Historical Development of Indian Music: A Critical Study c8.48

c8.48

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.