*) evolved. The butter was poured into the sacrificial fire as sacred offering and it was believed that the gods and deities received their oblations through the medium of the flames of the sacrificial fire. They thought that the flames were no other than the tongues of the gods : ‘*viṣṇu-jihvā*’. The *Viṣṇu* was the representative of the sun and the fire. In the mytho-historical literature, *Devī Sarasvatī*, the presiding deity of learning and all arts, was described as the tongue of the sacrificial fire : ‘*agni-jihvā Sarasvatī*’. Along with sacrificial offerings—lays and songs were sung in rhythm, and music was considered as part and parcel of the rites and sacrifices. The songs were accompanied with various musical instruments and the cadences of dancing added to the serenity and beauty of music.

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The ancient authors on music conceived and deified the primal sound, *Nāda*, as a symbol of the goddess Sarasvatī, nay, they personified the unmanifested causal sound (*anāhata Nāda*) as Sarasvatī, with a dynamic spirit and eternal energy. They say that the manifested musical sound (*āhata Nāda*) is surcharged with that divine energy and soothes the aching hearts of worldly men and animals with its manifold manifestations as notes, semitones, colours, pitches, graces, harmony and melody.

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Goddess Sarasvatī has been conceived as an incarnation or the presiding deity of fine arts, music, painting and sculptures, nay of all learning or *vidyā*. In Vedic literature we find that the goddess has been mentioned in different forms and names. Sometimes she has been called the blazing fire or the glowing ray of the sun, as the vajra (‘Sarasvatī tad-dvitīyam vajra-rūpam’), or the river, etc. In fact, the goddess Sarasvatī is a Vedic deity and her worship was prevalent in the Vedic society. In the Rgveda we find that the minor sacrifices were known as *prayāja*. Eleven *prayājas* were used in the animal sacrifices (*paśu-yāga*) and those eleven *prayājas* were dedicated to eleven deities. The *mantras*, which were chanted in the names of those gods, were known as the *āprimantras*, and those eleven gods were also designated as *Āpridevatās* and their names were: Iḍā, tvaṣṭā, triat gods (Iḍā, Bhāratī, Sarasvatī), Usasanakta, Tanunapāt, Daivya-hotāra, Nāras’aṃśa, Valih, Vanaspati, and Svāhākṛti. The 110th sūtra of 10th maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda was known as the āpri-sūkta and its eighth Ṛk or stanza was also known by the three deities, Iḍā, Bhāratī and Sarasvatī. The Ṛk verse runs thus :

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Āh no yajñam bhāratī tūyame-
tvilā maṇṣvadiha chetayantī |
Tisro devīrvahiredam syonam
Sarasvatī svapasaḥ sadam tu ||

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Iḍā and Bhāratī were the constant companions of Sarasvatī. Besides the Sarasvatī-sūkta, they were mentioned in hymnal songs (stuti) and in forty mantras of other sūktas. In those hymns, the names of Iḍā and Bhāratī were associated with Sarasvatī. Sāyaṇa mentioned in the commentary on the 1.13.9 Ṛk: ‘Iḍādisavdābhidheyoḥ vahni-murtayastisraḥ’, i.e. Iḍā, Bhāratī and Sarasvatī were conceived as three balzing flames of fire (Agni). In the commentary on the Ṛk 1.188.4. Sāyaṇa again mentioned that Iḍā was connected with the earth, Bhāratī with the sun and Sarasvatī with the sky and they were considered as Vācdevī. Again in the commentary on the Ṛk 1.142.9, he connected the three deities with the eflulgence of the sun or Āditya. In the Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa they were conceived again as prāṇa, apāna and vyāna.

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In the Ṛgveda (1.142.9) we find again the names of four deities instead of three and they were Iḍā, Bhāratī, Mahī and Sarasvatī. In the Ṛk 1.13.1 the name of Bhāratī was again dropped.

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Gradually Iḍā, Bhāratī and Sarasvatī were conceived as one and the same, and Sarasvatī became predominant with all the qualities of the other two. So we find that Sarasvatī is worshipped from the early Vedic period.

