THE TEACHERS’ COLLEGE OF MUSIC, 115-E, MOWBRAY’S ROAD, ROYAPETTAH, MADRAS-14. THE JOURNAL OF THE MUSIC ACADEMY MADRAS A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE SCIENCE AND ART OF MUSIC
Vol. XXVIII 1957 Parts I-IV
RI^ffcT m srw RR?II
“ I dwell not in Vaikuntha, nor in the hearts of Yogins, nor in the Sun; where my Bhaktas sing, there be I, Narada ! ”
EDITED BY T. V. SUBBA RAO, b .a , b .l .
AND
V. RACHAVAN, m . a ., p h .d .
1958
PUBLISHED BY THE MUSIC ACADEMY, MADRAS 115-E, MOWBRAY’S ROAD, MADRAS-14 innual Subscription - Inland Rs. 4 : Foreign 8 sh. Post paid. NOTICE
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Special position and special rates on application. CONTENTS Page The XXXth Madras Music Conference 1956 Official Report 1— 56 Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam of Sri Tyagaraja Swamigal M. Subrahmanya Iyer o f Pudukottai 57— 67 Indian Music and Aesthetics Dr. V. G. Paranjpe, Poona 6 8 - 71 The Veena Paddhati of Hindustani Music Birendra Kishore Roy Choudhri, Calcutta 72— 76 The Origins of Western Music Nicholas Nabokov, U. S. A. 77— 83 Dance and Drama Egon Vietta, Germany 84— 91 The Traces of Ancient Indian Music in China Jan Yun-Hua 92— 99 The Popular and Classical in Music Dr. V. Raghavan 100—106 The God’s Pleasure Dance of Manipur Dr. Maheswar Neog, Gauhati University 107—110 Music of Laos Prince Souvanna-Phouma 111—114 The Eternal Paradox in Indian Music- The Srutis Prof. G. H. Ranade, Poona 115—119 Lalita and Manji Ragas Sangita Kalanidhi Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer 120—125 Two New Kritis of Sri Muttuswami Dikshitar Edited by Vidvan A. Sundaram Iyer 126—135 A New Kirtana of Patnam Subramania Aiyar and a New Varna of Ramnad Srinivasa Iyengar Edited by Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer and B. Krishnamurthi 136—139 CONTENTS Sri Ananda Dasa of Surapuram and his Compositions Vidwan N. Chennakesavaiya, Mysore ... 140—150 Upanishad Brahma Yogin Dr, V. Raghavan ... 151—152 NOTES ... 153—154 BOOK REVIEWS ... 155—166
SUPPLEMENT: The Hastamuktavali of Subhankara Introduction : Maheswar Neog ... 1—8 THE XXXth MADRAS MUSIC CONFERENCE 1956 OFFICIAL REPORT
THE OPENING DAY 22nd December, 1956 The opening of the XXXth Annual Music Conference of the Madras Music Academy was held at a special Pandal erected in the premises of the Madras Music Academy, Royapettah, Madras-14, from 22nd December, 1956 to 1st January, 1957. The Hon’ble Sri Morarji Desai, Union Minister for Industry and Commerce, inaugurated the Conference. Nagaswara Vidwan Tiruvizhimizhalai Subrahmania Pillai presided over the delibera tions of the Expert Committee. The conference was also attended by musicians from the north who took part in the concerts and discussions, as also by the eminent American Composer Dr. Henry Cowell and Mrs. Cowell from U. S. The opening function was largely attended by the members of the Academy, the public, the musicians and the Union Finance Minister, T. T. Krishnamachari, Sri K. Kamaraja Nadar, Chief Minister, Madras, the judges of the Madras High Court and other officials. On arrival the Hon’ble Sri Morarji Desai was received by the President of the Academy, Sri K. V. Krishnaswami Iyer, the Secretaries, members of the Executive Committee and musician- members of the Expert Committee. The Hon’ble T. T. Krishnama chari introduced the Hon’ble Morarji Desai to the President-elect to the Conference, the President of the Academy, and other Sangita Kalanidhis of the Academy who were present. The Minister sat for a group photo with members and office-bearers and musicians of the Academy. The proceedings of the opening function began with prayer, sung by the students of the Teachers College of Music, con ducted by the Academy. Sri K. Soundararajan, one of the Secretaries, read messages received on the occasion. Sir Steuart Wilson, President, International Council of Music, wrote from London wishing the Academy all success in its A 2 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII
efforts and said that the Academy had to play an important role in the conduct of the South East Asian Music Commission. Mr. Faubion Bowers wrote from New York wishing the Academy all success and paying the Academy credit for their work especially in respect of Bharata Natya and the School conducted by Balasaraswati under the aegis of the Academy. He referred to such outstanding artistes of the West like Martha Graham and Yehudi Menuhin speaking with warmth of their unforgettable experience in Madras. The Hon’ble Dr. B. V. Keskar, Minister for Information and Broadcasting said in his message! “I know the great work that the Academy is doing in the field of Classical Music in the South. I wish there were such insti tutions in the North who were doing as devoted and steady work as the Academy is doing in the South. Classical music is the basis of all music whether it was light, folk or popular. The roots of our music lay in its classical tradition. Moreover, our classical music had a profoundly and qualities which were very different from those of other countries like the West. It was a matter for rejoicing that more and more people were considering music to be an essential part of culture. In that, the Academy was contributing much and I hope will contribute more. I am sure its work will go on increas ing The Hon’ble K. C. Reddi, the Hon’ble C. C. Biswas, the Hon’ble S. N. Mishra, Central Ministers, sent messages wishing the Conference success. His Excellency the Governor of Madras conveyed his best wishes for the success of the Conference. Sri and Srimati C. D. Deshmukh sent their best wishes for the success of the Conference. His Holiness Srilasri Subrahmania Desika Gnanasambandha Paramacharya Swamigal, Head of the Dharmapuram Mutt, sent his congratulations to the Music Academy and the President of its xxxth Conference. Messages were received from Members of the Central Advisory Board of Music, All India Radio, Members of the Executive Committee^ and General Council of the Central Sangit Natak Academy and’ Secretaries of many of the regional and State Academys of Music, Dance and Drama : Srimati Nirmala Joshi, Rani of Bijni, Assam, Nil Madhab Bose, Orissa, Prof. G. H. Ranade, Poona, Birendra Kishore Roy Choudry, Calcutta, Prof. Maheswar Neog, Gauhati, Robindralal fHft XfcXTH liAbRAs MtlSlC CbNtERENCE i$56 $
Roy, Shanti Niketan, and Ramesh Chandra Banerjee, Calcutta. Messages were also received from the following : Sangita Kalanidhi Marungapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer, President of the 29th Conference of the Academy, sent his best wishes and paid his tribute to the President-elect of the Conference Sri Tiruvi- zhimizhalai Subrahmania Pillai. Vidwan Embar Vijayaraghava- chariar sent his greetings. Hon’ble Justice T. L. Venkatarama Iyer, Judge, Supreme Court and Vice-Fresident of the Academy wrote from Delhi : “ I am in receipt of the programme for the 30th Session of the Music Academy Conference, which commences on the 22nd instant. I should have been very happy, if I could attend the Conference. I am unable to do so ; but my thoughts would be always there. I am glad to note that our Academy is coming to be recog nised as an All India institution, as seen from the personages who are opening the Conference and presiding over Sadas. Looking in retrospect at the work which we have done, we have every reason to be proud of it. I have no doubt that our Office-bearers and members would with their usual devotion and diligence make the conference a great success.” Mr. John Marr of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, who studied Carnatic Music in the Academy, sent his greetings.
WELCOME ADDRESS Dr. V. Raghavan, Honorary Secretary, presented to Sri Desai a welcome address on behalf of the Academy. The address said : We have great pleasure in welcoming you to our Academy on the occasion of our thirtieth Conference, and in requesting you to declare open the Conference and the series of concerts arranged as part of the Conference. We cannot thank you adequately for the readiness with which you, at such short notice, acceded to our request. We are the pioneering academic body in the field of Carnatic music and the origins of our institution go to the cultural annexe of the 1927 Madras Session of the All-India Congress. We conduct a Teachers’ College of Music, a class for advanced students for learn ing special compositions, a school of classical Bharata Natya, and the only journal of its kind in the whole of S. E. Asia devoted exclusively to the advanced study of the science, art and history of music. We have also published music treatises and editions of songs. 4 fH B J o u r n a l o * t h e m Ad r As M usic a c a d e m y [Vol. x x v l i t
Our annual Conferences form the crown of our work and here we bring together members of our Experts’ Committee and other musicians and scholars for a ten day session of discussions, demons trations and reading of papers. As part of this Conference, we have also a series of planned concerts and here, as well as in the Conference, we afford opportunities for representatives of Hindustani music also. Members of the Experts’ and Executive Committee of our Academy are intimately connected with the A. I. R., the Central Sangita Natak Akademi and other official and non-official agencies working in the field. Our work is continuously on the increase; recently, our work has attracted attention abroad in international music organisations, and foreign students of music and dance are coming to us now. While we have on our expansion-programme many academic lines of work, our immediate objective is to raise a new hall which will be the best auditorium at least so far as this part of the country is concerned. In November last year we had the unique privilege of receiving in our midst the revered Prime Minister who laid the foundation stone of the new auditorium which we are going to raise on these grounds here. We are fortunate enough to enjoy the patronage of a wide circle of friends and it inspires confidence and enthusiasm in us when we think of the interest and appreciation which persons of your position and eminence evince in our work. We are gratified to be associated with this, Sir, your first visit to the State after your elevation to the Union Cabinet. Your appoint ment to the Central Ministry is no surprise to those who have followed your record as a trusted lieutenant of Mahatmaji in the struggle for freedom and your subsequent distinguished record in the administration of Bombay, and the confidence that you have inspired as a strong and efficient administrator. Believe us, Sir, we feel truly honoured by this visit of yours to our institution. Cultural reconstruction is an essential part of nation building activity, and we hope that non-official institutions like ours which have done poineering and consistent work in the field, and can co operate with the Government, will receive adequate recognition and encouragement from the authorities. We now request you, Sir, to inaugurate our Thirtieth Annual Conference and concerts.
Hon. MORARJI DESAI’S SPEECH After thanking the Academy for the honour done to him, Sri Desai said: “ This Academy has been a pioneer in this field and The XXxth Madras Music conference 1056 5 has done a great deal in furthering the cause of true music in the South. It has also by its work made other people take more interest and put in further efforts in getting music its place which it had in the past and which it should have in the present and in the future.’* “ I have always felt ” the Union Minister observed “ that in music this country had reached a high standard which has not been reached by any other country. That does not mean of course that we have maintained to-day that knowledge which we had acquired in the past. But, our efforts now should be to get back to that stage which we have reached in the past—and it is to my mind a state of perfection. Speaking as a layman his own definition of any art would be that it could be called perfect if it interested the layman and not otherwise. Classical music is vital to the progress of music. But it does not mean that classic al music should interest only those who understand it-completely. If classical music does not interest the layman and sends him away from it, I should think there is something wrong somewhere in the presentation of it. We always believe in this country that our music has an absorbing interest not only to human beings but also to birds and animals. If therefore the highest music can be of absorbing interest to birds and animals most ignorant human beings cannot but be affected by it. Even though 1 do not myself understand the Ragas, I feel interested myself when I hear real classical music and feel very happy when I hear it”. The Union Minister observed that they in this country in their past civilisation had reached high standards in all branches of know ledge which was really marvellous. That was so, because they had always thought of perfection and they went to the root of perfec tion. They derived all their knowledge from their attempt to realise God and music was one of the main instruments of realising God. In all their religious worship, music was there. All their saints had contributed a great deal to music. If knowledge does not make a person perfect it is not real knowledge. In music too, if that music is not perfect then it cannot interest everybody ; but if it is perfect, it is bound to interest everyone. That should be in my view the aim of classical music.” “ We have to do ” Sri Desai stated, ‘‘ a lot of research. We have to do a lot of study in all branches of music. But, this re search and study would not be on the lines on which we are used to make our present-day scientific research. This research requires Sadhana or complete dedication to this art. If this is done, I am 6 t h e j o u r n a l o p t h e Ma d r a s m usic a CaDe My [Vol. xxvlt: quite sure that you will get back the art that has been held in abeyance for a few centuries now. Here you have maintained a great deal of the knowledge and have been exerting a great deal also to go further. I have no hesitation in congratulating the Academy in taking up this work in right earnest for the last many years. I am quite sure that the earnestness with which you have been doing this work is bound to give you success not merely in making the Academy known or respected or useful to the people here, but also in expanding our knowledge of music throughout this country. “ We have ”, Sri Desai observed, “ two schools of music, northern and southern. But the basis is the same, and unless we have a synthesis of both the schools and both the schools work in unity, we may not be able to resolve the differences which are many a time stressed upon more than the unity of it. But here in the South we are not suffering so much as we suffer in the North, from these differences. In this country for many centuries, we have learnt how to divide ourselves rather than to unite. That has been our main weakness. Even to-day after getting our freedom, we are thinking more in terms of the north, south, east and west, several States, several languages and dialects. We also think in terms of so many religions. We go on thinking of our differences and find out ways and means of quarrelling rather than ways and means of adjusting our differences or different views and give our best to the country so that all of us could go ahead and all of us can be happy. Music is one power, to my mind, which can unite everybody. But, as it happens, man who has the capacity of using everything to the best advantage is also using everything in its worst manner, and music has not been free from this dual capacity of man. Music can make us and can destroy us too as everything can. Even milk which is considered best food can turn into poison if it is taken in excess or in a wrong way. Therefore, there is nothing which cannot be used wrongly and that is where the genius of man comes into being. Our purpose should be to avoid the wrong part of everything and utilise its best part. But music, the Union Minister said, was a very great task mas ter. Music was such a knowledge that if they strayed a little away from the correct path they would be soon found out even by a lay man. A layman might not be able to explain the fault; but, he will not certainly like it. Classical music should therefore be so tuned or be so learnt and the knowledge so distributed that laymen also could be interested and its impact on folk music became great THE XXXTH MADRAS MUSIC CONFERENCE 1956 7 resulting in folk music elevating the people. Those who therefore think only of light music and consider that classical music need not be pressed upon, I am afraid, are quite wrong. Classical music is the foundation of music. Not only the foundation of music, but it has real power and is the essence and if this is taken away from music, music does not remain or exist. Whatever they did the main purpose should be to make people happy and to make the world happy, because if the world was not happy, their happiness could not last. Music could contribute a great deal to it”. “ 1 should like to see that day ”, he said, “ when music is taught to all children in the country and nobody is free from it. It was then and then alone you will be able to think, speak and act in unison and in tune with oneself and with others. When that happens we will have shed our great defects. If this is to be achieved then music has a lot to teach us”. He wished the Academy success in its efforts, not success which was very slow or delayed, but a success which was gradual and mounting and which spread throughout the country.
Vote of Thanks Sangita Kalanidhi T. V. Subba Rao proposing a vote of thanks to Sri Desai said that he was a distinguished statesman who had done his best to the State of Bombay and who had been translated to a higher and wider sphere of activity. The greatest need of the Aca demy was a building for their College and auditorium for holding their concerts and conferences. He expressed the hope that with the help of their patrons, their aims would be fully realised. He also thanked Messrs. Surajmals for the fine piece of work done in artistically framing the address presented to Sri Desai.
