Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s2.t10: Ravi Shankar
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s2.t10
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Ravi Shankar
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Ravi Shankar (formerly Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, April 7, 1920 - December 11, 2012) Indian musician, music composer, Sitar concert performer. A Bengali, he was born in a Brahman family in the holy city of Varanasi. He had six older brothers, wherein the eldest brother Uday Shankar was an outstanding dancer. His father was a scholar who graduated from The Honorable Society of the Middle Temple in London, and later worked as a lawyer in London. His parents both had accomplished in music. Moreover, Ravi Shankar once visited China, which had a great effect on Chinese music, thus promoting India-China cultural communication in music.
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**Lifetime** Ravi Shankar left Varanasi at the age of 10, and followed the dance troupe of his eldest brother Uday Shankar to Paris. Later, he became a member of the dance troupe at the age of 13. On one hand, he participated in the tour show with other members in Europe and India; and on the other hand, he learned to dance and play various Indian musical instruments. In the early and middle periods of 1930s, he started to learn French during his tour show with the dance troupe in Europe and America, thus learning western classical music, jazz and film music as well as western customs. He gave up dancing in 1938, and came to the small city of Maihar (currently in east Madhya Pradesh) with musical customs, and then he was formally apprenticed to the outstanding court musician Allaudin Khan to study Indian classical music and received strict training in the fields of sitar, traditional music theory, musical instrument skills, etc. After completing his apprenticeship in 1944, he came to Bombay and composed for ballet. In 1949, he took the post of music director of Indian National Broadcasting Station. In the middle and later periods of the 1950s, he garnered international fame by writing music for *Apu Trilogy* - *Pather Panchali* (1955), *Aparajito* (1956) and *Apur Sansar* (1959), directed by the famous Satyajit Ray. In 1955, the American violinist Yehudi Menuhin invited Ravi Shankar to play Indian classical music in New York, but he gave up that opportunity due to his marital problems. However, the two musicians cooperated with each other twice respectively in 1966 and 1967, to play the violin and sitar in England and America. In January 1956, he resigned from the illustrious post in Indian National Broadcasting Station, and started to participate in tour shows to England, Germany and America. From 1956 till his death in 2012, Ravi Shankar was a world citizen since he travelled to many countries to give his tour shows. Besides the mainland of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he was also invited to participate in the tour shows around the four continents of Asia, Europe, America and Australia. The audiences were deeply attracted by his excellent acting skills, strong culture and pure professional ethics. He became popular through his cooperation with George Harrison from the Beatles, who called him the “Godfather of World Music.” He became the most famous and legendary Indian musician. During his whole life, he held more than 1,000 concerts, published many music albums and created many kinds of music works, such as *Sitar Concerto*, and his famous works, *My Music, My Life* (1968), *Learning Indian Music: A Systematic Approach* (1979), *Raga Mala: The Autobiography of Ravi Shankar* (1997) etc were popular all over the world.
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Ravi Shankar
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Ravi Shankar
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Ravi Shankar won a lot of awards during his whole life. At the beginning of his growth in the international arena, he won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Filmfest (1957) because of his soundtrack for the film *Kabuliwala*. He won the Grammy Award three times, as well as the Best Original Music Academy Award nomination (1982) for his contribution to the famous film, *Gandhi*. The Indian government also gave the highest national honourary award to him three times, namely, Padma Bhushan (1967), Padma Vibhushan (1981) and Bharat Ratna (1999). Additionally, he also received various awards from other countries, such as England, France, Australia, Japan, etc. Just before his death, he won the 1ˢᵗ Taiji Traditional Music Award in October 2012. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in February 2013, He successively obtained 14 honourary doctorates from various countries. The then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called him the “Indian National Treasure and Indian Culture Heritage Ambassador” on his death. In the condolence letter to his wife, Singh said that the death of Ravi Shankar was a great loss to India, as she lost such an outstanding son. And also a great loss to the music circle for losing such a brilliant star. His great spirit accompanied with his music stepped over the boundaries of the nation and art to benefit the whole human civilisation.
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**Travel to China** Ravi Shankar enjoyed great popularity in China. Professor Chen Ziming of CCOM (Central Conservatory of Music) issued an article named *Sitar and Ravi Shankar* in the magazine *Musical Instrument*, which was the first article to specially introduce the outstanding sitar concert performer. In August 1983, he visited China on the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, and Chinese Musicians Association, and successively held several shows in Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai, and acquired great success. Besides the two concerts in Beijing, he also gave a lecture on Indian classical music at CCOM, introducing features and skills requires to play a sitar as well as the two theoretical pillars of Indian classical music — Raga (melody frame) and Tala (rhythm), and explaining these complicated music theory via his singing and playing. Since the Chinese were familiar with only the Indian film music and knew little about classical music before his visit to China, so his lecture and performance was significant for Chinese music lovers. Due to the interesting explanation given by Ravi Shankar, the audience started to understand and enjoy Indian classical music, while Chinese musicians felt the essence of Indian music for the first time.