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Again we find in the Vedic literature that the sacred river, Sarasvatī was identified with the goddess. Yāska in his Nirukta (II.23) called Sarasvatī a ‘river’ as well as a ‘goddess’ : ‘Sarasvatī * * etasya nadivad devatāvacca nigamābhāvāḥ’. Sāyaṇa in his commentary on the Ṛk stanza 1.3.12 said that though the word ‘saras’ signified ‘water’ or a ‘river’, yet it meant a ‘god’ or a ‘goddess’ : ‘dvididha hi sarasvatī vigrahavad devatā-nadīrūpā ca’. Most of the Western scholars have identified the goddess with water or a river. In Vedic India, the river, Sarasvatī was regarded sacred like the rivers, Dṛṣadvatī, Vipāsā, etc. In fact, in the Ṛgveda we find the references of ‘pañcajātaḥ’, ‘pañcajāta vardhayanti’. It is said that the Ṛṣis, kings and also common people used to perform sacrifices on the bank of the river, Sarasvatī. The ‘pañcajātaḥ’ were again known as pañcajanāḥ, pañcajanāyāḥ and pañcakṛtayāḥ. Some are of opinion that pañcajāta or five races were no other than Gandharva or the semi-divine people, Pitṛ or the departed fathers, Deva or the gods, Asura or uncivilized non-Aryan people and Rākṣasa or the demon. Sometimes the name of Niṣāda is also found. Some say that by the word ‘pañcajātaḥ’ five kinds of races or clans were meant and they were *Anu*, *Drahyu*, *Puru*, *Turvāsa* and *Yadu* and *Atri*. *Atri* was their priest. These races or clans used to pray to *Agni*, *Soma*, *Mitra* (the sun), *Indra* and *Sarasvatī*. The *Ṛṣis* used to sing their daily prayers to the river, *Sarasvatī*. Gradually the *Ṛṣis* or *Brāhmaṇs* began to perform sacrifices on the bank of the river, *Sarasvatī*, invoking *Devī Sarasvatī*, and here we find that the river was identified with the divine goddess.

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Further we find an interpretation of the words ‘*saras*’ or ‘*apaḥ*’ i.e. water as the *Soma*, which corresponds to the Moon (*candra*) or *Devī-Gourī*. In the *Ṛg-Veda* (9.1.6) *Soma* was called as a ‘daughter’ (*duhitā*) of the sun (*Mitra*). In the Vedic literature, *Sarasvatī* was again conceived as a ‘cow’, as well as the sacred words (*vācam*) like *svāhākāra*, *vaṣatkāra* and *hantakāra*. We have already mentioned that the goddess was known in the Vedas, *Brāhmaṇas* and *Prātiśākhyas* as *Viṣṇu*, *Iḍā*, *Ilā*, *Tvaṣṭā*, *Bhāratī*, *Tanunpāt*, *Vanaspati*, *Jyoti*, etc. *Yāska* indentifies *Iḍā* or *Ilā* with the sacred fire or *Agni*, the terrestrial Sun. Hindus, Buddhists and Jains generally recognize the goddess *Sarasvatī* as ‘*Vāc-devī*’, ‘*Vāgeśvarī*’, ‘*Vidyādharī*’, ‘*Bhadra-kālī*’, ‘*Vidyā*’ and ‘*Sāradā*’. The Buddhist *Mahāyāni* sects conceive the goddess as a divine force or *śakti*, an emanation of *Manjuśrī*, the masculine god of knowledge who destroys all the evil forms (ignorance) or ‘*avidyās*’ and doubts or *samśaya* with his sword (*kṛpāṇa*). Prof. O. C.

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Gangoly thinks that with the spread of Mahāyāna Buddhism to China and Japan, the Indian Sarasvatī has been identified with the Japanese goddess, Benten, who like the Indian prototype carries in her hands a lute (Vīṇā). Her full name in Japan is Dal-leen-zai-ten or the ‘Greek Divinity of the Reasoning Faculty’. This seems to recall the close association of Lakṣmī and Sarasvatī in Indian mythology. In earlier times, Devī Sarasvatī used to be worshipped in the name of Śrī or Lakṣmī on Śrī-Pañcamī day. Gradually the idea of Śrī, the goddess of luck and prosperity, was separated from the idea of Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning and knowledge.

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However, the conception of the goddess Sarasvatī is a beautiful one in the Hindu literature. The seers of truth made her an embodiment of all-existence, all-intelligence, all-bliss (saccidānandamayi). She has been imagined as the fountain-head of divine potential energy that animates all beings and permeates all becomings of the world.