Election of the President of the Conference Sangita Kalanidhi Palladam Sanjiva Rao then proposed Vid- wan Subrahmanya Pillai as President of the Conference. Sangita Kalanidhi Musiri Subrahmanya Aiyar, Sangita Kalanidhi Mudi- kondan Venkatarama Aiyar, Nagaswara Vidwan Veeruswami Pillai and Sangita Kalanidhi Semmangudi Srinivasa Aiyar support ed the proposal after which Vidwan Subrahmanya Pillai was ins talled in the presidential chair. Vidwan Subrahmanya Pillai then delivered his presidential address. 8 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVHI
Presidential Address Vidwan Thiruvizhimizhalai Subrahmanya Pillai, at the outset thanked the Music Academy for asking him to preside over the Conference this year and said that it was an honour done to the1 nagaswara, an ancient instrument in the Carnatic Music world. Sangita, he said, occupied the leading place among the fine arts. Tyagabrahmam had mentioned in his kriti ‘‘ Swararagasudharasa” how nada was produced at mooladhara. Again, the kriti 4‘ Moksha- mugalada ” described that the seven swaras were born of pranava nada which itself was produced by the union of vayu (prana) and the kamalagni (of mooladhara). The kriti “ Nadatanum anisam sankaram ” mentioned the birth of the swaras from the five faces of Siva. Muthuswami Dikshitar had also referred to Devi as “ nadamaya sookshmaroopa.” Sangita was a divine art. God is described as of nada roopa. The best form of praise of God is through music. Arunagirinathar, Sundaramoorthy Nayanar and Appar had all realised the Supreme Being through music, Thiruvizhimizhalai village, according to legend, was at one time famine-stricken. The Saivaite saints who happened to visit the place sang in praise of the Lord and, according to Sundarar, God was so pleased with the music that he showered his bounty on the people. Our music was thus divine in character. The Trinity came into this world to remind us of the high purpose of music. The Music Academy and such organisations were doing a great service to the cause of music by setting standards and appealing for preser ving them. The greatness of our music, the Vidwan continued, the intricate aspects of sruti, raga, tala, etc., had been referred to in the speeches of the Academy presidents of earlier years. There could be no two opinions on those fundamentals. He would remind every one of Tiruvalluvar’s saying that all learning must lead to divine grace. Every one must learn art of some kind. Art must be faultless and must be passed on in its pure form so that the benefits of it may be realised. The art of music included three things : swara, the akshara that leaned on the swara and the tala which linked the swara and akshara. Such an art should be learned only from well- informed teachers and gurukula-vasa was the best way of learning. Unfortunately this institution was slowly fading. Tyagabrahmam seemed to have had two branches of the art in his mind. In his “ Sangita gnanamu ” he referred to the attainment of sanmarga through music combined with bhakti and gnana. In the other tttB XXrtTH MADRAS HftJSlG C<3NFERBNCt !$$(> 4 kriti “ Sangita Sastra gnanamu ** he stressed the importanceof knowing the sastras relating to the art. We could see some of out vidwans versed in lakshya while others had specialised in laksharta only. The Academy was trying to bring together lakshya and lakshana vidwans so that the art could get unified strength front both these aspects. i Speaking then of the preservation of standards in Carnatic Music Vidwan Pillai said that purity could be maintained only if we learned as many of the old classical compositions (varnas, kritis, etc.) of great men as possible and assimilated the sancharas found in them. The speaker and his brother had had great opportunities of listening to the music of vocalists like Ramnad Srinivasa Iyengar, Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Aiyar, Madura Pushpavatiam Aiyar, Violinists like Thirukodikaval Krishna Aiyar, Tricky Govindaswami Pillai and Nagaswara players like Semponnarkovil Ramaswami Pillai, Mannargudi Chinna Pakkiria Pillai and others. Those were days when prominence was given to raga^tana and pallavi singing. It required great effort and practice. Although we still had vidwans of large experience and great capacity it was a matter for regret that none seemed to be interested in giving of his best to raise the present level of katcheris. He would appealed vidwans to re-establish the old standards. The president then referred to his own musical experiences. He and his brother were taught to sing by their father, Swaminatka Pillai. Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Aiyar taught them a numbesr of compositions, pointing out how they helped in gaining knowledge of raga or pallavi singing. It was Semponnarkovil Ramaswami Pillai (father-in-law of the President) who got the Thiruvirhi- mizhalai Brothers take to the Nagaswara seriously and enabled them to give concerts even at a very young age. The speaker had heard a lot of the great ability of Nagaswara vidwans, Tiruppambaram Swaminatha Pillai, Keevalur Kandaswami Pillai, Tirumangalakkudi Viraswami Pillai, Kuranad Natesa Pillai, Kumbakonam Siva- kozhundu Pillai, Nagai Venugopala Pillai and Tirumarugal Natesa, Pillai. Their imaginative skill on the instrument in elaborating a raga for hours in traditional style had been imbibed in the course of true gurukulavasa. The President continuing, said that he had had the good fortune of listening to the great Nagaswara players like Semponnarkovil Ramaswami Pillai, Mannargudi Chinna Pakkiria Pillai, Tiruppambaram Natarajasundaram Pillai, Nagoor Subbiah Pillai, Madura Fonnuswami Pillai, Chidambaram Vaidyanatha Pillai and eminent vocalists and violinists. Semponnarkovil Rama- B i d THE J6U RN A t O f THE MADRAS MttSlO ACADEMY [Vol. X x V lft swami Pillai was well-known for his raga, pallavi and ragamalika playing. Mannargudi Ghinna Pakkiria Pillai could spin out a raga for 2 or 3 hours with great imagination and captivated the listeners as much by his * gamakas ’ as by brikas. These Nagaswara vidwans were good singers too Tiruppambaram Brothers started playing together and kept audiences spell bound with their joint rendering of kritis. The President and his brother learnt to play, iduet in similar fashion. They later had the benefit of learning many kritis from Conjeevaram Vidwan Nayana Pillai. The success of such duets depended on the training of both players simul taneously under one guru. The President then referred to the need for instru mental players knowing the sahitya of pieces. Vidwans of the past invariably learnt the sahitya of musical pieces, before rendering them on an instrument. He deplored the present-day practice of learning through mere swara renderings and declared that the beauty of pieces would suffer thereby when presented on an instrument. He urged young Nagaswara players to learn sahitya first and stress it on the instrument by the use of ‘Tuttukara.* Nagaswaras of olden days had a high sruti and so were audible for a long distance. With the reduction in the sruti the instru ment had of late lost its full nada and grandeur. Unfortunately, rasikas of the instrument were also dwindling in number. Suddha madhyama ragas had been gradually going out of vogue in Nagas waras. This, the President said, was due to the lack of correct fixation of the swara (suddha madhyama) on the present-day instruments. If some vidwans were able to fix the swara and just manage, it was- with the strength of their experience. Young Nagaswara vidwans playing in temples were frequently found to depart from sruti and swarasthana. They would do well to go back to the sruti of olden days if they were to free themselves of these defects. Stressing on the importance of laya, the President recalled the days when vidwans sang or played pallavi in vilamba kala and in various talas, kalais and gatis and appealed to present-day vidwans to equip themselves by practising these. Vidwan Subrahmanya Pillai then refered to thavil, the usual tala accompaniment to Nagaswara. He specially mentioned the great exponents of this instrument—Srivanchiam Govinda Pillai, Sikkil Singaram Pillai, Tiruvezhundur Kannuswami Pillai, Nachiar- THE XXXTH MADRAS MUSI0 CONFERENCE 1956 11 kovil Saktivel Pillai, Karaikal Malaiperumal Pillai, Ammapettai Pakkiri Pillai, Vazhuvoor Muthuveera Pillai, Tricky Panchapagesa Pillai, Nidamangalam Minakshisundaram Pillai—and referred to the way they combined with the Nagaswara players and gave thril ling performances. The president then declared that ‘othu’ had been used as the sruti instrument for Nagaswara from ancient times. This was because the *othu* like the Nagaswara, also sounded ^through a reed known as “ kendai jeevali ”. This part in both instruments got simultaneously moistened in the mouths of the players and so there could be no disparity between the instruments at any time. The President was of the opinion that any other sruti instrument would not be suitable for Nagaswara. He appealed to Naga swara players to use only the ‘othu’ which had been in use for ages. Our ancient arts and instruments must be preserved unchanged if their glory and grandeur have to be fully realised. When the Government and bodies like the Music Academy were straining to preserve the arts in their pristine purity Nagaswara players must do all they could to preserve the instrument as designed so that the art of Nagaswara playing might not be affected. Nagaswara was an ancient instrument and was a necessary adjunct of temple festivals. It thus helped in making people God- minded. Rajaji had on an occasion appealed for support to the art. Although patronage to Nagaswara had gone down as a result of abbreviated marriage functions, the public meetings, Governmental receptions and celebrations should provide greater opportunity to Nagaswara players in future. The President continuing said that it was regrettable that universities and musical institutions were not providing courses for learning Nagaswara. He appealed to the authorities to appoint professors for the purpose, award certificates to deserving men and honour experts in the art. The President then referred to the demise of Tiruvaduthurai Rajaratnam Pillai and said that it was a great loss to Nagaswara world. He concluded by appealing to all vidwans and rasikas to co-operate with him in making the Conference a success. This was followed by a Nagaswara concert by Thiruvizhi- mizhalai brothers and Dakshinamurti and Govindarajan accompa- \ Z T U B JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII pied by N. P. Raghava Pillai and Needamangalam Shanmukha Vadivel (Thavil).
Conference Souvenir To mark the 30th Conference of the Music Academy, the Academy brought out a Souvenir which included a special supple ment of portraits of famous Nagaswara and Tavil Vidwans. Therfe\ was also a special article on Mangala Vadya by Dr. V. Raghavan together with a reproduction of a rare copper plate relating to the Nageswaraswami temple at Kumbhakonam and representing 30 temple instruments including varieties of the Nagaswara. Besides the text of the Presidential address and annotated programmes of the Conference-concerts, portraits of vidwans and colour pictures of the great composers, the Souvenir carried an article on * Nandan Charitram ’ by Sri Mudikondan Venkataramier, one entitled ‘Stock Taking’ by Sri G. N. B., one on ‘Culture and ideal of Indian Music’ by Swamiji Prajananananda of Calcutta, one on ‘Musical Traditions of the South’ by Dr. V. Raghavan, one on ‘Origin of Music and Introduction of Harmony’ by Sri T. V. Subba Rao and a, sketch of the President of the Conference by Sri Mudikondan Venkataramier, t h * x x x t h m a d r a s music c o n f e r e n c e 1956 1 3 Qfsft&jr al$su$ aro®u 3 0 - s u j , i i£M jbi)($ 1 9 5 6
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M tV tlt &&&' er&rp &£@£(§w Q semen tfeuiraflQiu mneujk^p wir&uugipirm. m m m p ip p ^ d wsupgi eurr@a(gtb ggajiretfi $«o waufl Qmpm&dr Qpiri^kis^i euirSfidSQihGuirgt smjdeuqfjtb. -s*«u eBpGw §i&@&tiLL ogmiirafl ^ Q p effptb mijiSajqfjwirenauJfrd ^/r«wr ®ib eSpiutr&uuL~(rj£j &qjj@l Quir($is euiipgi. «3fuuuf. uSdeoirgi §>pgi ^mestiuSeo ® pjr «®Q9«&rr,s Qairem® rsir* eh)*]ir&£!'&(&) &qr,£} m eup^dQ ^rrm su^i Quirc^ikprrQpdrGp scjm @3p m % vQGsr&rQpeo isirserosupp^dr OpfresdesiajuGuir^amm g>® QpiratfiitUd prrdr tsTa istDgi umy)\u sBsoa^ w ^ a ip / t ip ® ^ pirjrw ira r ■sQ^eSs^th' (5ir6/r (5r&Gh)®ijr&&dso lQ,s u Liy)wQu(nj QsrruSd) e&.iprdsfaruGuird} Quqjjwdscirefttltfa) i8s(Lpib 0Qtji£Goorih (LpfieSiu erdbfikutirhsofi^iibu? Lessor irddQurrppu uCJ® i§)&fi fiirs&omjnb &i&rkfi0(^d®pfii. (LpdrSuird) GSifiojir&r sdyiuiremiasar j&esipdgy ojifitr^nb QurfiiU)ds(e^d@es)u:Quj Quirgi&QairekrL^C-i~ina, ^ursiriasd OsTedn-rnLi—ta s^tb rmlrajebmisi^ib 0sifififii mi0(^d@esrpesr ; ^smsturrd) ^uut^. Lj&fiittii suy>tiu@eu(§tb Quit fit ^asrdQsiT9isrL-rC.u.mseifieo srmsor firseheujrfi0p^ <&puC.L. (yidrarmfiuuassfimaj ^ofififi) 3}fifi , firssfoeujnb <§mqg£i eueirostbuiq. QsiuiuQeuaarQib erdrjpi <3stL®d Qarar *Sollukattus like thim-thakka-taddhi-ttom well set in misra gati, then varied to tisra gati and again played in the third kalam in Chatusura gati; this kind of playing was called rakti melam and it could be rendered more striking with kalpanas and variation. The President said that Semponnarkovil Vaidyanatha PiUai, Tiruvazhundoor Subrahmania Pillai, Kornad Natesa Pillai and h|s father-in-law Semponnarkovil Ramaswami Pillai had played the rakti. After them, his brothers-in-law, Semponnarkovil Govindaswami PiUai and Dakshinamurthy Pillai had learnt and recorded these! in 1937. DemonstratioD ■ "Then at the request of the President, his brother-in-law Scim- ponnarkovil R. S. Dakshinamurthy Pillai and his two sons Muthu- , kumaraswami and Vaidyanathan gave an exposition of rakti melam* They were accompanied on the tavil by Nachiyarkoil Raghava Pillai. - The practising of Tuttukaram, Tannakaram and Akaram were also demonstrated by the NagaswaraVidwansand Sri Raghava Pillai, pupil of Sri Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai, gave a short demonstration also of the proper method of learning tavil playing. The demonstration concluded with the kriti Koniyadi in Kambhoji. On behalf of the Academy, Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Mudikondan Venkatarama Aiyar thanked the Nagaswara Vidwans from Sem ponnarkovil Sri S. R. Dakshinamurty Pillai and hb two sons and Sri Raghava Pillai, for their enjoyable and enlightening demonstra tions. THE SECOND DAY 24th December 1956 Music in Silappadikaram Sangita Bhushanam S. Ramanathan spoke on * ‘ Music in Silappadikaram* at the second sitting of the Experts’ Com mittee meeting of the Music Academy. Sri Tiruvizhimizhalai Subrahmania PiUai presided. Sri Ramanathan, assisted by Sri A. Muthiah of A.I.R. on the Yeena, explained the musical references in the Tamil epic as also in its gloss by the erudite Adiyarkkunallar. After describing the THE XXXTH MADfcAS MUSIC dONEBftEHO* 1956 f t ^eiEtefeJral background of tbe epic, the musical referdhttes and the literary evidences in Tamil, Sri Ramanathan elucidated the p a la is and the pans and tirans which could be equated with scales, parent modes and derivative modes (the janya ragas) and the derivation of these by modal shift of tonic. He gave his identifications of these in terms of the ragas now current. He also referred to the stringed instrument yazh and the wind instrument kvzhal as described in the Tamil Works. The President commended the research made by the yotlttg Vidwan and hoped that he would persevere in the work and bring out more data relating to the pans• The findings of Vidw&h Sri Ramanathan have been published by him in the form Of a bOOk in Tamil. The President then introduced his youngest brother, Thiru- vizhimizhalai Kalyanasundaram Pillai, and mentioned the efforts which Sri Kalyanasundaram Pillai had taken in the line of new compositions. Sri Kalyanasondaram Pillai’s Compositions Sri Kalyanasundaram Pillai, after making a brief reference to his compositions, presented one of his disciples, Srimafi Kamalaiti- bal, of Marudavancheri, who rendered four of his new compositions. The first was a pada-varna in nine ragas and five nadats on Sri Nata- raja, one of the nine ragas used being the rare Lalita Gaurt, a janya of Mayamalavagaula. The second was in Mohanarrt on Siddihi- Vinayaka. The third was on the present Kamakoti Acharya in Useni and the last was on Saravanabhava in Sonkarabhatana. Sangita Kalanidhi Mudikondan Venkatarama Aiyar thanked Sri Kalyanasundaram Pillai and Srimathi Kamalambal on behalf of the Music Academy. THE THIRD DAY 25th December 1956 ‘ The Prahlada Bhakti Vijaya ’ of Tyagaraja At to-days’s meeting of the Experts’ Committee convened in connection with the 30th Conference of the Music Academy, Vid wan Tiruvizhimizhalai Subrahmania Pillai presiding, Sri Subrah- 28 t h e j o u r n a l o f t h e m a d r a s m u s ic ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII mania Aiyarof Pudukottai spoke about the ‘Prahlada Bhakti Vijaya* of Tyagaraja. In the course of a detailed analysis, Subrahmania Aiyar point, ed out the literary and religious background of the dramatic com position of Tyagaraja on the life of the great devotee Prahlada and the original elements in the conception and treatment of this Buranic story at the hands of the great composer. He explained the progress of the story as composed by Tyagaraja stage by stage and the songs and ragas featuring therein and the ideas expounded by the saint in the course of the songs. Touching upon the literary beauties of the compositions also, he pleaded for the greater popularisation of this composition. The full text of the Tamil paper of Sri Subrahmanya Aiyar is printed elsewhere in this issue. With reference to the greater popularisation of the songs Sr^ S. Parthasarathi pleaded for the discovery of the authentic mettus of more of the compositions in the Prahlada Bhakti Vijaya from which musicians to-day sang only two or three pieces and these also not in their old and correct pathantaram, as for example Varidh. neeku the prayer to Samudraraja and Vasudevayani at the beginning. Vidwan Ramaniah Chettiar agreed with the older patha referred to by Mr. Parthasarathi. Pallavi Demonstration The President then introduced Tiruvizhandur Ganesa Pillai son of Thavil Vidwan Tiruvizhandur Kannuswami Pillai who sang and demonstrated a Pallavi in Tisra Rupakam in five jatis with one jail per aksharam of the tala and sang the Pallavi also in the second kala of the tala. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Mudikondan Venkatarama Aiyar, in thanking Vidwan Ganesa Pillai on behalf of the Academy for his Pallavi demonstration, said that he would take that occasion to men tion some details about the father of Ganesa Pillai, the Tavil Vid-/ wan Tiruvizhandur Kannuswami Pillai. Sri Kannuswami Pillai with whom Sri Mudikondan Venkatarama Aiyar had occasion to learn music, specially Pallavi for some time, was not onl^v an emi nent Tavil Vidwan who had accompanied such stalwarts like Sri Tirumarugal Natesa Pillai and Sri Semponnarkovil Ramaswami Pillai but atfso a musician who sang and played on Mridangam WkI Ghfitatn. He had accompanied on Gbatam many of the flute THE XXXTH MADRAS MUSIC CONFERENCE 1956 29 concerts of Sri Saraba Sastrigal. Sri Kannuswami Piliai was a highly gifted artiste and had composed some Tillanas, showing his skill and grip over tala, in ragas like Mohanam, Vasanta, Kapi, etc. Vidwan Mudikondan Venkatarama Aiyar sang also the Mohanam and Vasanta Tillanas. The President complimented Sri Ganesa Piliai for the demons tration and referred also to the attainments of his father. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Musiri Subrahmania Aiyar said that it was but proper that at this learned gathering of the Academy such demonstrations which showed the intellectual aspect of our music should be held.* He also observed that he would consider that the force of Carnatic music lay not so much in voice as in jnana. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Aiyar complimented the artiste and paid a tribute to Sri Kannuswami Piliai. He said that, while he wel comed all these erudite executions on the part of the senior Vid- wans, he would appeal to the younger generation and the women in particular who were gifted with excellent voices to concentrate more on the correct rendering of the Kritis and not attempt at getting by rote and reproducing Swara-singing etc. THE FOURTH DAY 26th December 1956 Oriental Influence On American Music When the Expert Committee of the Madras Music Academy, convened in connection with the 30th Conference, re-assembled today Dr. Henry Cowell, the eminent American composer who was on a visit to the Academy along with Mrs. Cowell, gave an illus trated talk on ‘Influence of Oriental music on American music*. The lecture was well attended and Sri T. T. Krishnamachari, Union Finance Minister, was among those present. Dr. V. Raghavan welcomed the distinguished visitor on behalf of the Academy and Dr. V. K. Narayana Menon, introduced Dr. Cowell as a great American composer who had laboured hard on behalf of the rights of musicians and composers. Dr. Cowell could also play on the flute—his collection of flutes from all parts of the world being one of the largest—and had invented also some percussion instruments. As a composer he was very unorthodox $ 6 t h e j o u r n a l o f t h e m a d r a s m u s ic a c a d e m y ( V o l * x x x iii and wrote with great simplicity and yet with great force. Mrs. Cowell was a folklore specialist, and Dr. and Mrs. Cowell y/tte visiting India for the first time. i • . M Dr. Cowell said American music was what was brought from Europe by the English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Scandinavian settlers. Though all American music was what Cdme from Europe, the American musicians and composers were rather free, not being fettered by limitations of the exclusive traditions of -the different schools of European music. In European music there were the Teutonic and French Schools, the Northern and Southern Schools, but the American musicians who were students of more than one school combined the elements of the different schools and evolved their own patterns, avoiding the rigid formality of particular schools. Oriental peoples also lived in considerable numbers i^ parts of America, for example in San Francisco where the speaker was born, there were large numbers of Chinese and Japanese and natives of the South Sea Islands ; some thousands of these who sang their own music naturally affected the American composers’ minds. Of course, the Indian population in America was not sufficient in number to exert any influence on American music. Speaking about Oriental influence on American music, Dr. Cowell said that there had also been some spurious and super ficial kind of influence of Indian or Oriental music on the European or American. He was of the view that serious studies of Indian music and traditions were not adequate in the West. There was a certain pseudo-orientalism and productions which just gave an oriental colour and there was also the example of some slight oriental element being introduced which, however, got submerged in the rich harmonic setting of the Western system. Indian music, Dr. Cowell said, was marked by variety and richness of rhythm and also its philosophic background. Popular musicians, however, muddled up the situation by producing some stuff to which they gave Indian titles ; all this the lecturer said he was painfully aware of as being merely sentimental and superficial and as not showing the real influence of oriental music. There was a cocksureness in the minds of Western musicians and musicologists about the absolute perfection of their art, which was sometimes oblivious of even the | ^ t history of their own music. THE tXXrtH MADRAS MtTSlC CONfEEBNCE 1$56 Recently however, the lecturer said, there was a happy change ih the situation and this was due mainly to two circumstances, the circulation of phonogram records and visits to America of famous representatives of Indian and Oriental classical music. The speaker said that it was very had to make a superficial approach and combine harmony and melody without understanding the real nature of each. He thought that the two could be brought together by in corporation of some elements and avoiding hybridisation. To begin with, however, votaries of the two systems start with not a little prejudice against each other’s system. Illustrating from his own case, the speaker said that he started with some text-books on Oriental music written in 19th Century which failed to give him . any real understanding. On the other hand some musicians had studied Indonesian music and had stayed in Java and practised the Oriental system and its instruments like the gamelan with the help of its own teachers. For example one of the American composers, McPhee, he said had written a big book on the music of Bali and had brought a large number of percussion instruments from the East and it was such a type of student who could realise that the two systems were equally great and intellectual, each in its own way, and it was this type of approach and respect towards each other’s systems that formed the basis of the new relation between Oriental and Occidental music. f Giving some examples of American compositions bearing the influence of Oriental music, Dr. Cowell played a record of Colin Mc-Phee (Tabuh- Tabuhan-MG 50103 A), the rhythm part of which played with the cymbals contained clear oriental effects and the composer had infused the spirit of Bali into the composition; similarly Lou Harrison formed a percussion orchestra. Lastly Dr. Cowell referred to the lady composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks who was influenced by Indian music. Dr. Cowell illustrated from her Opera in three acts, the Transposed Head, from the novel of that name on a Mahabharata theme by Thomas Mann (Lou. 545—6) ; she had used here modes, Indian ragas, which were however not identifiable definitely with any specific Indian raga. The lecturer then answered a few questions from the audience. ( The President' of the Conference, Sri Tiruvizhimizhalai Subrahmania Pillai, in thanking the distinguished lecturer, referred $ 2 T in t jovamMW t a t u a ©r a s m u s ic toUifc usefulness of sfcch comparative studies of different systems'of music arranged by the Madras Music Academy, during ;t|M? Conference. .• ■ .yiw Scope for Indian Music Teachers in U. S. A. is -; Dr. V. Raghavan in thanking Dr. Cowell for his participatmn in the 30th Conference referred to the help rendered by the ty$IS» Madras, in putting them in touch with Dr. Cowell and arranging this lecture. Referring to Dr. Cowell's observation about the lack of teachers of Indian music in America he said that with the facilities now available for the recordings of music and for sending representatives of Indian music on special invitations or delega tions this defect could be remedied. :y' . Dr. Raghavan stressed that the artists d elatio n s sent abroad by the Government should be better planned, should have few^f people and should comprise select competent artists accompanied} by a competent interpreter. Pseudo-Western Adverting to the influence of Oriental and Occident systems on each other, Dr. V. Raghavan said that Dr. Cowell who had just arrived here had not yet had opportunities to study the other side of the picture, namely Occidental influence on Indian music. Dr. Cowell had observed that he was painfully aware of the hybrid products passing off as ‘ oriental' in the West, and it would be interesting for him to see for himself the Indian counterpart of this, namely the so-called Orchestra which from mere individual en thusiasm had now come to be promoted by the Government itself through the -All India Radio; it was high time that those who had t^e interests in their hearts that creative effort in Indian music should take lines which were congenial to the genius of Indian music should take a definite decision about this new development. Quoting Sir Steuart Wilson who was with them at the previous Year's Conference, Dr. V. Raghavan said that the purpose of com parative music studies was to underhand each system in its technique and background and not to introduce hybridisations. Flute Demonstration Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Palladam Sanjee^i Rao then gave a recital on the flute accompanied by Sri Venugopal on Violin, Sri V. Nagarajan on the mridangam and Sri T. S. Vilvadri Aiyar on the ghatam. In the course of a recital which lasted' an hour, hie rea- THE XXXTH MADRAS MUSIC CONFERENCE 1956 33 dared Kedaram, (Rama Ni Pa*), Sriranjani (Marubalka)^ Atana (Ilalo), Yedukula Kambodi (Hechharika) and a Ragamalika com prising Naganandini, Ahiri and Kapi (Radhamukha). THE FIFTH DAY 27th December, 1956 * The Gandharva Vedamritam * At today’s meeting of the Expert Committee convened in connection with the 30th Conference of the MusSc Academy, Madras, Vidwan Sri T. N. C. Yenkatanarayanacharyulji explained the scope and contents of a historical and descriptive treatise in Telugu written by him on the different departments of Indian Music, the Gandharva Vedamritam. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri T. V. Subba Rao introduced the Vidwan and expressed the hope that the work by the vidwan would soon be published. Sri Subba Rao then requested Prof. Sri Vissa Appa Rao to speak on the subject ‘ Sangatis in Tyagaraja’s Kritis.’ Sangatis in Tyagaraja’s Kritis It was well-known that one of the unique features for which Tyagaraja’s contribution was justly famous was the introduction of Sangatis. Prof. Vissa Appa Rao, in a paper on the subject, explained the basis of this element of Sangati and how Tyagaraja had employed it. Prof. Vissa Appa Rao said that the sangatis were the outcome of the introduction of the Raga alapa Paddhati into the composition and in effect they represented the integration of Raga- bhava and the bhava of the Sahitya, Prof. Vissa Appa Rao selec ted a few pieces like Pakkala Nilapadi, Chakkanirajamarga, and pieces in Todi to illustrate how the swara sancharas and the regis ters, upper, middle and lower and the particular notes on which particular parts of the Sahitya took off were suggestive of the mean ing and the sentiment. The principle of Sangatis employed by Tyagaraja was indeed very complex for the Sangatis were not merely an artisitic elaboration of the raga alapana paddhati* but they represented a mysterious way of constructing musical forms, which a musical genius like Tyagaraja alone could accomplish. Adverting to the renderings of kritis of Tyagaraja by voca lists, the speaker observed that the principle of raga and bhava E 34 THE JOURNAL O* THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII integration adopted by Tyagaraja implied that the singer should devote due attention to proper rendering of the kritis with an eye to the bhava and meaning and should not for the sake of Neraval and other musical celebration stop or break the sahitya at any place they liked. The President of the Conference Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subfah- manya Pillai agreed with the speaker on the nature of Sangatis in Tyagaraja’s kritis and hoped that the vocalists would pay due attention to the propriety of bhava when introducing them, Sangita Kalanidhi Palladam Sri Sanjiva Rao pointed out the fact that it was more difficult and hence necessary to pay attention to the bringing out of the correct bhava in the case of instrument than that of voice which could easily articulate the sahitya; he however said that he could not agree with the view that the exigencies of musical elaboration rather than considerations of the sahitya should guide the performers in respect of places of stop etc. in the course of Neraval on Swara-singing. While agreeing with the previous speakers Sangita Kalanidhi Musiri Sri Subrahmanya Iyer referred to Tyagaraja expounding different sentiments through different phases of a single raga like Todi. He said that it was not imposs ble to complete a line of sahitya and then start off on the musical elaboration ; he also observed that the Sangatis should be guided by the appropriateness of the bhava, and should not be a mere matter of the facility of one’s voice. In thanking the main speaker Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Subba Rao classified the Sangatis in Tyaga raja into three kinds, of raga sanchara, bhava and aesthetic pleasure. He was also not wholly in agreement with the main speaker that in respect of stopping at particular places in Neraval etc. one should be guided mainly by the text and its meaning. Pallavi Demonstration by the President The President of the Conference, Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrah- manya Pillai then gave a Pallavi demonstration in 64 kalai choukam, in Adi Tala in usual setting, in 8 kalam; in the first avarta he sang the Pallavi and in the next the Anuloma and in the next Swara; Thanking him on behalf of the Academy, Sangita Kalanidhi Sri Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer observed that for enjoyable renderings as part of the art, Pallavi^ in two and four kalas ate best suited; capable artistes who specialised in Pallavis fftE SXXTB tf AURAS MUMC C!CWFK]|*?fU* i*?o 3$ might execute pallavis in 6 kalas but the rendering in abnorra&hy slow or fast tempo was never considered good at any time. The difficult Pallavis of six, seven or eight kalas with anuloma etc. were a piatter of learned exposition and were not for being got by heart in a set manner and mechanically reproduced by youngsters. THJS SIXTH DAY 28th December 1956 New Sanskrit Compositions At the Experts’ Meeting today, convened in connection with the 30th Conference of the Music Academy, Madras, Vidwan Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrahmania Pillaipresiding, Sri M.P. Vaidya- nathan gave a recital of the new Sanskrit compositions of Sri Y. Mahalinga Sastri of Tiruvalangadu. Vidwan Tiruvalangadu Sri Sundaresa Iyer who accompanied on the Violin spoke a few words about the composer. Sri Guruvayur Dorai accompanied on the Mridangam. The recital comprised five songs in ragasKokiladhvani, Gourimanohari, Tpdi, Hemavati, and Bahudari. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri T. V. Subba Rao thanked Sri Vaidyanathan for the recital and Tiruvalangadu Sri Sundaresa Iyer and Guruvayur Dorm for accompanying. * The Composer Surapuram Ananda Dasa Sri Subba Rao then introduced Sri Chennakesavaiah, a pupil of Mysore Sri V asudevachariar, who spoke on the life and composi tions of a Kannada composer named Surapuram Ananda Dasa. The composer, Sri Chenna Kesavaiah said, was born in Sikalaparavi in Raichur District. He said he was patronised by the Surapuram Court where he was received by Rajacharya, a scholar of the court. Under the inspiration of Srisadasa who came to the Court, Ananda Dasa became a Kathaka and a composer. He adopted the mudra ‘ Kamalesa Vitthala’. The speaker said that; about 40 stray pieces were now known to have been written by the? composer. Of these, Ramasamudrana Kumari in Arabhi and Kandu Dhanya on Krishna at Udipi are well-known. The speaker said that the composer went to Kolhapur and sang two pieces on Goddess Lakshmi there, Karunanidhi in Dhanyasi, Adi, and Rama samudrana in Arabhi, Adi. It was, when he went to Udipi, that $6 THE JOURNAL OF T«E MADRAS IfUSlO ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII he was said to have composed ‘Kandu Dhanya \ The composer who flourished about a 100 years back was honoured by the then Maharajah of Mysore. After visiting the Brindavan of Ragha- vendraswami, he returned to Surapuram and sang the piece Veduvadena in Behag on the deity Gopalakrishna at the temple in Surapuram. The vidwan sang also 4 pieces of the composer, the two on Lakshmi referred to above, Veduvadenu and a Sririgara pada in Mohanam, Misra Chapu. Some of the compositions of Ananda Dasa have been edited by the speaker in this Volume. ; The President Vidwan Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrahmania Pillai thanked Sri Ghennakesavaiah for the trouble taken by him in unearthing compositions of this unknown composer and hoped that through the Academy’s efforts more of such little-known compositions will be brought to light. - , Rhythmic settings in Tirnppngazh * * Sangita K alanidhi Mudikondan Sri Venkatarama Iyer then gave a talk and demonstration on the Rhythmic settings in Tiruppugazh of Arunagirinathar. After making a brief reference to the different theories about the identity and biography of Saint Arunagirinathar, the celebrated composer of the Tiruppugazh, the Vidwan said that it was at the instance of a Swamijithat some years back, he undertook to set regular Talas to about 40 compositions of the Tiruppugazh. The Tiruppugazh, it was well-known, was composed in a highly rhythmic language, falling easily into different Nadais. From the introduction given in some editions, it was clear that originally the manuscripts did not contain the chandams which are now given on top of each Tiruppugazh. The rhythmic setting and the sound effects of Tiruppugazh came off very prominently especially when the singing was accompanied by Tala vadyas; it was then a transporting experience to listen to such renderings of Tirup pugazh. It was because of this excellence that he was drawn to the task of setting specific Talas to the different nadais in the composi tions in the Tiruppugazh. The effort was not to follow merely the rhythms implied in the Sahitya only, nor to lengthen or shorten the akshara in the text; for finding out the appropriate talas he some times had to go out of the list of the 35 talas and use such Desi talas like Lakshmisa, Gaja-Jhampai, and Pratapasekhara. Vidwan Sri Venkatarama Iyer sang a number of Tiruppugazhs set in different talas by him. Traditional Assamese Mnsfcians fH B' XXXTH MAD* AS MtlSIC CONPEBRNCE 1956 3? Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrahmania Pillai, the Presidcnt, thanked Sri Venkataraima Iyer for the efforts taken by him to set these speeific talas sio that capable vidwans might render the Tiruppugazh. Incidentally he said that the late Vidwaii Sri Nayana Pillai of Kanchipuram had set the Tiruppugazh in an easier way so that students and singers of ordinary capacity might also sing them. : THE SEVENTH DAY 29th December 1956 Music of Assam When the Expert Committee meeting of the Music Academy, reassembled this morning at the Academy premises, Sri K. N. Das of Assam, accompanied by two traditional musicians from Assam, gave a talk and demonstration relating to the music of Assam. introducing him, Dr. V. Raghavan said that Smt. Sabita Debi, Rani of Bijni and the Hony. Secretary of the Assam, State Sangit Natak Akadami, had arranged for the official participation of her Akadami in their 30th Conference here, by contributing a paper on the Bor-Geets of Assam and a demonstration of the same by Assamese musicians. In her unavoidable absence, Sri K. N. Das of Assam, who had already contributed an exhaus tive paper on the subject of music of Assam in the Journal of the Music Academy, Madras (Vol. 21, 1950),,would speak on the sub ject. Sri Das who had been in Madras for a year in 1950 doing comparative study at the Academy had been, continuing his work on the music of Assam, For demonstration, the Assam Academy had sent two representatives of the traditional music of Assam who hailed from Barpet Sattra, the singer Jadhav Pathak and the Kol- player, Bhagavan Boyan. Pointing out the value of the subject of that morning’s proceed ings, Dr. Raghavan said that, thanks to the contacts among the saints and devotional movements in different parts of India, the music of one part of the country had links with that of the other parts. The Vaishnava Sattras of As§am had a tradition of devotional music and dance-drama which were very similar . to the Bhajana and the Bhagavata Mela traditions of South India. The Ankia-nat or the dance-drama tradition of Assam had elements which threw light on certain elements in Kathakali and other If THB jetJRNAL O* Vtm> MASXAS MtKfO AGABSttV £Vol. XXVXII forms of dance-drama in the South. The value of research and comparative study could therefore not be overemphasised and the establishment of a State'Akadami in Assam would imthar the cause of such comparative studies. H Sri Dais said, that Assam underwent a renaissance in devotion and music in the 15th Century on the advent of the great Saint Sankaradeva who toured all over India and contributed to Assam literature versions of the Bhagavata and plays for dance ahd abhinaya, all relating to themes of the Bhagavata. The traditional music of Assam is temple-music, being exclusively connected with the Sattras or monasteries where Vaishnavite devotees called Udasina Bhagavatas cultivated their devotional practices in the interior parts of the State. The music and dance-drama associated with this were cultivated in families of musicians of whom there Were separate categories of vocalists called Gayans, players of the rhythmic part called Boyarts, reciters called Pathaks and dancers’ called Ojhas. ‘ 1 • The Bor-Geet All these were done always in group and never individually. The rhythmic instrument used was the large cymbal and the mud bodied drum tied over with leather and called the Kol. The two accompanists who had come for the demonstration for example coUld trace their hereditary practice of the patha and the kol to the times of Sankaradeva himself. They had a long dress and a tapering turban which they wore when they sang, played and danced. (See photos reproduced here.) There were 14 times of the day from daybreak to midnight at which worship by music, instru ment and dance was offered to the deity. Bor-Geet was the chief type of song employed in this worship ; the old art was decaying as the time-honoured representatives today are very old and the interest in the maintenance of this music is facing a crisis owing to the cinema music and other forces. The speaker said that he was fortunate enough to get hold of an old traditional singer of Bor-Geet who is 106 years old and had taken down swara notations from him. The name Bor-Geet meant literally the big or great song. The Origin of the name of this type of music was not very clear. Bor Geet was set to ragas and talas most of which were found in other parts of In dia and a few of which were somewhat rare. The compositions were set in the form of Dhruva, comparable to the Pallavi, follow ed by Padas or Charanas. The singing of Bor-Geet was preceded THB XXXTH MADRAS MUSIG CONFERERGB 1 9 5 6 by a raga*prehide. The raga singing comprised two parts Dhura, probably Dhruva, and Strain. In the prelude the elaboration of the raga was done by turns by different musicians after which the devotional song started with the cymbals and the kols. It was first in vilambit and the tempo became fast towards the end. The demonstration was then given of a Bor-Gect in Mowr or Mahur- Dhansari set in Poori Tal (Triputa). Sri Das then took up another type of song, the Geet figuring in the drama Ankia-nat; the piece was in Gowri raga and Jati tala and was taken from Sankaradeva’s Ankia-nat, Keli Gopala (Rasa Lila) based on the Bhagavata. Each such geet in Ankia-nat Was introduced with a verse based on a similar verse in the Bhagavata which was first sung. Sri Das himself sang the Ankia-geet after preliminary alap by Jadhav Pathak. The same song was then rendered in Matha (Manthaor Mathya) tala. The Alap which formed the prelude to these renderings had an effect similar to that of a Saman chant. Sri Das observed that his primary purpose in giving this talk and demonstration in the midst of South Indian Vidwans was to find out ways and clues to understand the music of Assam better. He then dealt with the rhythmic compositions called Dhemalis played by parties of four, five or more as part of temple worship. This kind of instrumental music was reminiscent of the Nirgeeta Vadya of the Poorvaranga of Bharata, and the playing of drums and cym bals in the Kerala temples. These Dhemalis were played in temple worship by 15 to 20 persons, half of them playing on kols and half of them playing cymbals, participating. The whole party in its traditional long dress made an impressive appearance, the players moving with rhythmic steppings and light foot-work and swingings of the body. This went on for about an hour and a half, and in between Dhemalis, there was raga-singing. The President of the Conference thanked the lecturer for the trouble taken by him to give this exposition and referred to similar instrumental music and jatis, forming part of temple-wor ship in South India also. Sangita Kalanidhi Sri T. V. Subba Rao said that the music of all parts of India had affinities and one could easily identify ragas like the North Indian Bhimpalas and the South Indian ones like Abheri with slight difference or the Karnataka Deva, Jpandhari in the Mahur-Dhanansari first played by the Assamese musicians. 40 TH E JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS' MUWG ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII Dr. Raghavan thanked the party hpm the Assam and the Assam State Sangita Natak Akadami fofejfcheir participation in the Conference. THE EIGHTH DAY 30th December 1056 The ‘ Shadragamanjari ’ When the Expert Committee of the Music Academy, Madras, re assembled this morning, VidwanTiruvizhimizhalai Sii Subrahmania Pillai presiding, Sri A. Lingappa, formerly of the A. I. R., spoke on a new short work in Sanskrit, Shad Raga Manjari, which he had written on the derivation of six main ragas from 12 notes. ;» Overtones of Tambura Sri S. S. Murti Rao, Retired Dy. D. G. of Posts and Telfi graphs and Ex-member, International Frequency Registration Board, gave an illuminating talk with the aid of the Cathedo- Oscillograph on the overtones of the Tambura. There was a large and distinguished audience, which included Dr. and Mrs Cowell. Introducing Sri Murti Rao, Sri C. S. Iyer said he had been carrying on investigations in the physics of music for the past 40 years. For purposes of investigation in the Tambura, he had long ago invented a device to have the Tambura played mechanically, and he had undertaken to give this talk in view of the importance of the subject of Tambura on which some work is being done in Poona. Sri Murti Rao observed that though the enjoyment of music took the form of a subjective impression, this subjective appreciation was based on objective scientific facts. When music was rendered properly with the perfect attunement of sruti it was actually transporting. It touched the emotions, but of all this psychological effect, the basis was the sound waves that impinged on their ears which it was necessary to study objectively. The distinct feature of Indian Music was that its melodies were sung to the accompaniment of a Tambura whose notes supplied a back ground drone with which the melody merged harmoniously and its effect and enjoyment were heightened or marred by such harmonious blending or its failure. Though there were both a pattern and margin in the rendering of the melody, there was a line, the razor’s edge, which constituted the exact basis of/the correct rendering and the enjoyment; this had to be analysed from the scientific point of view. t h e X x x t h m a d r a s m u s ic CONFERENCE i$ 5 6 4 l It would, therefore, follow that the principles which would govern the rendering of melodic Indian music at itsbest should be related to the acoustic property of rising, falling or steady tones with the tones and overtones of the Tambura in their effective impression on the ear either on short notes or on long notes or in the transition from one note to another. Therefore, an objective study of the tones and overtones of the Tambura should lead to a better understanding of the principles behind intricate melodics of Indian music. At the same time, such study would also enable the scientific correlation of the quality of the tones produced by the Tambura to its constructional features and present adjustment! to the jeeva and therefore would also lead to design and manuf&CtUfd of high quality Tamburas. * Studies By Dr. C. V. Raman The tones of the Tambura became an object of scientific study; probably for the first time, by Dr. C. V. Raman in the year 1920 when he observed that the overtones 6f the Tambura did not follow the general law of plucked strings of a sonometer and that the overtones were the same in quality irrespective of the point of plucking, that these overtones were intimately related to the contour of the supporting bridge and that the various overtones of the Tambura appeared and decayed at different times. A modern scientific instrument which was suitable for the study of the musical vibration was an oscillograph, of which the.,latest was the cathode ray oscillograph. The curves obtained by an oscillograph (examin ed by a travelling microscope), were used some years ago by Sri C. S. Iyer to determine the fundamental frequency of some of the controversial notes occurring in South Indian music. Recertify the cathode ray had been used by Sri Chaitanya Deva for obtaining the wave forms of the Tambura strings sounded one at a time. These wave forms had been analysed graphically and the over tones calculated therefrom. Observations were however extended only to the first few harmonics on account of the limitations of the accuracy of graphical methods. These observations had confirmed that the most prominent harmonic in the Tambura was the fifth harmonic which conformed with the experience of musicians who' considered that a proper tuning of the Tambura was indicated only when the note, higher (antara gandhara) GA was heard by the ear which was exactly two octaves below the fifth harmonic being produced by the strings, F 42 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII Sri Rao considered that the true character of the Tambura tones and their significance could not be fully evaluated unless all the four strings were properly tuned and sounded in the appropriate sequence to produce the best musical effect, and the tones emana ting in'such a condition were studied, and further all overtones of the Tambura within the audible range of the ear were evaluated along with their growth and decay patterns. As a first step t^o such a study, the author had to develop a mechanical method of exciting the Tambura so that it might produce the tones in a steadily recur ring cyclic manner and enable precise studies. . The material employed to pluck the strings and their direction and plane of movement at the time of plucking had to be carefully designed so that in operation, the tuning of the Tambura would-remain quite constant over long periods. The design also had to be such that it could be made to operate any Tambura for purpose of comparison without making any structural alterations to it, and at the sdme time it should allow easy adjustment of the intensity of the notes and the interval of time between one note and other. Demonstrations on Oscillograph The equipment developed for this purpose was demonstrated by the speaker. The tones emanating from the Tambura were picked up by a microphone, amplified and projected on the cathode ray oscillograph in which the wave form of the note produced, as^also its cyclic variations when the strings were sounded successfully could be seen and studied. The speaker had under development an electronic filter, which would enable any particular overtone alone to be isolated from the others and its growth and decay in relation to time carefully studied, in relation to the constant of the Tambura and temporary settings of the jeeva and other adjustments. Thanking the lecturer on behalf of the music Academy, Sri Vissa Appa Rao, retired Professor of “Physics, referred to the work he had already done in this direction to create interest among members of the Academy and Vidwans in the problems of physical research in music and observed that it was up to the University which had a department of music to set up the necessary laboratory and personnel to carry on such essential physical reserach in the field of Carnatic music. Dr. Raghavan expressed the thanks of the Academy to the All India Radio for their assistance in lending the equipment t h e x x x t h m a d r a s m u sic c o n f e r e n c e 1956 T43 necessary for the demonstration and observed that the Central Sangita Natak Akadami which had on its programme schemes for different lines of music research could now be expected to render the necessary help for such advanced studies of music. He then requested Mrs. Cowell to give her talk on folk music. Folk Music Mrs. Cowell, a specialist in folklore, then gave a talk on folk music which she said embodied traces or clues of old things, musi cal forms, instruments, etc., which lighted up the history of music. Folk music was unconscious and unorganised. The availability of recording facilities had to-day opened up the possibilities of research in the music of the folks of different parts of the world. There was variety of form in folk songs, ballads, etc., and also of tunes employed. In folk music which was integrated with the work and the labour of the folk, there was also group singing — a refrain or a part being sung by leader or leaders and the other parts by the group. Folk music forms disclosed also old modal music \yhich obviously travelled from the East. Traces of these were still found in the western extreme of the Indo-European world, namely in the western part of Ireland. West Ireland was less affected by the later waves of civilisation aud the music here disclosed spontaneous decorations of the melody, and as in Indian music there also there was the practice of decorating the notes at the end of each phrase as it ended. One of the earliest kinds of modal melody to travel to the U S. was a kind of church tune which came from Ireland. In illustra. tion, Mrs. Cowell played one record and herself sang two pieces. She said that at the time of Pope Gregory there were obviously many modes current in Italy and Rome, and which explained the affinity between the Gregorian chant and Indian melodic music. The first music book of hymns in the U. S. contained tunes of about 350 years ago and was found to contain variations which it was difficult later to be rendered by congregations. Mrs. Cowell said that this type of playing with the note which was the essence of the modal music came up again and again in the history of music : its perfection was found in India. On behalf of the Academy, Dr. Raghavan thanked Mrs. Cowell for her talk. Dr. Henry Cowell informed the Academy that one of the things which he had most keenly watched in the concerts 4 4 THK JOURNAL, QF T £ R MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. XXVIH he been listening to, was the display of Mridangain-playing and he l*a THE MfflETH DAY ' 31st December l956. ' . Vf Ponniah Pillai’s Compositions The Expert Committee of theMusic Academy, Madras, conven or id epnnection with the 30th. annual Music Conference, had its |ast. meeting today with the President, Tiruvizhimizhalai Srj Subrahmania Pillai inthechair. Vidwan Sri Kittappa Pillai, descendent of the famous Tanjore brothers,' Sri Ponniah Pillai and others, sang two rare sahityas from the manuscripts in the family. These had not so far bden brought to lig h t.T h e fiirst was a Svarajati in Yadukula Kambhoji ‘ Sar^sijakshironasami ’ on Lord Brihadeeswara of Tanjore. The Second was a Ragamalika ‘ Madana Bilahari ’ in four ragas, Bilahari, Varali, Poorvikalyani and Dhanyasi. Both these were sahityas of the Adi Ponniah Pillai and the interesting fact about the latter composition, it was said, was that for the same Varnamettu, there was a Sanskrit Sahitya * Bilahari Padmanabha ’ by Sri Svati Thunal Maharaja and a Telugu Sahitya ‘ Vanitaro emi sethulo * by Sri Subbarama Dikshitar. Thanking the young Vidwan, Vidwan Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrahmania Pillai appealed to him to bring out and publish all such masterpieces Available in manuscript in his family. He appealed to other Vidwans also not to hide rare sahityas but to bring them out and publish them. Tribute To Vidwan Rajarathnam On behalf of the Music Academy, Sangita Kalanidhi Mudi- kondan Sri Vcnkatarama Iyer placed before the Expert Committee meeting, a condolence resolution touching the demise of Nagaswara Vidwaii Sri T. N. Rajarathnam Pillai, Nagaswara Vidwan Kakayi Sri Natarajasundram Pillai and Srimathi Savitri Ganesan. Vidwan Sri Venkatarama Iyer spoke in highly apreciative terms of the unique excellence of the music of the late Sri Rajarathnam Pillai. The President of the Conference also spoke about Nagaswara Vidwan TIfK JCtXJ&TH' MADRAS MUSIC CONFER EMC* J9 5 6 45 Sty Raja$atb.nam: PiUai and the great, loss, sustained by the musical „ i^pr^jjy his passing away. .. ' . ■ > V ■-,* • , - ,v . , • • , - V ’| t. Concluding Function 'vf The President then gave a resume of the proceedings of the Expert’s Committee meetings of the 30th Conference which began on December 23 and thanked the Academy for the opportunity given to him and also his fellow Vidwans who co-operated With him in the conduct of the proceedings; He particularly mentioned the standing that the Academy had established and the definite1 gain that the junior Vidwans had by their inclusion in the junior concerts series which he considered one of the important parts of the activities of the Acadenfy. He complimented also the young amateurs and the youngsters who came in such large number to take part in the competitions. The President said that a noteworthy feature of the Academy in the concerts as well as discussions was that the Academy’s audience combined such a large number of rasikas in music, which was really the basis and inspiration of the Academy’* work. ' Speaking on behalf of the Vidwans and other participants of the Expert Committee Sessions, Mr, White, a Missionary from Pasumalai, who was a student of Carnatic music said that the meetings here which he attended during the Academy’s 30th con ference was one of the unique experiences of the 39 years of his life which he had spent in South India. He was really sorry that he could not profit by regularly attending these conferences in the previous years. Referring particularly to the lecture on the over tones of the Tambura on December 30, Mr. White said that he and his wife who listened to the lecture with attention felt that there was great scope for scientific experiments in Indian music, particularly in the subject of the healing properties of music. He hoped that researches on all these lines would be pursued. Vidwan Sri T.N.C. Venkatanarayanacharyulu of Guntur, speak ing in Telugu, paid a tribute to the great Nagaswata Vidwan Sri T. N. Rajarathnam Pillai and referred to the work of the Academy. , , Speaking on behalf of the Vidwan of Mysore, Vidwan SrijChenna- kesaviah expressed appreciation of the work of the Academy. V idian Sri Kalidas Nilakanta Iyer made a special reference to the attain ments of the President of the Conference, Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrabmania Pillai and his specialisation in rendering Kirtanas. 