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Ravi Shankar in his last years during a lively performance on stage.
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Ravi Shankar
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During the concerts and seminars held in China, Ravi Shankar directly connected with the Chinese music culture. He was delighted and pleased by the Chinese’s extensive and profound traditional culture, and admired Chinese musicians and wished to communicate with them. Chen Ziming issued an article called “Ravi Shankar—Music Envoy from India” on the 1ˢᵗ issue (1984) of *People’s Music*, which introduced Ravi Shankar’s travel in China; besides the performances and lectures, he also participated in a get-together party held for him by the Chinese Musicians Association, and appreciated the Chinese traditional instrumental music, the vocal music and the Indian dance performed by Chinese artistes. The Chinese musical instruments which he was most interested in were the seven-stringed plucked instrument (Guchin), the 4-stringed Chinese lute (Pipa), the 21-or 25-stringed plucked instrument (Guzheng) and the ancient plucked stringed instrument (Konghou). He said that he had succeeded in the musical creation “East Meets West” by the eastern and western music instruments. Therefore, he thought it would be also interesting for the musical creation “East Meets East” by Sitar and Pipa or Guzhenge. He hoped this would come true, so he could use the sitar to cooperate with Chinese musical instruments in the near future, so as to promote the combination of the two eastern music, namely, Indian music and Chinese music.
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**Influence in China** Chen Ziming received Ravi Shankar in Beijing, climbing Badaling Great Wall together with him, and was apprenticed to him. Afterwards, he suggested Chen Ziming to come to India to personally experience the Samadhi of Indian classical music. From then on, Ziming had great interest in Indian music and started to bring Indian music into the course of “World Folk Music” taught by him in early 1980s. In 1986, he assigned his student An Ping to study in India, the fellow traveller including Indian music expert, and Professor Zhao Jiazi of Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
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In 1989, when Ziming came to India as a visiting scholar for researching and studying Indian music, he visited Ravi Shankar and communicated with his Indian counterparts at his home. Chen Ziming used the violin to play Chinese music, such as a part of *The Butterfly Lovers*, *The Moon over a Fountain*, *The Yao Nationality Dance*, *Xinjiang Spring* and then he played European music, such as *Minuet*, *Ave Maria*, *Humoresque* and *Largo*. Ravi Shankar spoke highly of his performance.
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Under the appeal of Ravi Shankar’s travel in China and the encouragement of Professor Chen Ziming, Associate Professor Zhang Yuzhen of CNU (Capital Normal University) came to New Delhi Art University as a visiting scholar and studied sitar at the beginning of this century. During that period, via the arrangement of the Indian parties concerned and the recommendation of Chen Ziming, she got acquainted with Ravi Shankar and had the honour to learn from him. On December 2, 2001, she used the Chinese musical instrument-Pipa to play a piece of Raga together with the Indian musicians who used sitar, Indian whistle and tabla in a theatre in the heart of New Delhi, which became the first attempt of “China Meets India”. After coming back from India, she pursued advanced studies and got a doctorate from CCOM. Her doctoral dissertation *Indian and Western Music Blending Research in Ravi Shankar’s Artistic Practice* was the beginning of a deep research for Indian music by Chinese people. After several additions and deletions, the monograph *East Meets West: Indian and Western Music Blending Research of Ravi Shankar* was published by CNU Press in 2010.
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Liu Huiyuan, a teacher of Tianjin Opera School studied sitar in the Conservatory of Music at Delhi University between 2003-2006. In 2005, she used the Chinese Dulcimer to play Indian Raga and Chinese folk song *Jasmine*, together with an Indian musician who used both the sitar and tabla.
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In August 2012, the Chinese Conservatory of Music and Taiji Traditional Music Foundation together sponsored and held the 1ˢᵗ Taiji Traditional Music Award, which was intended for the individual or team with outstanding contribution to the fields of performance, heritage, theory, propagation, etc., of the global traditional music. Zhang Yuzhen recommended Ravi Shankar to participate, and he won the award. Due to his physical condition, he was not able to come to China to accept the prize, so he entrusted Chen Ziming to accept it at the award ceremony on October 25 on his behalf. Moreover, he specially sent the video from America of the evening party, which not only showed segments of his concert performance at the age of 90, but also expressed his testimonials and friendship with the Chinese people.