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There runs an allusion in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa (VII 2.4.1-7), from which we know that music is in itself Devī Sarasvatī or it can be said, music has originated from the goddess. The Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa says that Viśvāvasu a Gandharva, stole Soma from Gāyatrī. Gāyatrī is the Vedic metre like Vṛhatī, Jagatī etc. and represents the Sun. Gandharva Viśvāvasu is known as a renowned author on music. When the *Devas* came to know of the theft of *Soma* by Gandharva, Viśvāvasu, they sent the beautiful virgin *Vāc* or *Vācdevī* to rescue *Soma*, the nectar. The Gandharvas, it is said, were fond of women and beauty. When *Vācdevī* approached the Gandharvas, they were charmed with her divine and exquisite beauty and grace. They came to gods and said: ‘Let yours be the *Soma* and let *Vāc* or *Vācdevī* be ours’. This *Vāc* is *Devī Sarasvatī*. Here *Devī* and the art of music have been identified. Afterwards *Devī* was conceived as the presiding Deity of all arts, and the musicologists called her the unmanifested causal sound, *Nāda*. The Gandharvas got *Devī* in their possession and so they excelled all others in music.¹

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¹ Dr. A. K. Coomāraswāmy related this fact in a very beautiful way. He said: ‘Similarly but more briefly in the *Taittirīya-Saṃhitā*, VI. 1.6.5.6, where also the Gandharvas who utter incantations are contrasted with the (mundane) deities who merely ‘sing’, and *Vāc* follows the latter, but is restored to the former as the price of *Soma*. The mundane deities are, of course the immanent Breaths, the powers of the soul; it is only when they restore the Voice to the Sacerdotium that they are enabled to partake of the Water of Life; as in RV. X.109.5-7, where the (mundane) deities, restoring his wife (i.e., *Vāc*) to Bṛhaspati, obtain the *Soma* in exchange, and are made free of their original sin’.—*Vide Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art* (1956), p. 141.

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From this Vedic allusion we get a very important clue to music. The Gandharvas were the semi-divine people of the north-western province of India. Some are of opinion that they had a special system of music and their scale of music was known as the *gāndhāra-grāma*. It is said that they made a special and most important contribution to Indian music, and for this reason the ancient authors of music designated the art of the *laukika* music as ‘*gāndharvam*’ or ‘*gāndharva-vidyā*’, to commemorate the valuable gift of the semi-divine Gandharvas.

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The primitive type of music was gradually replaced by the newly moulded ones. The Vedic music, *sāmagāna* evolved through the medium of songs and singing processes of the chanters and singers, and their laws, materials and processes are contained in three main song-books, *grāmegeya-gāna*, *araṇyegeya-gāna* and *ūha* and *ūhya* *gānas*. These three Vedic song-books were really composed of three kinds of *Ṛks* or collections of verses and those *Ṛks* were : *Pūrvārcika*, *Āraṇyaka-Saṃhitā* and *Uttarārcika*. The verses were the sources or womb (*yoni*) of the songs. The uses of the *Pūrvārcika* were divided into three parts and they were dedicated to three gods or presiding deities, *Agni*, *Indra* and *Soma-Pavamāna*. The *gānas*, *grāmegeya* and *aranyegeya* existed side by side in the Vedic society and were regarded as the Vedic *gānas*. The only difference between them was : the former was sung publicly by all communities of people, whereas the latter was meant for the mystic chanters or singers of the sacred forests and they were religious and spiritual. The gānas, ūha and ūhya were also sung in the Vedic sacrifices side by side with the gānas, grāmegeya and araṇyegeya. The Pañca-vimśa-Brāhamaṇa states that the notes of the ūha and ūhya gānas were similar to those of the yonigāna or veyagāna.

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Now, what were the notes of the Vedic gānas? We know from the Brāhmaṇa, Śikṣā and Prātiśākhya that the sāmagānas like grāmegeya and araṇyegeya, etc., were sung with different numbers of Vedic notes, prathama, dvitīya, tṛtīya, caturtha, mandra, atisārya and kruṣṭa. These Vedic notes were in downward movement (avarohaṇa-krama), whereas the notes of the classical music were in upward movement (ārohaṇa-krama). While discussing the structure of the melodic ambit of the primitive music, Prof. Schneider says that the upward extension of compass is a late product historically. In early Greek music too, we find the same downward movement of the notes in the pentatonic forms or scales. Dr. Winternitz is of opinion that there must once have existed a fairly large number of Saṃhitās, which originated in different schools of priests and singers, and which continued to be handed down. Many of these collections were nothing but slightly diverging recensions—śākhās or branches of one and the same Saṃhitā. The Prātiśākhya of the Sāmaveda, Puṣpasūtra and the Nāradiśikṣā state that the followers of the recensions like *Kaṭha*, *Taittirīya* and *Āhvāraka* and the *Sāmaveda* practised the *sāmagānas* with only the first note; the followers of the *Ṛgveda* used in their songs, first, second and third notes; the *Kauthuma* recensions used two notes only and some of the singers used in their songs, four, five, and six and seven notes. In fact, all the seven notes were used in the Vedic music, and it is interesting to note that these seven notes were also used by the pre-historic Indus people.

