Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s1.t4: Saptaswaras
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s1.t4
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Saptaswaras
v2.c11.s1.t4.1
Seven melodies, the terminology of Chinese ancient temperament, are the seven basic musical tones from low to high in a range of octave pitch for turning up the Gong tone, make up the “seven sounds” that are Gong, Shang, Jue, Bianzhi, Zhi, Yu and Biangong, namely “seven tones” or “seven melodies”.
v2.c11.s1.t4.2
The concept of melody is not completely the same between India and China. Indian music has seven melodies, originally named as Saptaka, which means the pitch. The seven basic tones from low to high are “shadja”, “risabha, “gandhara”, “madhyama”, “panchama”, “dhaivada” and “nishada” and also called Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha and Ni for short. The seven melodies of Indian music mainly use three octaves and are divided into three parts of mandra, madhya and tara according to ups and downs of voice range.
v2.c11.s1.t4.3
Chinese “melody” means not only the pitch, but also the musical mode, known as “Gong melody”. According to *Wei Book ⋅ Music Collections*, “Cui Jiulong said to Taichangqing Mr. Zuying: the voice has seven tones and the melody has seven tunes. Those seven tunes were combined into seven modes from Huangzhong to Zhonglv,” which meant that starting with Huangzhong, 12 modes were generated by tri-section loss & gains and ended at Zhonglv, namely Linzhong generated by Huangzhong, Taicu by Linzhong, Nanlv by Taicu, Guxian by Nanlv, Yingzhong by Guxian, Ruibin by Yingzhong, Dalv by Ruibin, Yize by Dalv, Jiazhong by Yize, Wushe by Jiazhong and Zhonglv by Wuyi.
v2.c11.s1.t4.4
“Seven tones” means five tones plus two changes (Bianzhi and Biangong). “Seven melodies” means forming based on each tone of seven tones as Gong. However, “Seven melodies” have to fully use the 12 modes, “starting from Huangzhong and ending at Zhonglv.” A complete melody name consists of a mode name (representing the pitch is the Gong) and a tone name (representing the mode is the
v2.c11.s1.t4.5
*Saptaswara monument in Tamil Nadu, India*
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tonic), which shows the mode relationship of the same pitch and same tone, but a different tonic such as Huangzhong’s Gong, Huangzhong’s Shang, Huangzhong’s Jiao etc. Meanwhile, it also shows the same tonic system mode of different pitches, different tone rows, different modes, but the same tonic pitch such as Huangzhong for Gong, Huangzhong for Shang, Huangzhong for Jiao etc.
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The specific melody name of ancient Chinese seven melodies was usually changed by time and musical types. The names of seven melodies recorded in *Sui Book ⋅ Music Collections* were the transliteration of Indian Sanskrit and that “Potuoli” and “Banchan”, which were undoubtedly the transliteration of "shadja" and "panchama" in the Indian heptachord.
v2.c11.s1.t4.8
Bharata’s *Natya-sastra* has fully discussed the theories of Indian ancient music, dance and drama. Please refer to chapters XXVIII to XXXVI for discussions of music; in the book, the “Swara” named with regard to special tones of Sa, Re, Ga and Ma in Indian music, has become the foundation of Indian classical music so far.
v2.c11.s1.t4.9
In the early 20ᵗʰ century CE, a stele with the size of 13 ft x 14 ft was found in the piedmont nearby Kudumiyanmalai village, Pudukkottai area. According to textual research, it was a stele of Kudumiyanmalai Inscription on music in 7ᵗʰ century CE. It is called as “Seven Melodies Stele” by Chinese music academia. The epigraphy was sculptured by using a Palava-grantha-lipi handwriting. Seven melodies recorded on the stele are almost the same to those in the Bharata's *Natya-sastra*.
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Seven melodies passed on by Sujiva in the middle of 6^th century CE might be the Chinese translation names of musical scale done by the musicians based on the Kucha language.
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(*Zhao Jiazi*)
Linked texts (1)
- Nāṭyaśāstra — Bharata, Sanskrit