46 TH* JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACA&BttV [Vol. XXVlIl As a representative of the' younger generation of musicians Sri M. D. Ramanathan, who spoke in Malayalam, said th at; he had 'profited continuously from the activities of the Academy, The Conference of the Academy had always been a great education to all of them of the younger generation. Speaking on behalf of the President of the Academy, §ri K. V. Krishnaswami Iyer, Sri T. V. Subba Rao thanked all those who had contributed to the success of the 30th Conference and the concerts. THE TENTH DAY 1st January 1957 The Members’ Day f In the morning, the Members' Day of the Academy was celebrated and a reception was held for the Conference President. After refreshments and group photos, there was a programme of music by members and their children, Sri T. Sankaran of A.I.R., Srimati Brinda, Kumari Vegavahini, Vidwan Sri B. Krishnamurthi, R. Kalidas (on Mridangam) and others, followed by a programme of Tabla-Mridangam duet by Sri Briju Mohan, Kathak Dancer and Vidwan Sri Krishna Iyengar, Mimicry of musicians and actors by Sri O. Krishnaswami and a variety programme by the Scouts. . u Dr. Raghavan announced the publication of the 1955 issue of the Journal of the Music Academy, Madras. The Sadas The “Sadas” connected with the 30th Conference, was held at the premises of the Academy in Mowbray’s Road, Royapettah, under the chairmanship of Sri Nityananda Kanungo, Minister for consumer Industries, Government of India, to confer the insignia of Sangita Kalanidhi” on Nagaswara Vidwan Tiruvizhimizhalai Sri Subrahmania Pillai, President of the Music Conference of the Academy, this year. Vidwans Umayalpuram Sri Kodandarama Iyer, Madras Sri Balakrishna Iyer, Budalur Sri Krishnamurti Sastri, Ana- TH* XgxTH MADRAS Music CONFXRBnCE 1056 4? yampatti Sri Subba Iyer and Viduslu Mylapore Go\yri Animal were 1 also honoured on the occasion. Prizes and diplomas were awarded to successful competitors and students. The function commenced with an invocation by Srimathi D. K. Pattammal. j,; SriK. Soundararajan, Secretary, in convoking the “Sadas” said that Sri Sankaracharya had sent his greetings to the recipients of the awards, besides presenting each one of them with a gold coin* Sangita Kalanidhi Sri T. V. Subba Rao, Vice-President o f the Academy, welcoming the Union Minister said that unlike Rome, Greece and Egypt, India of today still continued to be the India of Vyasa and Valmiki because of the unbroken tradition and civil station which had been sustaining them and making them great in the world. So long as they continued to cherish their culture, they would never be a fallen nation again. Title Conferred on Subrahmania Plllai Sangita Kalanidhi Musiri Sri Subrahmania Iyer presented Nagaswara Vidwan Sri Subrahmania Pillai for the conferment of the title of *■* Sangita Kalanidhi” and said in his citation: The Citation Born on 16-4-1893 at Tiruvizhimizhalai in Tanjore District as the eldest son of Nagaswara Vidwan Sri Swaminatha Filial; had 41 t h e # 6$kifkL" W l y h b m aWU s m ttt a6aMtrt [Vol. xkvttt startedgiving Nagaswara concertsalung with his next brother Sri Natarajasundaram Pillai and established a name for ^correct renderings of Tyagaraja’s kritis ; was long responsible for the conduct of the Tyagaraja festival at Tiruvaiyar and was, for 3. |time, a memberof the Tanjore District Board ; had received honours at the Bharmapuram and Tiruvavaduturai Adhliianri. Sri Nftyanarida Kanungo then presented the fifriidtipaWd, hfid the Insignia of Sangita Kalaniihi to Vidwan Sri Subramanya Pillai. The presentation of the other recipients of special honour then followed: . ( Introducing Jfalataranga Vidwau Apayamp^tri Sri Subba* Iy«f# Sangita Kalatiidhi Mudikondan Sri Venkatarama Iyer said m his citation : * be Citation Born on 2-5-lSSl at Anayampattii Salem District; became a disciple in his fifteenth year under Kunnakkudi Sri Krishna Iyer, musician and composer at the Ramanathapuram Samsthanam ; learnt Jalatarangam under the famous Veena Sri Seshanna of Mysore who had himself learnt it under a North Indian who visited Mysore ; a pioneer in rendering Carnatic Music on Jalatarangam, he took great pains to perfect through this rather refractory medium the production of graces ; began giving Jalatarangam concerts, in his twenty-first year ; has had a very long career, during which he was accompanied by many famous violinists and mridangam players of the South ; has been honoured at the Mysore Court and by His Holiness Sri Sankaracharya of Kamakoti Peetham. t u b x x x t ii m a d r a s uttfsic c o n f e r e n c e 1956 49 Presenting Mridangam and GhataRi Vidwan Umayalpuram Sri Kodandarama Iyer, Sri C. K. Venkatanarasimhan said in the citation : The Citation Born on 27-10- 1889 at Umayal. puram in Tanjore District as the son of Sri Narayana Iyer, himself a well-known Ghatam Vidwan ; learnt also Mridangam in his twelfth year from his father and music under Veenai Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer; has accompanied leading vocalists of the previous generation like Ramnad Sri Srinivasa Iyengar, Koneriraja- puram Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer, Sri Pushpavanam Iyer, Sri Nayana Pillai etc., and has continued to accom pany all‘the senior musicians who are still happily with us. Presenting Violin Vidwan Madras Sri Balakrishna Iyer, Vidwan Sri G. N. Balasubrahmanyam said in the citation : The Citation Born on 26-5-1888 in Madras as the son of the famous Violin Vidwan Sri Samayya ; learnt music under the well-known Tanjore Sri Krishna Bhagavatar ; has been giving concerts from his sixteenth year and has accompanied in the high days of Carnatic music such outstanding performers like Ramnad Sri Srinivasa Iyengar, Koneriraja- puram Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer, Madura Sri Pushpavanam Iyer, Palghat Sri Anantarama Bhagavatar, Mysore Sri Bidaram Krishnappa, Veena Sri SangameSwara Sastri and others. G *0 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL. XXVIII Presenting Gottuvadya V id wan Budalur Sri Krishnaraurti Sastri, Dr. V. K.Narayana Menon^aid in the citation : The Citation Born at Budalur, Tanjoi*e Dis trict^ on 28-4-1896 as the son of Sri Sethurama Sastrigal; studied Veda, Kavya and Sastra in the early stages ; had his lessons in music under Konerirajapuram Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer and Sri Muthiah Bhagavatar ; was induced by the latter to take to Gottuvadyam; a veteran among the few exponents of Gottuvadya. ' i t Presenting Bharata Natya Vidushi Mylapore Gowri Animal, Pr. V. Raghavan said in the citation : The Citation Born in 1892 at M adras; ~~ daughter of Doraikannu Ammal; learnt Bharata Natya under Tanjore Kandappa Nattuvanar, and Nellaiappa Nattuvanar, the father of Kandappa Nattuvanar ; learnt also abhinayam under Tiruvenkata- chari and from her own mother ; started giving dance recitals in her fourteenth year; was for many years attached to the Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple ; has taught Bharata Natya to a large number of pupils and is at present teaching abhinaya at the Kalakshetra ; has ___ given a large number of recitals in the Academy and other music bodies and is reputed for her proficiency in dance as well as abhinaya. THE XXXTH MADRAS MUSIC CONFERENCE 1 9 5 6 t - - Vidwans Felicitated Felicitations were then offered to the recipients of the honour. Sri N. Raghunatha Iyer, congratulating the President of this year’s conference of the Academy on the conferment on him of the title of (* Sangita Kalanidhi”, recalled the days when the services of artis tes and craftsmen were “ regulated and preserved by custom rather than by cash *' and said that Tiruvizhimizhalai was a celebrated Saivite centre which had produced notable Nagaswara Vidwans in* eluding some of the tallest in the land. Vidwan Sri Swaminatha Pillai, father of Sri Subrahmania Pillai, was respected as a Sampradaya Vidwan and was a man of character. He had taught his son the importance of playing kritis mainly as Lakshya Sangita in order to evolve his own way of singing ragas and pallavis. The brother of Sri Subrahmania Pillai was also a noted artiste. Both of them had been trained first in vocal music like the late lamented Sri Rajaratnam Pillai. Sri Subramania Pillai was a man who by his steadiness, sobriety and unremitting devotion t Referring to the observations made by Sri Subrahmania Pillai about the changes made in Nagaswaram music, Sri Raghunatha Iyer said that the gradual displacement of the high-pitched Nagas waram had introduced many complications and pitfalls for the younger men. Nagaswaram was pre-eminently an instrument for the open air, played for the happy solemnity of the festival. To cripple and curb it seemed to him almost equivalent to violating the nature of the instrument. He hoped that to some extent the old standard would bo regained by restoring the Nagaswaram to its proper place. Nagaswaram was an authentic South Indian art as the gopuram or the temple car festival. It was essential that this unique art should be available to the people, because it almost, alone of all the instruments available, solved the problem of pro viding art for the people and popularising it without falsifying or adulterating quality, and without the help of the mike. He hoped that Sri Subrahmania Pillai by his ripe experience would help to solve many problems of theory and practice. The Academy had properly decided to honour a Nagaswaram Vidwan. Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, felicitating Vidwan Sri Kodandarama Iyer, acknowledged the debt of gratitude he owed to 152 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. XXVIII him and said that Sri Kodandarama Iyer was a man of large heart in appreciating merit in others. Sri Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu offered his felicitations to Vidwan Sri Balakrishna Iyer. ^ Prof. R. Srinivasan said that Budalur Sri Krishnamurti Sastri was a masterly exponent of Gottuvadya who would produce almost the impossible in that instrument. i t Sri Ramaniah Ghettiar paid a tribute to Vidwan Anayampatti Sri Subba Iyer. Sri K. Chandrasekharan said that Vidushi Gowri Ammal belonged to early Sampradaya Bharata Natyam which had teen given up by the present generation. She was herself a good singer and perfected the control of the technique of the dance art. A combination of music and dance, he said, was essential for one to become a true exponent of dance. s i Sri Marungapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer felicitated all the arti&es who were honoured by the Academy on the occasion. Sabrahmania Pillai’s Appeal / Sri Subrahmania Pillai, in acknowledging the honour done to him, made a fervent appeal to all musicians and artistes to forget their differences and grievances and to strengthen the Academy in its laudable effort to raise the standard of music. He hoped that the Academy would be enabled to have the new building for its habitation, erected by next year by their full co-operation. Replying to the felicitations, Sri Subrahmania Pillai recalled his playing on the Nagaswaram at the time of the Madras Congress session over 30 years ago, and said that during this period, the Academy had rendered invaluable service for the growth of music and maintaining purity and tradition. Carnatic music, he added, was ancient and devotional in character. All Sangita Vidwans should be grateful to the Academy for helping to raise the standard of music. He appealed to one and air of them to strengthen the Academy forgetting their differences or grievances. He had no doubt that with their co operation they would attract more visitors from other countries and make Carnatic music earn more and more inter national appreciation. He considered that the honour done to him this year by the Academy was an honour done to Nagaswaram thexxxthmadras m u s ic c o n f e r e n c e ! 9 5 6 53 Vidwans. He also appealed to all musiciaiis to concentrate: on attaining greater and greater proficiency in music to deserve their being chosen as the President of the Academy and expressed the hope that by next year the institution would ha^e its new building erected on its premises with the assistance and co-operation of musicians and music*lovers. The other artistes made brief replies thanking the Academy for honouring them. The President then distributed the medals and prizes to the winners in competitions and the certificates to the students of the Teachers’ College of Music Who were presented by Sri T. V. Raja- gopalan and Sri T. V. Subba Rao respectively. President’s Address The President Sri Nityananda Kanungo then addressed the “ Sadas He paid a tribute to the service rendered by Stf K. V. Krishnaswami Iyer for the Academy in the crucial period of the history of this country and said that Sri Krishnaswami Iyer held aloft the banner for preserving the culture and civilisation of India. The responsibility which till now rested on the shoulders of Sri Krishnaswami Iyer had got to be shared by younger men, he said. All the musicians who had been honoured that day, Sri Kanungo said, had been born in the last century. That showed that they belonged to the passing generation who mastered the technique of music or dance, but were also the symbol of their civilisation. Third-rate musicians of the present-day, he said, talked about their own performances. On the contrary he found from the speeches made by Vidwans that day that their humility and silence about their own respective greatness were more eloquent of the fact that they were the exponents of their heritage. Sri Kanungo regretted that with the change in social condi tions, there was a tendency among the younger generation to forget all that was great in their culture and civilisation. Unless the funda mental basis of their artistic appreciation was revitalised, their arts would not continue to flourish. He hoped that the Academy would find ways and means by which the younger generation would imbibe the essentials of their culture and civilisation for the preservation of their arts. He appreciated the observations made by Sri Sri Praka- sa, former Governor of Madras, that in South India they had tru6 54 THS JOURHAI* o r T B S MADRAS MDSZC ACADSMY {VoL. XXVIII Indian civilisation and said that they should not commit the mistake Of losing confidence in their own civilisation. Once they had this confidence, they would be able to produce artistes of whom they could be proud, ft was for institutions like the Academy to find ways and means of canalising the deep-rooted emotions and training young men who would excel in all forms of art. Sri K. Balasubrahmania Iyer proposed a vote of thanks. T H E MUSIC ACADEMY, MADRAS MUSIC COMPETITION AWARDS Competition Donors Winners VOCAL MUSIC P. A. Ramaswamy Iyer Memorial M edal: First : Sri T. P. Vaidyanathan for Gentlemen Awarded by Sri P. R. Swami Iyer VOCAL MUSIC 1. Rajalakshmi Memorial Medal: Awarded First: Smt. Devaki Rangappa for Ladies by Sri K. V. Ratnam Iyer 2. Endowed by Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer Second: Smt. C. Uma Bai in memory of the late Vidwan Semmangudi Third: „ R. Sakuntala Sri Narayanaswami Iyer Veena Dhanam Memorial M edal: Awarded by First: ,, K. Kanta Sri M. Sudarsanam Iyengar Modern Compositions L. Muthiah Bhagavadar Memorial M edal: First: ,, Devaki Rangappa Awarded by Sangita Kalanidhi Hon’ble Second: ,, M. S. Lakshxm OtMIH sV«<3V»t *S>Ntt«ViiK03 Sri T. L Venkatrama Iyer Third: „ Sakuntala Raman 9$6\ Tamil Songs “ Kalki Ninaivu Parisu ** Tambura: Endowed First: „ V. Sarada by Sri T. Sadasivam . Second: ,, N. P. Seethalakshmi a 99 C o m p e t it io n " ~"“'"'"D onors ' W in n e r s Maharaja Swati Tirunal 1.- Mufti Memorial Medal: Endowed by First : Smt. Seethalakshmi hhx Compositions R. K. Murti Memorial Committee Venkatesan 2. Endowed by S ri. G. N. Balasubrahmaniam: Second: „ Ganga Ranganathan in memory of the late Sri G. V. Narayana- Third: ,, Rukmani swami Iyer Pushpavanam Purandaradas Padas Endowed by V. S. S. K. Brahmananda, First : „ Sakuntala Raman Tobbacconist, Jaffna Second: „ R. Sakuntala & Sri T.P.Vaidyanathan Kshetrajna Padas Jeshinglal K. Mehta Memorial Medal : First : „ Sakuntala Raman Awarded-by Surajmals Pallavi Singing Dr. Sankaranarayana Iyer Memorial Medal *. First : Sri T. P. Vaidyanathan Awarded by Dr. S. S. Krishnan Second: Smt, Rajalakshmi Narayanan fcA»t*qypv pisnw syHavH fcA»t*qypv jo ivnaaof J oa J y$ $iuir*qrirg 6rowin#«(g5fl&i-iiJ urr$jfl)60rr$ usjfi flfigiuib L|$l*«8a>irC.«®t- M. aruiSIflUKwftiu ^ ljujit 1. u*jsg»fl), ui$iqib-aboirifls#dr «($£$(: tL.ppwiLir&r u&$u9asr ^5 dr ern e eresresr ? u&tfgpj <3SiL-tLi s-&refnh sra/aj/rj}/ ? gtdrusufismjs i8(£i9&gi& ^ ^lujrrsinr^srvsufrLSs&r uir^b&Jir^ u& $ eS^ajib crdr snub ^■stn# !5fTL-&$QS>$B ^(LfiJBltLjSfrefrtrrr Qutrjguib. ML.mr<3m&ujresr g>0 £|)&/®/60©su ujbueo & 2 . yj$tiir$B68r£dbaiirifliqu> y$jfiiurairr$ sroaimfiinib : iJ!$$ujir<£irtr$ tsrosuruQ&w uir^osoir^miru ‘us&tr&ir&GfBrujir* 6T®iTjpj sQ5^i £5ih(ip mi_uj @Urpp&srriu& Q&tr&eS■ ^0«©(2J*/r. 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G. P a r a n j p e , P o o n a I would first explain why a student of the Vedanta and an educationist like me should speak in favour of Indian Music and its aesthetic development. I would then speak of a few salient features concerning the aesthetics appropriate to Indian Music especially with a view to make it conform to the general accepted laws of beauty, by which its vitality as Music could grow and have a wider recognition than it has to-day in the community of nations. i ! The Vedanta lays down two different processes of analysis necessary for the realization of truth ; one called Adhyaropa (or super-imposition) which consists in the analysis of the evolution of superimposed forms of consciousness starting from the Brahman as the innermost reality and the other called Apavada which is the reverse process of starting from the outermost crusts of consciousness, and eliminating each inner crust until we reach the reality that is Brahman. The Vedanta as the science of nissveyasa or moksha has been enforced with the elimination aspect and has not always emphasised the super-imposition aspect, which really relates to the sphere of ethics and practical religion, and thus to education in its largest sense. The Isavasyopanishad has seen the value of disciplines (like Music) which may be styled as avidya in the process of self-realization. In developing Musical tastes and susceptibilities we are really educating innate tendencies and intuitions of the mind and this training leads to more valuable results than the training given by reason, in the opinion of the French Philospher Bergson. ‘ The Knowledge ’ he says, ‘ gained by intuition is deeper and truer than that gained by reason and hence art is higher than science. Sympathy is one of the cardinal marks of Art. ’ Of course, any art can be abused, but we can now understand why Music, being the education of the intuition, is intimately connected with Bhakti, another process of superimposition where the superimposed love INDIAN MUSIC AND AESTHETICS 69 purifies the heart of its baser habits and is itself sublimated into the highest bliss, which is the nature of Brahman. After thus having explained my faith in Music as a valuable discipline in the field of education, I would turn to the aesthetics of Music and Indian Music in particular. Aesthetics is the science of artistic beauty, how Music like other arts, has its own conven tions through which the beautiful manifests itself. The conventions themselves are determined by social and other environment and therefore may vary from one society to another; and therefore there could not be invariable standards by which we can judge of Musical beauty except those that are based on in universal laws. Consonances and disconsonances will be determined by physical laws, but each society will be a law unto itself for the musical tech nique. We cannot therefore pretend to judge South Indian Music by North Indian standards nor Indian Music by Europen Standards except in so far as universal laws of beauty come into the picture. Richness of voice and purity of tones must be judged by physical laws and symmetrical construction of the tetrachords forming a melody of the general laws ^>f beauty which makes symmetry of construction an essential of beauty. Speaking of conventions as the necessary vehicle of artistic expression, I have to maintain that in spite of the obvious differences between the Northern and the Southern Music of India there is a far greater essential unity between the two than is now admitted. The South has preserved with some variations the Dhrupad form which has been gradually displaced in Northern India by the Khzal, and the Bol-tans of Northern Music derived from the old Music have their counterpart in the permutations of notes in the Southern Music, which are themselves probably the result of an overzealous study of the scientific texts by musicians who were Sanskrit scholars as well as musicians. The North Indian Music has suffered from a total absence of study of the old texts* but has gained, like Buddhistic Philosophy, by developing without being