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We know from the diggings of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa mounds that many of the valuable things like seals, sacred tank, dolls of the deities, musical instruments like crude-type flutes, lutes or *Vīṇā*, with seven strings,¹ different kind of drums and a bronze dancing girl were discovered. It is striking to note that the lute or *Veena* with seven strings prove that the musical sense of the Indus Valley people was very keen and artistic. Stuart Piggot admits that there is good evidence that some of the musical instruments were constructed according to the heptatonic (*sampūrṇa*) scale, with seven notes. We find similar instances in pre-historic Mesopotamian and Sumerian civilization and culture. Curt Sachs is of opinion that though very few musical instruments were excavated in Mesopotamia, and most of them were found in the royal cemetery at Ur, Abraham’s native town, yet many reliefs and plaques, seals and mosaics, from a period extending over three thousand years, depict musical scenes, where pipes or lutes with different holes were to be found. Dr. Henry George Farmer, while dealing on the music of ancient Mesopotamia, says that from early Sumerian to late Assyrian days, music was part and parcel of social life in Mesopotamia. ‘From the time of Ashur-naṣir-pal III (c. 883-859 B.C.) we get ample lithographic material on music and musical instruments. The British Museum bas-reliefs also illustrate the artistic interests of Ashur-bāni-pal (668-626 B.C.)’. Dr. Farmer says that the ‘cordophone group of Mesopotamian instruments reveals types of the highest interest to musicologists. Perhaps the most remarkable are the harp and kithara family; the evolutionary stages of the harp are particularly fascinating.* * In the first, found on a slab from Khafāja (c. 2700 B.C.), now at Chicago.* * Similar examples (c. 2600 and 2500 B.C.) are at Philadelphia.* * The second form, with a separate bow-shaped neck fixed to a horizontal sound-chest, was not unlike the Burmese saun. It is delineated on a vase form Bismaya (c. 3000 B.C.) at Stamboul, although there is an actual specimen from Ur (twenty-fifth century B.C.) at the British Museum. The instrument of the foremost player on the Bismaya vase has only seven strings whilst the Ur instrument has eleven. The former may relate to the sibitu (seven stringed harp),* *'. Woolley, Galpin, and Curt Sachs also admit this fact.

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¹ Stuart Piggot says: ‘Cymbals were used to accompany dancing, * * there were reed flutes or pipes, a stringed instrument of the lute class, and a harp or lyre, which is mentioned as having seven tones or notes * *. There is good evidence that these instruments were constucted according to the heptatonic scale (seven notes) * *.’—*Cf. Prehistoric India* (1950), pp. 270-271. Rāi Bāhādur K. N. Dīkṣit says: ‘Some of the pictographs appear to be representations of a crude stringed instrument, a prototype of the modern *vīṇā*; while a pair of castanets, like the modern *karatāla*, have also been found’.—*Cf. Prehistoric Civilization of the Iudus Valley* (Madras. 1939), p. 30.

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Regarding the heritage of the instruments, found in Mesopotamia, Ur, Sumeria, Greece and other places, Dr. Farmer says that Terpander is of opinion that the lyre had four strings until he made them seven (iii.67), which Strabo seems to confirm. ‘Whence did this inspiration come? Could it have been Babylon? If we can trust pseudo-Plutarch (De musica. iii, xviii), it would appear that the Greeks at this time were most conservative in musical matters. Boéthus says that it was the seven planets which suggested the number of strings which agrees with a Mesopotamian origin.* * Instruments of music found their way into Greece from the Orient in large numbers. Strabo says: ‘And those writers who have consecrated to whole of Asia, as far as India, to Dionysus, derive the greater part of music from there’. But it is interesting to mention that the editors of *The New Oxford History of Music* fight shy of a truth when they do not admit their debt to India’s contribution, as they say in the footnote that the term ‘India’ meant countries much nearer, vide *Cosmographia Ethici* (p. 28) with the additions by Julius Honorius (p. 7). Even the ecclesiastical historians call the Arabs ‘Indians’. However, it is a fact that some of the developed musical instruments were found in the most ancient pre-historic cities like Mahenjo-daro, Harappa and Channu-daro, and the seven notes with the heptatonic scale was known to these people. Dancing was also prevalent in the Indus Valley cities. Rāi Bahādur Dikṣit says that besides dancing, it appears that music was cultivated among the Indus people, and it seems probable that the earliest stringed instruments and drums are to be traced to the Indus civilization.

