UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction of shruti Rao, S.; van der Meer, W. Publication date 2010 Document Version Final published version Published in Hindustani music: thirteenth to twentieth centuries Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Rao, S., & van der Meer, W. (2010). The construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction of shruti. In J. Bor, F. Delvoye, J. Harvey, & E. te Nijenhuis (Eds.), Hindustani music: thirteenth to twentieth centuries (pp. 673-696). Manohar. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:23 Sep 2021 25 The Construction, Reconstruction, and Deconstruction of Shruti SUVARNALATA RAO AND W I M VAN DER M E E R Intonation, and in particular the concept of shruti, has perhaps received more scholarly attention than any other topic in Indian art music. After the N¢yaÜstra, the first work to discuss shrutis extensively, virtually all treatises on music have elaborated, criticized or commented upon this issue. Shruti is intimately linked to the fundamental concept of svara. Whereas svara is a musical note or scale degree, shruti is a more subtle division of the octave. From early times, an octave was said to contain twenty-two shrutis, and as we shall see, the relation between shruti and svara has been a major source of confusion. It has not been uncommon to refer to shrutis as microtones or quarter tones, but with twenty-two shrutis to divide over seven svara in an octave, this clearly presents a mathematical problem.1 Up to the time of Ahobala, the first scholar in India to deal with pitch in terms of string lengths (in the second half of the seventeenth century), most of the discussions about micro- intervals have been ambiguous, for want of exact pitch measurements.2 The well-known experiment with the two vinas, in which Bharata demonstrates the twenty-two shrutis, was carried out exclusively by ear. Even when an actual analysis was attempted, especially by some of the theoreticians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was usually aimed at supporting the theory of musical scales as propounded by the ancient Sanskrit authors. Although the awareness of a discrepancy between ancient theory and contemporary practice had been growing at least from Rmmtyas time (1550), it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that theories of intonation based on empirical research emerged.3 Nonetheless, a comprehensive model of contemporary intonation practice has yet to be developed. Empirical research generally goes just far enough to ascertain that the old theories cannot be applied to present-day music, an allegation which still meets with much emotional resistance from both musicians and musicologists. 1In a paper by S.M. Tagore there is an extensive discussion about the propriety of using the term quarter tone. See Tagore 1965: 354-8. 2Pandither 1984: 378. The author gives the precise measurements in a tabular form. It should also be noted that ÝrÆgadeva (thirteenth century) had already described the position of the frets on the vina, thus enabling us to get some notion of the intervals used. 3See, for instance, Jairazbhoy and Stone 1963, Levy 1982, Bel and Arnold 1983, Rao 1990, Meer 2000. 674 SUVARNALATA RAO AND WIM VAN DER MEER This chapter traces the historical development of the concept of shruti. A special attempt has been made to review developments durinG the last century, includinG an account of recent research based on the actual analysis of music. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHRUTI ANCIENT PERIOD The term shruti is derived from the Sanskrit root Üru, to hear. Hence, shruti literally means that which is heard. In Sanskrit literature, this applies to all works which are considered to have been divinely revealed. It applies therefore to the Mantra and Brahmana portions of the Vedas and also to the Upanishads.4 In musicoloGy shruti has a more specific meaninG and the discussion of shruti is invariably associated with Bharatas N¢yaÜstra, a work on theatre datinG approximately from the second century AD. It is to be noted that in the N¢yaÜstra we do not find a clear definition of shruti. This may suggest that the term had already been established before Bharatas time. In Nradas Nrad¶yÜik¦, parts of which are older than the N¢yaÜstra, five types of shrutis are enumerated, implyinG that shruti must oriGinally have referred to variations of the Samavedic notes.5 There are Grounds to assume that this variation had more to do with timbre or tonal quality than with pitch.6 In this work, an important observation is made about the vexinG nature of shrutis: As foot-marks of fish and birds do not remain in water and sky, similarly the shrutis are known by their timbre (dhvaniviÜe¦a) and not by their siZe.7 Yet it is in the monumental treatise of Bharata that the theory of shruti is fully expanded. In chapter six he first mentions the seven musical notes¦aÎja, ¾¦abha, gndhra, madhyama, paÛcama, dhaivata and ni¦da (often referred to as Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni respectively).8 In chapter twenty, the term shruti is mentioned in connection with musical scales (grma).9 SiGnificantly, Bharata discusses shruti in connection with instrumental music. He lists shruti as one of the capabilities of the vina while refraininG from mentioninG it in relation to the human voice.10 Bharata uses the unit of shruti to define the interrelation of two notes in terms of consonance and dissonance. He considers two notes to be saÃvdi (consonant) if there are nine or thirteen shrutis between them, intervals which have invariably been equated with the perfect fourth and fifth. If the interval is of two or twenty shrutis, on the other hand, the notes are considered vivdi or dissonant. Notes are termed as anuvdi or assonant (neither consonant nor dissonant) if they have any other interval siZes between them.11 After statinG that there are twenty-two shrutis in each scale (grma), Bharata Gives the followinG arranGement for the ¦aÎja-grma and madhyama-grma: 4Garret 1987: 607. 5Nrada 1983: 1, 7, 9-16. 6Rowell 1998: 82-3. 7Ranade 2000: 37. 8Bharata 1967: 6, 27-9. 9Ibid., 20, 5. 10Ibid., 28, 13-15. 11Ibid., 28, 22-3. THE CONSTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION, AND DECONSTRUCTION OF SHRUTI 675 ¦aÎj-grma Sa 3 Re 2 Ga 4 Ma 4 Pa 3 Dha 2 Ni 4 Sa madhyama-grma Sa 3 Re 2 Ga 4 Ma 3 Pa 4 Dha 2 Ni 4 Sa Thus, a change of only one shruti is needed to maKe the two grma identical.12 As observed by S.A.K. Durga, Bharata seems to have followed the methodology of SanKhya philosophy in his treatment of shrutis and svara.13 Without bringing in mathematical formulations, Bharata validates his theory of twenty-two shrutis (within an octave), taKing the ear as the sole judge for his eXperiment.14 Widdess, however, maKes a very strong case for a much more fundamental difference between the two grma. He argues that in Bharatas time the ma-grma started from Ma and therefore represented a fundamentally different scale type. He suggests that the distinction between the two grma became irrelevant with the introduction of mµurchhan and jti.15 MEDIEVAL PERIOD Following in Bharatas footsteps, MataÆga (c.800) and King Nnyadeva(r. 1097-1154) reiterated the theory of twenty-two shrutis.16 However, it seems that by MataÆgas time confusion and diverging views concerning shruti had already developed among scholars. MataÆga sums up no less than five interpretations of the relation between shruti and svara. It is highly significant that he arrives at the conclusion that svara is manifested through the shrutis, and that svara are separated from each other by bands of shrutis. As Rowell has pointed out, this is in striKing contrast to early Western musical thought, in which pitches were traditionally conceived as points.17 Most Western scholars who tried to unravel the question of the relation between the seven svara and twenty-two shrutis have tried to looK at shrutis as discrete tuning positions, thus adding to the discrepancy between theory and practice. That this interpretation is rather one- sided becomes clear from Abhinavaguptas commentary on the N¢yaÜstra, where shruti appears in the conteXt of ornamentation, with the aim of heightening the emotional impact of a song. In addition he indicates that shrutis have a time value, which would obviously be impossible if it were only a tuning position.18 In fact, Bharata also explains that the three-shruti interval on the flute should always be played with vibrato.19 12Ibid., 28, 24. 13The SanKhya system, which is based on systematic reasoning, is one of the siX philosophical schools of India that flourished at the beginning of the Christian era.