untrammelled by authority. How far the aesthetics of Indian Music can be improved and how far the educational purpose underlying the development of the art can be best served are two questions of vital importance to which I shall now furn» 70 THK JOURNAL OF THR MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII The audience very often determines the artistic quality of Music. Our classical Music has become the Music of specialists who care more for elaboration and craftsmanship, than for aesthetics. The patronage in the old times came for princes and rich men whose musical advisers judged the merit of an artist. In these days of democracy the specalist has to learn to bow before public taste and the public taste is an infallible guide in the determination of universal laws of beauty. Craftsmanship appeals to the intellect while good voice, good expression, good poetry serving as the medium of musical presentation, very often good looks and graceful delivery, all appeal to our intuitional sense or taste. The Musician ought not therefore to ignore the voice of the people who are right in placing beauty above mere craftsman ship. On the other hand, the audience must be trained to appreciate craftsmanship, for this appreciation alone would be an index to the culture of a society. Such an audience can be created only by organised effort and I have to congratulate the Music Academy of Madras upon the enormity of their effort and the enviable fruit which it has borne. The organized effort will include good effort also and it should really be more effective than private effort, if in the process of self-realization, which ought to be the ultimate end of education, music is credited with a larger part than is now ensigned to it and is placed on the same footing as the other scholastic subjects of today. In regard to the conventions of Music again, I have to urge that the difference between the North and the South must be gradually eliminated. Let us have more mixed audiences and more mixed Musical programmes as indeed we are having here under the auspices of this Music Academy and also under the auspices of the AIR, and then we shall be able to eliminate the divergences us each and cultivate the good points of each, so that we shall evolve once more a music common to the whole of India. We have above all to create good critics of Music and good teachers for the private Music schools which exist today in large numbers. This should be now one of the main objects of the Music Acade mies of India. A study of the foreign systems of music would be very valuable in showing us the way to self-improvement and especially for giving greater vitality to our ancient music, which has developed melody to a pitch unsuspected by the foreigner. We INDIAN MUSIC AND AESTHETICS 7 l must pay the same attention as they do to voice-cultivation. We must have an intuition into harmony as it is understood by Western Music, and this can be done only if a few gifted children are made to learn European Music side by side with Indian Music. We must pay the same attention to new musical compositions as they do in the West and if it is true that the world will gain if culture spreads itself, we must see to it that our music has a larger appeal for countries outside India. THE VEENA-PADDHATI OF HINDUSTHANI MUSIC By B ir b n d r a K is h o r e R o y C h o u d h u r y , C a l c u y t a In the ancient days, all the string-instruments (Tap tri yadya Tata Vadya) shared the common nomenclature of “ Veena There were of course many varieties of Veena. There were the main two divisions—one was Sruti Veena and the other Swara Veena. Sruti Veenas were used for showing different Srutis, but the full-fledged instrumental music could be performed on the Swara Veena which also had many varieties. These Veenas also got many transformations in course of centuries. The main Veena or Veen which is now played in North India, pwes its origin from the “ Kinnari Veena ”. We assume that upto the period of the advent of Naik Gopal, who was a great scholar and musician of the South, but settled at Delhi as the greatest authority on music during the reign of Allauddin Khilji—there was not much difference between the South-Indian and North Indian Veenas: Naik Gopal was a Karnatak Brahmin and when he came to Delhi, there was the great poet-musician Amir Khasru installed in the Darbar of Delhi. Amir Khasru was a Persian poet-musician and brought Iranian traditions of music to India. Though we may assert that Persian culture itself was enriched by that of India from time immemorial, and that Persian music did not contain any melody-type unknown to India* still there was some difference in the styles of presentation of music. Persian Sahtar, the musical instrument which has been known in India as Sitar, derived its origin from the Chitra Veena of India. But there was a difference of styles of playing. Naik Gopal the great master, marked this difference of presenta tions of Indian and Persian methods of music and formulated the basic theory and style of the Northern-Indian music, which is now known as “ Hindusthani-Sangit-Paddhati ” . It was basically Indian but it passed through some transformations by the inclusion of some elements of the Persian in its structure. Wliat is known as Saraswat Veena in North-India, took its shape from the period of Naik Gopal, who gave the first and basic treatises of Hindu* sthani theory of Ragas and Raginis as well as the compositions of THE VEENA^PADDHATI OF HINDUSTHANI MUSIC . 73 Dhrupad music and Raga Alapanam. Veena followed the style Of vocal Alap and was often played as an accompaniment of vocal Alap-music. Sanskrit shastras have given four divisions - of musical instruments, viz., (1) Shuska i. e. which is played solo (2) Gitanga i. e. which accompanies vocal music (3) Nrityanuga i. e. which is played with dance (4) Gita-Nrityanuga which accompanies both the vocal music as well as the dance. In North India, Veena was played with vocal. Alapan and Dhrupad, during the beginning period of its development but gradually, it came to be used only in solo performances' when Sarangi replaced the Veena in the vocal music and later on in dance as well. It is said that during the period beginning with the age of Naik Gopal, Baiju Bawra and Amir Khusru upto that of Haridas Swamy who flourished during the early moghul regime, there were twelve frets in the Hindusthani Veena. Three octaves of notes eould be produced on these frets by using four sJtriirgs'Hor-^lay. From the period of Swami Haridas twenty-two or twenty-four frets came into use. The stem of the Hindusthani Veena or Veen is a bamboo-piece (Vansha-Dandam) of considerable length on which are attached two large and hollowed pumpkins, one on the top of the stem and the other below. These pumpkins are rested on the body of the player as the Veena is held slanting against the left shoulder. One on the top is placed on the left shoulder and the other below is rested on the right lap. The portion of the stem between these two pumpkins is called Asthan. The frets (Saris or Sundaris) are made of brass metal on wood and are attached to the stem on a hardened wax-like substance. There are the main four strings for display of music, which pass over the frets. These are played by the fingers of the right hand of the player while the left fingers touch the strings on the frets of the stem and pass round to produce different notes. There are also three side-strings, two on the right side and one on the left which are used for a sort of drone accompaniment to the main music. All the strings of the Veena are strained on the tuning-pegs which are attached to the Veena dandam. The main strings are supported by two bridges, one on the top is called Saraswati and the other on the bottom, called Takhat, on which a chiselled piece of ivory (Joari) is raised to give proper melodious vibrations to the sound of the strings. All the strings are attached at the bottom of the Veena with a slanting J i 74 THE JOURNAL 07 THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY JVoL. XXVIII piece of wood which is joined, with the Dandam and is called Kara (Kakubha). The main four strings are called (a) Nayaki which is tuned in the note of Madhyam (b) Kharaj tuned in the note of Mandra-Shadja (c)Pancham tuned in the Mandra-Pancham and (d) Laraj which is tuned in Ati-Mandra Gandhar or Shadja. The side-strings which have separate bridges are tuned in Madhya and Tara Shadja on one side and Mandra Shadja on thq other. The Veena is played with the Mejrab (Konam) used with the first and second fingers of the right hand while the nail of the little finger plays on the side-strings (chikari). The left first and second fingers play on the frets and the left thumb or little finger hits the other Mandra side-string on the other side. The Nayaki and two rightside strings are of steel and the rest of brass. The Veena- dandam is three and a half feet in length and the Kakubha contains « piece of wood of the length of five inches. 1 The Veena-Karanam or the technique of the display on the Veena has undergone changes with the change of time. The perfection of this paddhati was done by Swami Haridas, who was a Vaishnava saint and attained perfection in the spiritual culture of Nada (Nada-siddha). Tan Sen who adorned the court of Akbar was the greatest musical genius* singer and composer of Dhrupadas of North India and was the most favourite disciple of Haridas Swatny, who taught Veena to a Rajput prince named Misri Singh. Misri Singh was unequalled in the Veena-Karanam of Hindusthani style. He was later known as Naubat Khan and married the only daughter of Tan Sen, Saraswati. Shah-Sadarang whose another name was Niamat Khan was the musical guru of emperor Mohammad Shah. Niamat Khan was the direct descendent of Nuahat Khan and Mohammad Shah of the emperor Akbar. The last Darbar of Delhi in which music flourished was seen during 'the period of Mohammad Shah. Niamat Khan brought further perfection in the Hindusthani Veena-play and was also a great composer of Khyal songs. The last jewel among the descendants of Naubat Khan was Wazir Khan Veenkar of Rampur State (IJ. R.) who flourished in the early part of this century. Hafiz Ali Khan and Allauddin the celebrated instrumentalists of modern times were Wazir Khan’s disciples. The line of Naubat Khan, Shah Sadarang and Wazir Khan ^represents the authentic style of Hindusthani Veena and Alap which has eighteen divisions ; IRE VEENX-PADDHAfl 6t HINDUSTHANI tlUSIC i : (1) Asthai Varnam (2) Antara-Varnam (3) Sanchari-Varnam (4) Bhoga*Varnam (5) Abhoga-Varnam (6) Barabar-ki-Jod (7) Gamak Jod (8) Ladi Jod (9) Jhala (10) Thok (11) Kattar Jhar ((2) k-adi (13) Lad-guthas (14) Lad-lapet (15) Paran (16) Sath- Sangat (17) Dhua (18) Matha. All of these are played indepen dently of vocal music. Accompaniments by Veena with vocal Prabandhas or Dhrupad-Songs gradually came into disuse on account of want of underttanding and harmony between the vocalists and .instrumentalists. But in Hindusthani music the system of playing Veena in accompaniment of Dhrupads • was in vogue till the reign of Mohammad Shah. Of the Eighteen divisions of Veena-Alap, the last eight divisions are accompanied by Mridangam. The greatest Mridangam player of North India was Kadao Singh whose descendant is Ajodhya Prasad, another court-musician of Rampur State (U. P.) The firstjfivc divisions of Veena Alapanam follow Vilambita lay am but without Talam. The next three are played in Madhaya-layam and the last ten in Druta layam. Talas and the accompaniments with the Mridangam are preferred in the Druta divisions and especially in the last eight items of the Veena Alap. In the Hindusthani Veena-paddhati, we find plenty of scope for Meed, in the Vilambitam, and for Gama- kas in Jod. Compared with the South Indian style there is more stress on the Vilambita-la yam at the beginning^of an Alap from the Asthai to the Abhog. The graces or gamakas of the South and the North differ in style, this being the outcome of the difference of the shape of the instruments. After Jhala and Thok, all other divi sions of Veena Alapanam reproduce the Bols or Aksharas Of Mridangam in the strings with the help of the finger-works, which is facilitated by the use of Konam or plectrum on the right fingers. Chikaras are constantly used to give a droning effect of the Veena Alap. The music of Dhrupad and the Veena was fast decaying in Northern India, after the close of Darbar-music of Rampur Jaipur and other illustrious courts which patronised this high art. The great Dhrupad singers and Veenkars died without^ leaving any legacy behind them. The state of affairs was highly deplorable when the British left India with Her cultural wealth uncared for by the intelligensia. But thanks to the efforts of the present Government of Free India and especially the initiative of the department of Broadcasting, and the Sangita Natak Akademi, Hindusthani classical music including Dhrupad and Veena is now 7& THE JOURNAL OF TfeEtfA D fcA S MUSIC ACADEMY (Vol. XXVIlt getting a new impetus to recreate itself and thrive again, in a form suitable to the present environments. It is very gratifying to note that South Indian intelligensia never neglected its great musical legacy and the classical kirtanas, and in the South, group music and especially the extensive culture of Veena have always been kept alive. The light of Indian culture has never been fading there. Those who say that \ classical art is a dead art and only fit to be preserved as documents of the dead past should tour throughout South-lndia and observe the ever-living expressions of classical culture there. We often attribute a bad name to something we do not like, and then try to kick it out. By the grace of the Almighty, the Dhrupad with the music of Veena is not yet completely dead in the North and we hope that by another generation our classical music will renew its glorious and progressive march towards eternity with vigour and with all its truth-forms intact. 1 THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN MUSIC N ic h o la s N a b o k o v , u .s.a . To seek for the sources of an art is like going upstream a river system in an attempt to discover all of the confluent streams which form it. And it is also to become a kind of Adam giving names to all of the animals of his animal Kingdom. The explorer feels lost in what seems to him an infinity of data, seemingly unrelated, incomplete at times contradictory, much of it concealed by the Lime of history and detectable only by con jecture and insight. Yet to do justice to his task the explorer- historian must keep in mind that while exploring the separate parts he is engaged in discovering the “ whole/* of a system i.e* one living complex organism and that however manifold, varied and even contradictory the individual evidences may be he must* con tinue to seek its concealed relations, its component meanings and relate them to the whole. But the search of the sources of an art is also like watching the sap mount under the bark of a tree in the contrary direction to its organic motion, from the ends of the branches down below the surface of the earth, into its secret darkness there where the roots, those mirriads of mouths, suck in the juices of the soil and shoot' it up to the sun to give life to the plant. Only after such a mole-like watch in the dark of the root- world, can the explorer-historian begin to put his data in orderly patterns, bring it into a comprehensive shape, make it intelligible^ Yet he must always beware of throwing some arbitrary light upon those parts of his new-found-land which have remained concealed to him, about which he was unable to collect data, whose secrets have remained undisclosed. In other words all historical analysis, all attempts to trace any kind of historical theory must proceed in the following way : first one should gather data with the utmost patience and care. Then and then only proceed to a proper manipulation of the data, an orderly collation thereof. Only then can historical theory become valid, when it is deducted from verifiable, intelligible data and not vice versa. Conjectural insight, a kind of poet’s or seer*s eye 7 8 THE JOURNAL o f fH E MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. X X V lll thrown into the past, is of course indispensable. (It brings history to life, makes it a living, a humane thing. (But it should not be a substitute for the careful, painstaking detailed process of exploration and accumulation of data. Unfortunately, for reasons I will attempt to explain when we deal with the history of Western music, our data are bound to remain incomplete. At times it will remain totally intangible. Therefore the temptation to use what I call “ conjectural insight ” in place of orderly correlation of factual data will be very strong. The art of music, for many centuries, has been a component part of tribal, national or regional habits and customs, mainly those related to rituals of religion. With the change of customs ahd religious ritual it has usually undergone profound changes. It has in effect often become so unrecognisable from what if had been that its new aspect made it very difficult to re-establish any kind of logical filiation. 