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It has been mentioned in the *Śiksās* and the *Prātiśakhyas* that the evolution of the seven notes were completed in the early Vedic time. The seven stringed lute or *Veenā*, excavated from the mounds of Mohenja-daro is no doubt a genuine evidence and landmark, in tracing out the culture of the socalled pre-historic Indus cities, which was perhaps uninterruptedly connected with the Vedic culture. We are glad to know that some of the modern archæologists and historians have found out some similarities of culture and civilization between the antique Indus Valley cities and the Vedic society.

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But it is difficult to know the definite forms of music of the Mohenjo-daro and Harappa peoples, and some of the features and characteristics of their music can be guessed only through the light of the Vedic music, the form and culture of which extended down to 600-500 B.C.

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The expert singers and chanters of the Vedic age knew fully well the specific laws and method of application of the three registers: bass, medium and high i.e., *mandra*, *madhya* and *tāra*. The three ancient register notes or *sthānasvaras*, raised, not-raised and balancing circumflex i.e. *udātta*, *anudātta* and *svarita* came to be used as three kinds of pitches of speaking as well as singing voices. The rhythm and tempo were used in accordance with different types of feet of the Vedic metres, *gāyatrī*, *jagatī*, *anuṣṭupa*, etc. The time-measure or *tāla* was observed in hymnal songs and different types of *sāmagāna* in two different ways, with beat and without beat i.e. *sa-śabda* and *nis-śabda*. The *sa-śabda* time measure was kept with the clapping of hands and the *nis-śabda* one by wavering of the hands or different limbs of the body. From these two fundamental time-measures or time-observing processes there evolved various kinds of timemeasures in the *gāndharva* or *mārga* type of music, in the classical period.

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600-400 B.C. is an epoch-making period and it can be said to be an age of renaissance. At the advent of the classical period there evolved a new type of music, known as *gāndharva*. It was constructed out of the materials and principles of the Vedic music, *sāmagāna*. Bharata of the second century A.D. has traced the traditional link between the music, *vaidika* and *laukika* i.e., *sāmagāna* and classical *gāndharva*, in connection with the compilation of his *Nātyaśāstra*. Music was an indispensible adjunct of ancient Sanskrit plays. The *gāndharva* type of music was considered as sacred and celestial like the Vedic music and so it was known as ‘*mārga*’. The term ‘*mārga*’ suggests the idea of searching (‘*mṛg—anveṣaṇe*’) and collecting, i.e., *mārga* connotes the idea that most of the materials of the Vedic music were searched for and collected (*saṃgṛhīta*) and then applied to the classical *gāndharva* type of music. The practice of the Vedic music became gradually obsolete, as it did not suit the taste of the progressive people of the classical society.

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In the *Saṅgīta-Darpaṇa*, the ‘highway’ music is called as ‘*mārga*’, because it was followed by Śiva or Druhina and practised (*prayuktam*) by Bharata. In Dhanañja’s *Daśarūpa* (I.15,) dancing has been called as ‘*mārga*’, as it displayed the meaning of words by means of gestures. In the *Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa* (III.2.4), sacred music has been mentioned as distinct from profane music, in connection with the seduction of Vāk ‘who is won over from the Gandharvas by the Devas’. Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy says: “Now the word mārga, rendered above by ‘highway’ derives from mṛg, to chase or hunt, especially by tracking. In the Ṛgveda it is familiar that what one hunts and tracks by its spoor is always the deity, the hidden light, the occulted Sun or Agni, who must be found, and is sometimes referred to as lurking in his lair. This is so well known that a very few citations will suffice. In Ṛv. VIII.2.6 men are said to pursue (mṛgayante) Indra, as one pursues a wild beast (mṛgam na), with offerings of milk and kine (which may be compared to bait); in Ṛv. VII.87.6, Varuṇa is compared to a ‘fierce beast’ (mṛgas tuviṣman); in Ṛv.X.46.2 the Bhṛgus, eager seekers after Agni, track him by his spoor (padaiḥ) like some lost beast (paśun na naṣṭam). Mārga is then the creature’s ‘runway’, the ‘track to be followed’ (padaviya) by the vestigium pedis. One sees thus clearly what values are implied in the expression mārga, ‘Way’, and how inevitably that which is mārga is likewise vimukti-da, since it is precisely by the finding of the Hidden Light that liberation is effected”.

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Further he mentions: “Deśi, on the other hand, deriving from diś, to ‘indicate’, and hence diś, ‘region’ or ‘quarter’, is ‘local’; cf. deśam niviś, to ‘settle’ in a given locality, deśa vyavahāra or deśācāra, ‘local custom’, ‘way of the world’, and deśya, ‘native’. * * loka, ‘world’, is etymologically Latin locus, a place defined by given conditions ; the laukika, ‘mundane’ is literally ‘local’; * * From the celestial or solar point of view, deśī is thus mundane, human and devious, as distinct from super-mundane, divine and direct, * * . We think it has now been made sufficiently clear that the distinction of mārga from deśī is not necessarily a distinction of aristocratic and cultivated from folk and primitive art, but one of sacred and traditional from profane and sentimental art”.²

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² Vide Dr. Coomaraswamy : Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (Dover Publications Inc., 1956), pp.133-138.

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In the beginning of the classical period, there evolved the new jāti type of music, which was mainly connected with the performance of drama, and so it was known as the stage-song or nātyagīti i.e., a type of melodic song applicable to drama. It is said that two great authors, Brahmā or Brahmābharata and Sadāśiva or Sadāśivabharata flourished between 600 and 500 B.C. and they wrote or compiled two new types of dramas, Brahmābharatam and Sadāśivabharatam, in which some chapters were devoted to music.³ Bharata of the second century A.D. follows them and collects most of the materials from their dramas, and so his Nātyaśāstra is known by the name saṃgraha-grantha or ‘collection’.

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³ Abhinavagupta says : ‘**एतेन सदाशिवभरतमतमप्यविवेचनेन**’ |

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The newly evolved *jātirāga* songs were known as the pure parent type of music of the beginning of the classical age, and they were named after the initial letters of the seven *laukika* or *deśi* notes, *ṣadja*, *ṛṣabha*, *gāndhāra*, etc., They were possessed of ten characteristics like sonant (*vādi* or *aṃśa*), consonant (*samvādi*), assonant (*anuvādi*), melodic movements or *varṇas*, spanning of the scale or *mūrcchanā*, notes like initial (*graha*) and final (*nyāsa*), etc. The *jātis* were both melodies and songs themselves, like the *rāgagītis*, as mentioned by Mataṅga of the fifth-seventh century, but the *jātis* were the source or forerunners of both the *grāmarāgas* and the *rāgagītis*. The *jāti* type of melodies had their full play in the ancient scales or *grāmas* like *ṣadja*, *gāndhāra* and *madhyama*, with three registers or *sthānas* and successions of notes, in their ascending and descending orders. They were impregnated with eight emotional sentiments and moods. Different musical instruments like lute or *Vīṇā*, flute or *Veṇu*, cymbal and different types of drum followed them. In the *Rāmāyaṇa* (400 B.C.) we find the practice of pure seven *jātirāga-gānas*. The wandering Bards, Kuśa and Lava, were efficient in both Vedic and Classical types of music, and they were trained by their Master Vālmīki.

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Between 400 and 200 B.C. there evolved another new type of melodic song, *grāmarāga*. It has already been said that the *grāmarāga* songs were constructed out of the *jātirāgas* of different *grāmas*. The *grāmas* evolved out of the cluster or succession of notes. From the *Nāradīśikṣā* of the first century A.D. we know that seven kinds of scales evolved and gave rise to seven types of melodies like *grāmarāgas*. The seven types of scales and melodies are: *ṣāḍava*, *pañcama*, *ṣadja-grāma*, *madhyamagrāma*, *sādhārita*, *kaiśika* and *kaiśika-madhyama*. The existence of these seven ancient scales are fully supported by the Kudumiamalai Cave-Inscription, installed by the Pallava King Mahendravarman, in the early Chālukyan period, seventh century A.D. In *Mahābhārata* (300 B.C.) and *Harivaṃśa* (200 B.C.) we find the practice of the six *grāmarāgas*: ‘*ṣaḍ-grāmarāgādi samādhiyuktam*’. These *grāmarāgas* had their full play even in the third *gāndhāragrāma*: ‘*ā-gandhāra-grāmarāgam*’, which was rendered obsolete in the Christian era. The *prabandha* type of classical *Brahmagītis* and *Kapālagītis* also evolved at that time, the full descriptions of which are mentioned in Śāraṅgadeva’s encyclopaedic work *Saṅgīta-Ratnākara* of the early thirteenth century. These new types of *Brahmagītis* were *aparāntaka*, *ullopya*, *sarovindu*, *uttara*, *ṛk*, *gāthā*, *pānik*, etc. It is said that they were devised by Brahmabharata, the first propagator of the *gāndharva* music. Śāraṅgadeva says that the *Brahmagītis* were practised with *jāti* or *grāma rāgas* of different scales, registers, rhythms and tempo.

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In the beginning of the Christian era, we come across the *Śikṣā* literature, which dealt mainly with metres and tunes of the Vedic stanzas (*ṛcs*). Some of the *Śikṣās* are very important for the classical music also. The *Nāradīśikṣā* describes both *vaidika* and *laukika* music. It deals with seven kinds of melodies and scales, which have been mentioned before. Besides the seven melodies or *grāmarāgas*, we find that there evolved five microtones, which served the basic notes of the tonal forms of the *gāndharva* music, and it has been said before that they were: *dīptā*, *āyatā*, *mṛdu*, *madhyā* and *karuṇā*. The names of the socalled microtones were given, according to their respective inherent sentiments and moods; as for example, the microtone *dīptā* signifies shining, glowing or heroic mood, which means the sentiment *vīra*; *āyatā* signifies broadness, which means *śānta*; *mṛdu* signifies softness or slackness, which means *jugupsā* or *vibhatsa*; *madhyā* signifies intermediate or balancing, which means *hāsya*, and *karuṇā* signifies compassion, which means *karuṇa*. In fact, all the eight aesthetic sentiments, as described by Bharata, were the inherent qualities of the microtones, and from these, evolved the latter twenty-two microtones, *chandovatī*, etc. The microtones are useful for determining the correct intonation of the tones, their bases or grounds and consequently the *grāmas* or scales. They are very significant and meaningful, because they determine the emotive nature of the melodies or *rāgas*.

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During the time of Bharata (second century A.D.), though the *gāndharva* type of music played an important rôle in the domain of Indian music, yet a tendency of rectifying or formalizing the tribal and regional tunes was found among the progressive communities of people. Bharata devised eleven mixed or *saṃkīrṇa jātirāgas* and *jātirāga-gītis*, with all the characteristics and *aṅgas*, and, therefore, in his time, eighteen types of *jātirāgas* and *gītis* were in practice. The four types of regional but classical songs, *māgadhī*, *ardha-māgadhī*, *sambhābitā* and *pṛthulā* also evolved and they were sung along with the *jātis* and sacred *dhruvāgītis*. Some of the hymnal *dhruvāgītis*, which were sung in praise of the gods, were known as the ‘*saṃkīrtana*’, with the name of which we are familiar during the time of Vaiṣṇava movement in Bengal, in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries A.D.

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Bharata developed twenty-two *śrutis* or audible subtle notes, based upon the genus-species or *janya-janaka* principle and built the whole system upon the basis of the socalled five microtones, as described by Nārada of the *Śikṣā*. Bharata discoverd the *śrutis*, by the help of two same-sized *Vīṇās*, shiftable and fixed i.e., *cala* and *acala*. The Vedic musical instruments, *kāśyapī* or *kacchapī*, *kṣauṇi*, *kinnarī*, *audumvarī*, *ghoṣakā*, *vāna* or the latter evolved *kātyāyanī* with hundred strings, *picchorā* or *piccholā*, etc. were developed or moulded into new forms. Some of them were replaced by newly devised *Vīṇās* like *Dāravī*, *Gātra*, *Citrā*, *Vipañci*, etc. The practice of flute or pipe (*Veṇu*) survived with its old traditional glory throughout the ages. The Vedic drum was modified to some extent and out of it, the *puṣkara* or *mṛdaṅga* type of drum evolved, which accompanied the *gānas*, *jātirāga*, *grāmarāga*, *dhruvā*, etc. Different kinds of time-measures like *samā*, *srotogatā*, and *gopucchā* evolved with different units or *kalās* like *citrā*, *vārtika*, and *dakṣiṇā*. Other kinds of *jātis* like *viṣama*, *mṛdaṅga*, *pluta* also came into being. The *jātis* used to keep pace with the musical movements.

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Like dramatic play and different types of *prabandha-gītis*, classical dances with different hand-poses and gestures and postures evolved as part and parcel of the dramatic music. Bharata used two terminologies, *nṛtta* and *nṛtya* for dance, of which the former signified the dance devoid of emotional sentiments (*rasa*) and moods (*bhāva*) and was based on sheer physical gestures and movements, supported by rhythm and tempo (*tāla* and *laya*), while the latter conveyed both sentiment and mood. This distinction and their significance have been made clear by Dhanika, Dhanañjaya and Abhinavagupta. During the time of Abhinavagupta, at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century A.D., there evolved seven types of dance or *nṛtta*, which were accompanied by *gīta* and *vādya*.

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The seven types of nṛtta were : śuddha, gītādi-abhinayonmukha, gāna-vādya-tālānusāri, uddhānta, miśraṇa, miśraṇoddhānta and miśra-miśraṇa. From the uddhanta-nṛtta, the tāṇḍava type and from the sukumāra-nṛtta, the lāsya type of dances evolved. Again from tāṇḍava and lāsya, different kinds of classical dances evolved with their specific movements of the body and hand-poses.

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After Bharata, Kohala, Yāṣṭika, Durgāśakti, Dattila, Śārdula, Mataṅga and other musicologists formulated many new types of melodies. Especially in the fourth-seventh century, there was a new revival in Indian music, with the evolution of numerous sophisticated regional and tribal tunes. Some of the foreign non-Aryan tunes like śaka, śakatilaka, śaka-miśrita. turuṣka, turuṣka-toḍi, turuṣka-gauḍa, pulindikā etc. were included into the Aryan stock. The śakarāga was the national tune of the Scythians. Yāṣṭika and Mataṅga have discussed about five kinds of regional type of gītis and they were; śuddhā, bhinnā or bhinnakā, vesarā, gauḍa and sādhārita. These types of rāgagītis were known by their respective tunes or rāgas.

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Two new and novel ideas evolved during Mataṅga's time and they were the philosophical concept of the theory of musical sound and the śastric and scientific definition of the melody. Though melody type or rāga was in practice from the pre-Christian era, yet Mataṅga for the first time determined its specific meaning and definition, in the fifth-seventh century A.D. He mentioned seventy-three types of subordinate melodies or *bhāṣā-rāgas*, and they were mostly regional and aboriginal in nature.

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During the times of Kohala, Yāṣṭika, and Mataṅga, the Gupta Rulers were in full power. It is said that the poet Kālidāsa flourished then, though there is a dispute among the historians regarding his date. Kālidāsa has given the *mūrcchanās* a very high place and during his time, the *mūrcchanās* of the *gāndhāra-grāma*, survived among the communities of Gandharva, Yakṣa and Kinnara. The *maṅgala-prābandha-gānas* were also in practice in his time, as they were in the pre-Christian era, but the special feature of the sacred *maṅgalagīti* of his time was that it was sung with one traditional *kaiśikī* and one regional *botta rāgas*. The tune or *rāga botta* evolved in the land of the Himālāyan Bhutiās i.e. the Bhotadeśas like Tibet, Bhutān, etc. From this it is understood that there was cultural and commercial link between India and Bhotadeśa. Many of the dramatic music and dances evolved during the time of Kālidāsa and they were *gītis* like *dvipadikā*, *jambhalikā*, *khaṇḍadhārā*, etc., and dances like *khuraka*, *khaṇḍaka*, *valantikā*, and *galitakā*, etc.

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In the ninth-eleventh century, during the time of the Jaina musicologist Pārśadeva, two kinds of *ālapti*, *rāgālapti* and *rūpakālapti*, evolved which formed the basic ground of the manifestation of the tonal forms of the rāgas. The tunes of the aboriginal Himalayan tribe, *Bhiravā*—*Bhairava* and *Bhairavī* were introduced into the Aryan stock and they were afterwards recognized as the prominent melodies in the classical type of music. Besides them, variants of tunes or melodies of *varāti*, *toḍi*, *gauḍa*, *gurjarī*, etc. and those of *śrī* and *krī* stocks, evolved to enrich the treasure of Indian classical music.

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