'I Consider for example our knowledge of Greek music. The data that we possess is so scanty that it is bard to imagine how the actual practice of Greek music took place and what it sounded like. We have, it is true a few fairly complete treatises of Greek musical theory (in particular the highly important one by the third century B. C. mathematician Aristoxenes and the well known references on scale structures in Plato’s Republic as well as in the opening pages, of his Timaeus) but of actual Greek music there survive only 3 or 4 mutilated examples, none of which conforms to the theory of Greek music and some of which are so mutilated that we cannot even agree on a proper reading of those examples. But even so, let us assume that we were, contrary to all evid ence, weilinformed about Greek Music, say roughly of the second or first century B.C. Let us then jump a few centuries ahead into the early periods of well-established Greecian Christianity. Let us listen to the chants and hymns of the early Greek churches of Attica and Byzantium. What relation do they bear, what filiation can we detect in them to the Dyonisian or Appollinian hymns of the second century Greeks ? Probably none at all, or atleast very scanty. ’ I make, of course a purely hypothetical proposition, but the point of it is fairly obvious. The impact of Christianity had not only profoundly altered all artistic practices of the ancient Greeks, it has in fact opposed them as inimical, as pagan, and hence inacce THE ORIOIN3 OF WESTERN MUSIC ' 7 9 ptable to the Christian ecclesiastical cult. From where then did the early Greek Christians obtain their “ new ” music, what were its authentic sources and in what did its practice differ from the one of the ancient, prechristian Greeks ? The answer is difficult, but can be arrived at by conjecture t First, the early Greek Christians (and at the moment I do not speak of the Jewish, Arab, Roman, Egyptian Christians) in their > music as in all of their ritual accepted influences from abroad—from Egypt, from Gallilea. Their religion, dogma and theology come from there, hence it was only natural to accept music as part of their ritual. Second they used native, traditional, pagan songs, so as to make them practically unrecognisable. For example, there is reason to believe that some of the early Greek-orthodox ok a fiston (hymnlike chants in honour of Christ, the Virgin or a Saint) were melodically related to the Appollinian hymns of the late Hellenistic period. This example makes it clear both how difficult it is to explore the sources of an art and at the same time how important a role conjectural insight and analysis may become in our attempts to draw as accurate a picture of the origins of Western music as we possibly can. ' To put it plainly : Too few examples of ancient Greek music have survived for us to draw a complete picture thereof, yet enough traces of it are hidden in early Byzantine music to be able to draw by conjecture, an incomplete, an approximate picture of what the practice of Greek music was like. But in our attempts to draw a coherent story of the origins of western music, we are also hampered by two additional circumstances: , First the very idea of a historical approach to the arts and in particular to the art of music is fairly novel. It is only towards the end of the 18th century that people began to consider art as a historical phenomenon, (ora phenomenon whose history is of any interest). Previously every historical period produced and con sumed its own art, did not bother about and lightheartedly discarded the art of the preceeding periods* It did so in the West (not in the East, where art has remained much more grounded in custom, and tradition) just as naturally as a fashionable French girl discards last year’s gown for the latest creation. In fact' this ««- historical attitude towards most of the arts existed upto the begining of the 19th century. Eg. J. S. Bach’s son C. P. tiach, in his time as famous a composer as his father and one of the first internationally SO THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIG ACADEMY [VOL. XXVIH Acclaimed virtuoso’s of the then newly invented instrument the Hammerklavier (ancestor of the piano), practically never performed the music of his father, and when he did play it, he did it exclu sively for his pupils as a kind of lesson, or example ofperfect yet old-fashioned, out-moded counterpoint. Another example: to Voltaire, the splendid gothic cathedrals of France appeared as ugly, barbarious and gloomy masses of stone (the word ‘ gothic * in fact was until about 1830 synonymous with * barbarious' or * pri mitive* (illproportioned an ill lit). He proposed to erase them and replace them by stylish, bright, classically proportioned Rococo churches, one of which he built in the garden of his estate and adorned it with the ironic inscription “ a Deo Voltaire**, Hence because of a lack of historical sense and a concomitant lack of respect for the art of preceding periods (which was much stronger in music than in the other arts), the West disregarded, discarded and ultimately lost much of its musical heritage of past cdiituries. By the time the West acquired a sense of history (which it did only towards the time of Hegel and greatly under the impact of his ideas), the music of the past centuries was hidden in dusty storage places and in patrts irreparably lost. One had to embark upon a most painstaking process of reconstructing from the scantiest bits of testimony the music of even the closest historical periods. Con sider, for example, the case of the so-called Gregorian chant, the ancient chant of the Western Christians, the chant of the early Roman Catholic church, in the course of centuries, the proper usage of the chant, in fact the outline of most of its melodies has been forgotten or so completely corrupted that it had absolutely ceased to resemble what it had been when it was first put to use by the early Christian churches. In fact the very idea of the existence of a kind of Codex Gregorianune was being disputed. Towards the 18th century the music of the Roman Catholic church was not diffe rent in any way from the secular music of the period. It took some 70 years of assiduous work by the Benedictine monks of the Convent of Solesmes in France to rediscover first the reading-principles of early medieval, so-called Neumatic notation, (in which these early chants were inscribed into the manuscript prayerbooks of the 8-9 Centuries), then to compare all existing manuscripts of coming from various places in Europe, where they were preserved and thus to deduce, to re-construct the actual melodies of these chants (and incidentally to prove that at some historical period a Codex, accepted and approved by the Church, did exist.) PART* I*1V] THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN MUSIC 81 The other circumstance which complicates our musicological and historical research is of a completely different and somewhat general nature - I will not discuss it here in detail, but simply men. tion it briefly, for to discuss it extensively would draw us away from the original purpose of our investigation. It is simply that' the language of musical criticism i.e. its semantics and terminology, has never been well developed and therefore has remained hazy. The terms were and still are being borrowed from other disciplines of necessity, they therefore lack precision and are highly vulnerable as an instrument of historical analysis or even simple description. Yet as soon as we abandon that confused and vague languagef and attempt to talk in more scientific terms (as for example when we discuss Acoustics) we immediately limit our discussion from music as a whole, music as a complex morphological event, to the discus sion of one of the component parts thereof. Hence for want of a better more precise aesthetic vocabulary in our historical analysis of Western music we adhere to the kind of vague formulae which you read in the daily newspapers when critics praise or condemn, judge or describe the performance of this or that girtist or of this or that work of music. Let us however mention here that the need of a language of aesthetics and of a serious pheno menological study of music is beginning to be felt very strongly in the Western world and that presently a few serious attempts are being made to bring about such a study. Now let me turn to the main subject of our investigation namely a description of the roots and sources of Western music and its relation or non-relation to the music of the East. From what we know of ancient Greek music and its theory, we can deduct that it was probably profoundly linked to the music of the Eastern world and that the channels of communication with and through the Median Empire (with North India e.g. and probably even China) existed with the occasional interruption of wars. At least Plato speaks of certain “ modes ’* (scales) that are “ effete and of oriental source ”, (and as a puritan that he was, he forbids the use of them as dangerous to the state and to the moral of the youth. The of the Greeks was based on a catalogue of a certain number of scales, differing from each other through the internal arrangement of tones. Each of these scales or Modes (as they were called) had several variants or aspects of which Aristoxenes (who was excessively logical in toy opinion) mentions three the diatonic, the enharmonic and the chromatic ones. It seems to me that this kind of organisational base or system of Greek K 82 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII music had a clear resemblance to the Raga system of early Indian music (though I must acknowledge my scant knowledge of Indian music, its history and theory). At least the practice of Greek music as it is described to us by ancient authors appears to be very similar to the practice or rather the usage to which music was put in those days in the oriental world. It was closely related to religious ritual and its character, informs, its techniques depended on the various cults of the Greek Cosmogony of which the two principal and antithetical ones (but by no means the only ones) were the cult of Appollo and the cult of Dionisius, Roughly speak, ing the music of the cult of Appollo represented (to use a vague expression) the spiritual aspect of man's condition and aspiration while the Dionisian cult represented the sensuous, the erotic side : the ' physis ’ of his being. (There again we might draw a parallel between the highly spiritual aspects and the equally highly erotic aspects of the music of certain countries of the East). In another sense too the music of the ancient Greeks probably resembled the music of the East in so far as it was essentially a mel6dic, vocal music, based on intricate rhythmisation of the words and accompanied by solo instruments similar to some of those that are used in Indian music* the Kitara (Cither), the Aulos (the Flute) and the Lyre (probably sounding like the Vina). In other words, however strange it may seem to us, the music of the Ionic and Doric Greeks and until the Hellenistic period was akin to and in more ways than one, was one of the aspects of oriental music. When then did the separation occur ? What prompted it ? What brought it about ? The answer to this question is simple enough, but the proof of the answer is so complex that so far it has . never been satisfactorily given nor even attempted to be given. The overwhelming event which caused the end of Greek Music and by incidence destroyed the relation between East and West, (the similarity of the role which music played in the Greek world and in the oriental world) was the appearance of a new phenomenon in western life — the rise of an oriental religion— Christianity, its conquest, its penetration of the psyche, the soul of Greco-Roman man. It becomes quite clear when one studies the earliest forms of Christian music (psalmody and hymnody) and then compares it with what we know of the practice of ancient Greek music* that the role of music in society has suddenly changed. It acquired another meaning, another purpose, another relation to and position in society. In this connection, I wish to state, that it seems tb me d m we are above all in need of a sound and explicit PhenomnQ- PARTS l-iv ] THE ORIGINS OP WESTERN MtjSlC S3 logical enquiry into the nature of Western music. Once it will be completed (and the Swiss conductor-musicologist Ernest Anserment is presently engaged in writing such a phenomenological study) it will doubtlessly be discovered that the rise of Christianity, the rise of the ANTINOMICAL approach to the universe served as a kind of emotional catalyst which unbound deeply rooted affective energies in Western man which then (and only then) made it possible for his music to become an aesthetic phenomenon i.e, an accomplished art, growing within history, constantly changing and enriching its technical equipment and vocabulary, producing with each epoch intricate and beautiful constructions of sound, on the basis of an ever evolving theoretical background and making these constructions serve the affective, un-discrusive (non-rational) needs of Western man’s of psyche by being a kind of mirror of his subli mated emotions and feelings. It would be too long here to go into a detailed analysis of the effect Christianity (and later Christian chivalry) had on the rise of the art of music in the West. Two examples may suffice - the Gregorian chant and the song of the Troubadours (ministrels). These e*arly examples of the Western art of music, have certainly very different sources and different, if not contradictory, subject matters. But what they have in common is from then on ever-present in the musical art of the West. The excellence in the proportion, or better the ‘‘analogia” between the emotional, affective content, and the structure of the work, stated in an inventive vocabulary (made up of patterns of sound) perceivable, communicable (from person to person), in other words something analogically intelligible (although not ideagraphic by nature) which at the same time is capable of arousing a precise (but limited) set of emotions and feelings within the frame work of a given historical and semantic environment. I would like thus to conclude by saying that the true origins of the Western art of music, the way we know it, lie much more in the dark underground roots of the first heterogenous Christian com munities of Rome and Byzenthium than in the splendors' of Grecian musical theory and that the Western musical art as a form both of experience (Erlebniss in German) and communication* took its origins from the enormous emotional upheaval which the rise of Christendom produced in the West. From being in Grecian times an essentially centrifugal phenomenon (“ The maker of music makes music for others” ). From being a mode of ritualistic behaviour it gradually became a language (without words) com municating emotions and passions from man to man * * A paper read at a special meeting of the Academy. DANCE AND DRAMA* By E g o n V ie t t a , G e r m a n y After the second world war Hamburg in West Germany was utterly destroyed. The wind spread the leaves through the derelict streets. Any kind of food was unavaliable. Starving oppressed the people. In the hours of dim light there was a rally of people before an undamaged school house. The crowd rushed into a sort of classroom. This room was converted into a sriiall theatre. The stage was nothing but a curtain and some footlights. Actors presented on this stage the Faust by Goethe, or an Ameri can play, even French and English plays in an insufficient trans lation. I asked myself: what is the reason that those starving people are ready to sacrifice everything on behalf of the stage ? The*' destruction in Hamburg was not so much that no room could be found. In cities like Hanover actors had to be content with a cellar. In Hamburg again a clever actor invented the cham ber-theatre, which consisted of one room: audience and actors being like the guests and their host. The movement was fast grow ing up. In Celle* an old, baroque town which has been spared by the bombardments, a group of teachers worked privately: they had a new style of acting in mind, wanted the change of the stage, and their experiments went as far as to use a square place* a carpet. The carpet was the stage, the audience sitting around this carpet. This group was apparently influenced by Asian philosophy. Out of this group emerged two important directors of stage, both already well-known before : Heinrich Koch and G. R. Sellner. The recovery of West Germany enabled the communities and the states; to rebuild their theatres. They have been built, not according to so much of new experience, as by the enthusiasm of the citizens which overran all difficulties and doubts, and now we have the theatres all over West Germany back, except a few towns, which still work with some previous arrangement. This revival of the stage confirms the vitality of the stage in the Western world. But there was a saying that the houses are rebuilt and the budgets are granted, but the poets were missing : theatre without poets ! The import of foreign plays was conside *A paper read at a special meeting in the Music Academy, Madras fARtft I-IV] DANCE AND DRAMA 85 rably high. Has this return of the past anything to do with a revival? In fact, the past never returns. The return of the past is called in Europe reactionary. This call on the past was not a theatre movement, comparable to the realism or naturalism of Ibsen, Shaw and Strindberg, Hauptmann and Tschechow before the first world war broke out. We discovered something new: the old- fashioned stage does not work. We had to work for several years with the empty-stage, without props and money, and we realised, people get much more interested in theatre if their fantasy colla borates with the stage. We rediscovered the empty* the original Shakespearean and the ancient Greek stage. There were impor tant modifications. But the basic directions were governed by the rediscovery of the genuine stage. What does that mean: the genuine stage ? Is there any basic difference between stage and stage ? As long as the stage dominated as a means of entertainment and propaganda in the Western world, uncontested, there was no need to think about the stage. But important stage directors as Meyerhold, Stanislaki, Tairoff, Reinhardt, Jessner were interested in the theory of the stage. Immediately after the first world war the creation of the third stage, the new stage was definite. The new stage had the unmatchable chance to reach the masses. In United States as well as in India the old stage has been pushed away by the cinema theatres. The stage carried on like before, but its power was broken. The victoria cinema con trived the stage directors in USA and in India, to imitate cinema. The Calcutta repertoire theatre of today is bound to the technique of cinema-pictures : short scenes, certain light effects, no inner form, strong realism, stress on psychological problems and brilliant acting. The result is overwhelming. The audience of Calcutta is pleased. Reformers like Mitra and his Bahurupee have to fight for their audience. The picture imitation had cut down the audi ence. Acting on this stage* for example in Ero Manush or Ulka, consists of cunning, spontaneous emotion, design of characters, and special stage design. The genuine stage of today seems to be the cinema-stage and its followers on the boulevards of New York, London and Paris. The stage of today has no design reality : how can we admit dance and music on this stage, except for a colourful background in order to raise the sentiments in the intervals. Sometimes I $6 THE JOURNAL O* THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVlIt had a feeling in Indian amateur theatres that music is abused not. much less than in the oldest cinema-theatres, where a pianoplayer, had to cover the intervals with some hits or what else sdunds like music. Is that the genuine stage ? The second world war created conditions of life which cannot be described but primitive. In those conditions people realised again how powerfully the simple expression, the gesture as a gesture and an empty stage collaborate with the fantasy of the audience. This temporary setback brought a new consciousness to live. I shall picture this fallback into the primitive stage in giving a true description which happened in Germany'after the second world war. This description is due to an interpretation. You in India are used to see behind the things. Since the so-fcalled School of Vienna we know that a picture delineates a spiritual movement behind the painting. For example, the pictures of the brothers yan Eyck in the I3th century delineate already the beginning of scientific era. [The European theatre portrays already the technification, no doubt, in the most sensible way, e.g. the great Spanish theatre in the 16th century, the theatre of Calderon and the holy sacramental plays. The technical development is long before disclosed by the stage, and we are on the way, to look at many a development on the stage now with different eyes. The change of the European stage too after this war seems a technical change, a new method of staging and aeting, but in fact there is a mystery behind, which will be discussed at the end of my talk. Europe had a very elaborate theory on modern stage, in the books of Stanislawsky, in the treatises and ideas of Henrik Ibsen and in a huge amount of excellent stage critics as Alfred Kerr in Germany, Schlenther, Fechter and so on. Not only was the drama- that much examined, much more so the opera and the dance were fervently discussed since the first world war. Rudolf von Laban, Mary Wigman, Harald Kreutzberg started, encouraged by an American dancer, Isidora Duncan, a new dance movement, which has been soon declared the new German dance. This movement is in a certain sense the key to the full change of our stage. But the change of our stage after the second world war was much more deliberate than any experiment after the first world war, although we had after the first world war excellent playwrights like Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Barlach, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s comedies. We had the expressionist and the Max Reinhardt stage. But the modern German dance movement and the stage were divided. PARTS HV] DANCE AND DRAMA 87 After this war directors of the stage like Sellner or Gunter Rennert worked together with great dancers, and they introduced on the empty stage a new kind of acting : the actors had to move like a dancer. Each step had to be counted. The accidental, impressionist stage was over. The stiff, tough opera acting too was upset. Gunther Rennert and Wield Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, freed first the stage from all unecessary settings. The singer was trained like «*• dramatic actor, he had to move and to sing, as if both would be a unity, and this melting of acting and opera-singing produced overwhelming results : the triumph of the new Wagner-staging in Beyreuth spread out all over Europe, and Gunther Rennert’s Hamburg Opera plays a leading role in the Edinburgh festival of this year. May I give you a few examples before discussing what this change means. I read just the excellent paper of Professor Raghavan on the ancient Indian stage, which hasbeen delivered at the Drama conference in Delhi, and often I thought, he talks not about Kalidasa’s theatre or the Natya Sastra but exactly of the latest developments in West Germany, France and Italy. Sellner had to stage “ King Lear ” after this war. This performance has become very famous. He heightened the stage to a slope towards the audience, because the house was not built for this purpose and the people in the last ranks could see properly. He made a second slope on the top. The stage was like an open mouth. The actors came from behind to the empty slope. There was no other prop except King Lear’s throne. How to explain to the audience that there is a court and not a landscape or'some thing else ? Through the choreographical display of the actors, he distributed the actors as if he had to arrange a ballet, and it was amply clear that a court was meant and not a landscape. Heinrich Koch had to stage a play about a biblical scene. The stage was an elevated circle, and the actors had to climb on the circle, and any movement across this empty circle was like a great, biblical movement in the desert. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of the most successful performances in Germany after the war in the direction of Sellner with the music of Orff. The stage of Max Reinhardt about forty years ago, was a forest, and a Greek facade, the palace of King Theseus. The palace was in Sellner’s direction a curtain, out of that the king sprung with his court-maiden. And the forest was a set of abstract plants in iron. Those mobiles, similar to Alexander Calders’s abstract inventions in USA, were the most perfect plastic 88 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII receivers of light. The play with the light, which has been refined by the picture industry, replaced the settings and machinery of the old playhouse, and it worked marvellous. But it is not sufficient to have only an empty stage, in mind. Whatever in this: stage happens, counts. And on this stage every movement every gesture will be much more watched than on the stage with huge paintings and so on. I had just the chance, to observe how this old settings consummate even the actor, in a play, which has been performed by my friend Balakrishha in Nepal during the coronation. The most skilful play is damaged by the useless sets. Similar failures I had to notice in the most admirable Mysore-opera, which is partly intolerable on the grounds of this old fashioned acting and staging. The musician Carl Orff, now getting world famous, especially in United States and all over America, invented even a new kind of opera which is bound to the musical tunes of the ancient German language. He mixe^ freely dance and drama and we owe him the revival of the Greek drama, the Antigone in the translation of our greatest poet, Hoelderin, who knew so much about our origins in India. Antigone has been staged in Salzburg, before an international audience, and in Munich. The orchestra is revolutionary, and looks much more like a South Indian orchestra than our old traditional string orchestra. No string instruments, no violin, no cellos and so on. Battery is all. Fifty new instruments, stones, sticks, gongs bells, rhythmical values of the highest, expressive power, and an admira ble return to the monody, the single human voice, the chorus in between partly sung without any instrument. But when the chorus ends, there is a full ballet on the scene and the ballet takes over the inner movement of the chorus* and dances on the stage, like a finale, the end of the musical piece. This ballet, connected with the elaborate movement of the singer, I understand, that reformers in India have in mind, and surely the Kathakali dance is an instance of how this kind of play has to be acted. I repeat, this ballet is the climax of the play. Here we are no longer in Europe, the Munich opera looked like an Asian stage, and the ancient roots of the Greek drama, which are to be found undoubtedly in Asia, came to light. It would be senseless to make out of this stage principles, or dogma. Naturalistic plays have to be acted in the old fashioned way, and my experience in Calcutta drives me to .the conclusion that the living Indian stage-drama is on the level of this realism, and not beyond. Even the Bombay stage, PARTS l-iv] DANCE AND DRAMA 89 except Alkazi’s Theatre Unit, is dedicated to the naturalistic way of acting. This naturalism in Calcutta is- fascinating. I have seen several plays, Ero Manush, Ulka and Parinita. All those plays impressed me by a certain tendency of the content, but not by their art of acting and even writing. The realism of Calcutta discovers the human brotherhood in the sense of Dostojewsky in the most, amiable way and this human message appeals to the people, because acting follows one line : the cinema line. That is the deadlock of the stage, because the stage which runs behind the cinema is less than the cinema. Nevermore will Indian theatre be able to fplfil its greatest task, the revival of its origins in Sanskrit drama in a modern transformation. But our new European way has opened the roads to the Sanskrir Drama. We are not more far away from staging Indian and Chinese plays in Europe, and in fact, we have done it with tremendous success. A German scholar has translated for the first time from Chi* nese into German 400 pages of a drama, called the Cherry Blossom Fan. That is the story of a young writer, who falls in love with a Geisha girl. He marries her but soon after war breaks out and the old Chinese dynasty has been deposed by the Manchus. The adventurous life of those lovers and their end in a Buddhist monastery is the content of the play. This wonderful old play gave us a lot of problems. The actors sing and talk as in Kalidasa1* plays. We allowed the actress, the leading lady, to raise unnatur ally the voice and the audience was pleased to hear the different, tunes. Now we found the way, how to realise and communicate certain difficulties in Kalidasa’s and other Sanskrit plays. The music was composed by a specialist on Chinese music : the people enjoyed it immensely. Another problem solved : we can suppose* that our audience will favour original Indian music. What about the settings ? We decided to choose only Bamboo—nothing else. Bamboo was the house, bamboo against the black background was the landscape, bamboos balancing lamions were the street-girls, and two or three bamboo-sticks, made a tent for the general in the frontline. But the holy mount, the Buddhist centre, was the empty stage : the wisdom of God ■ alone reigned there ! There is a scene in which the poor lady meets her friends in a boat on the lake ; The lady simply walks with a frame-work of a boat in the hands. That’s all. The friends keep a similar framework. The moon behind. Anci blue light : the effect as on a painting of Abanindranath Tagore or Chinese scroll strips. What about the costumes ? We went to the lieather museum of L ?D t h e j o u r n a l o f t h e m a d r a s m u s ic ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIIt Offenbach with about 30,000 Chinese and Javanese shadow-play figures and copied the old costumes. The colour of the costumes has been brought to full brilliant exposure through i the simple bamboo : the play has been translated by Hugh Hunt into English* and will be staged some time in London. The success in Germany was revolutionary, the press and critics raging with epthnsiasm. This Chinese play after this wai* has opened the highways to India, although the Sanskrit play will ask for further and different solutions and may be much more difficult than the Chinese play. O n e great German author may be mentioned in this conext : Ernst Barlach. He is greater and deeper than the most praisable Bertolt Brecht. Barlach’s plays have a tendency to a primitive realism on the stage, but their background is religious, fp fact, Barlach’s seven plays belong to the greatest religious theatre of Europe. He died in 1937, very lonesome and helpless. His last play describes the pilgrimage of a simple count Ratzeburg from his home-town to the holy country, and there he meets the devil. He talks with the saints in the desert, the great asceties. He returns after long years of suffering into his home-town, and here he gives up all his property, as an Indian Sanyasin, and the soldiers of the Raja slaughter him because the count of Ratzeberg sacrifices him self on behalf of his unworthy son. The unforgettable part of this count is based on Indian and Chinese philosophy : here we have the wisdom of the Upanishads, the praise of Brahman, of the great silence on the stage. The play has been staged for the first time in 1951. There is a lot to talk about the staging : I want to mention that we discovered in the diaries of Balrach after his death that he read only Asian philosophy and wisdom. This very brief description of the German Stage after the war is the best.evidence of what the change of our stage means : the introduction of choreographical movement, the unification with the new German dance which brings our stage closer to India since now than ever before; we are able to discover the great Indian tradition on our stage, because up to now we had no proper means to do it. But that is only the outer side. The innerside of this development shows a clear indication that we are ready to change not only the stage, but also our mind : the simplicity of the stage is in fact a revival of the essence of stage, and that alone will save the stage from being submerged by cinema. What seems a more tech nical movement leads to a rebirth of stage. We come back to th? Ha it i's i -i v ] DA^CE AND D ltA liA $1 inner unity, which we have lost not only on the European Stage, also in the modern civilisation. The stage is nothing else than the symbol of that outside world. When we discover a new stage, which corresponds with the great and mighty Asian tradition, we discover the essence of man again ; and that is the coming problem of the European Theatre, not some success more or less, some more writer, full houses and so on. May be, the great rivers of Theatre, the European and Asian, come to a confluence as in their origins. We hope so. THE TRACES OF ANCIENT INDIAN MUSIC IN CHINA B y J a n Y u n -h u a , m . a . , India and China are both ancient nations and they have their own respective glorious cultures and civilisations. They are close friends, and they have contacts in several cultural fields and music is one of them. On this aspect, modern scholars have so far worked very little. There is still need for fresh studies in this field. The difficulty in this subject is that the Indians lost their historical records although most of the old Chinese records were preserved. The musical materials preserved are without the musical tunes. In this paper, I have used the Chinese materials (most of these, dated before 13th century A. D.), to trace the history of the ancient Indian music in China. In the following pages, I have discussed : 1. The Indian musical orchestra in China 2. The Chinese Buddhistic music and 3. The Greater Indian music in China. Most of these questions form new problems in this field. In the beginning of the 4th century A. D., China’s political conditions had a great change, the united Empire had fallen and the tribal kingdoms had arisen on its decline and this political con fusion lasted for about three centuries until the Sui Empire reunited China in the end of the 6th century A. D. Foreign elements were introduced to the Chinese by the tribal rulers. They, for the first time, recognized Buddhism as their court faith, and played foreign music in their court etc. These aspects show that the foreign and tribal civilizations had great influences on the Chinese life, and this was not the case in the previous periods. The Emperor, Yang of the Sui dynasty, first used a large volume of foreign music in his court. The History o f the Sui Dynasty1 records that in the age of the Ta-yeh (605-18)* the Emperor Yang ordered the formation of the nine parts of music in his court, and seven of these nine parts were foreign music; viz. West Liangs, Kuchean, Indian, Sogdiana, Kashgarien, Parthian and the Korean. In the middle of the 7th century India was omitted from this list but Fu-nan and Turfan were enlisted into it. 1. Sui-shu (The History of the Sui Dynasty), ^y Wei-Cheng (580-643 A.D.) Ch. 15. PARTS M v] TRACES QF ANCIENT INDIAN MUSIC IN CftlNA 93 We know from The History of the Tsin Dynasty and Tu-yu’s encyclopedia VUng-Tieti*, that Indian magical plays staged in China began in the second century A. D., and such plays were played by the Indians in the Chinese court throughout the different ages continuously, until the 8th century. We do not know in the early time whether those magical plays were associated with music or not but in later time they were accompanied by musical settings. The History o f the Sui Dynasty mentions the first Indian orchestra in China. It informs that during the 4th century A. D., while Chang Chung- hua occupied the N. W. China, foreigners came from distant regions, with their presents to the Chinese rulers. India was one of these foreign countries, which presented their music to Chang’s court. After this, an Indian prince who changed his life into that of a Buddhist monk and spent some time in China, made tfie Indian music familiar to the Chinese. Different Chinese texts mention that Indian orchestras consisted of twelve musicians, two dancers, and different instruments, namely a phoenix-head K’ung-hou, a balloon guitar, a five stringed balloon, guitar, a flute, four different drums, a cymbal and a plain conch. Chinese texts also inform that Indian musicians used to wear black caps, white silken jackets, thin silken trousers in purple, and dark-red shoulder-skirts. The dancers wore the Chiasha (Kasaya) which was in orange-colour, as well as the colour of the sky during the morning time. Other dresses of the dancers were green coloured, and they wore also the hempen-sandals. Among the instruments, K’ung-hou was a 23 stringed instru ment, and it was not used by the Chinese musicians since long time, and it corresponded with Katyayana-vina. The balloon-guitar in Chinese was called Pi-pa ; this was a popular instrument in Central Asia and it was also used by ancient Indian musicians. The drums were four in number, the Chinese named them as a Tu-tan drum, a Kieh drum, a copper drum and another was named Mao-yuan drum. The Chinese called that flute which was used by the Indians Pili. This probably is the transcription from the Indian name 1 Bansuri ’. Chinese texts mentioned only two songs in Indian orchestra. The songs are entitled as Sha-shih-chiang and ‘ A song to Heaven’. These numbers seem to be limited by the court’s time, because they should play many other songs in their court. 2. Tsin-shu (i.e, the History of the Tsin dynasty), by Fang Chio etc. ch. 23. and T’ung-tien (A general encyclopedia) by Tu-yu (C o m p lied 801 A .D .) C h . 146. $4 TME JOURNAL OF THE StADRASSftfSiC ACADEMY [Vol. X X V lll 9 India was the motherland of Buddhism, and that religion also was a popular and powerful faith for the Chinese. This religious contacts brought these two nations closer. Indian music, just like other cultural activities accompanying Buddhism, was exported to China. We do not know what place was occupied by the music in the Buddhist society, during the early times. In regard to the Hinayanist traditions, they did not use musit in their religious life ; but .on the other hand, the Mahayanists used music in their rites Even at present, it is still being used by the Mahaya nists. According to some Chinese Buddhist translations, a few simple instruments were used by the monks during the early ages. For example, the text of Ekottaragama Sutra mentions that Ananda was sounding a Ghanda and going to a class room, saying that he would deliver the doctrines of Buddha and that moj^ks who were the disciples of Buddha should come to that room. Later, when Tantric religion developed, their believers gave music an important place in their religious life. Many Tantric texts mentioned that their ritual rules were concerned with music ; some even connected music with their doctrines, as does the text of Ta- Jih-Ching- I-Sh ih which mentions that “ all songs are the True words ; and all dances are the sacred signs8”. It is clear that music and dance are not only the peoples’ offer to the God, but they them selves are the doctrines. We get no evidence to point out the exact date of the beginning of the religious music in China, but from some sources we have traced that it should be from the early centuries of the Christian era. One Chinese Buddhist work mentions that Ts’ao-Chih (192-232) had. according to the Sanskrit verse, formed the seven tones. Again, we learn from Kao-Seng-Chuan3 4 the customs of T’ien-chu (India), when the people repeat the words of Dharma. Most of their verses were written in rhyme; this we (Chinese) called Fan-pai (» Pathka). Due to the linguistic differences, Chinese translations have divided the texts into two parts viz. the songs and the essays (prose). The songs are the hymn to God, and they are accompanied by the stringed and wind musical instruments and the essays (prose) to explain the stories and the doctrines. Kao-Seng-Chuan was dated in the begin ning of the 6th century. This shows that the Buddhistic music was in existence in those periods. During the T’ang period (618-907) 3. Ta-jib-cbiag I-Sbih (Tbe commentary of Mahavairochana-sutra) by It-slng (672-717 A .D .) ch. 6. 4. Kao-seiig-chuan (Memoirs of the eminent priests) by Seng Yu in 319 A .D . PARTS 1-XV] TRACES OF ANCIENT INDIAN NtTstC IN CHINA 95 a new literary system called Pien-wen was produced in China, it was a mixture of poetry and essay (prose). Those poems were sung by the Buddhists, and accompanied by music. This new literature afterwards was not only used for preaching the religion, but also used for common stories ; the text of Yin-hua-lub had a story on this ; it mentions that a monk named Wen-she gathered the people in his temple for the speeches. He said that his talks were quoted from the canons, but they were really lewd stories. People liked his speeches and songs, therefore they named that temple as Ho-shang Chiao-fang which means the monks’ musical club. The system of Pien-wen is still alive with modern Chinese folklorists. First we see in Tun-huang wall-paintings, Indian musical instruments were not only played by the flying-angels, but also by the human musicians. We know that in Yun-kang and Lung-men sculptures, those instruments were only in the angels’s hands. Secondly, in the Tun-huang paintings, the figure of the musical orchestras appeared. This is not found in the art of other places in that period. We know that the Tun-huang caves were established since 366 A.D. ; and they were situated on the Chinese frontier. It was a centre of Buddhism and also an important post of the over-land route between China and the western world. This shows that Buddhistic music came from outside to China, and it was not a Chinese development, as borne out by other records that I have mentioned above. According to the texts of 7V h-/>’w, there was a tune titled Po-lo-men ( = Brahman) ; it is further stated that the musical tune Po-lo-men was mentioned in the texts of Chiao-fang-chi, the History o f the Sung Dynasty, and Yueh-fu-tsa-lu; the text of Hsu-t'ung tien also mentioned two tunes called Po-lo-men Yin and Po-lo-men Ling. Other two tunes mentioned in same text called Golden-Buddha and the Yu-po-lo or Utpala (flower) seem also to have been trans formed from original Indian names. One piece of Po* lo-men song was discovered in Tun-huan remains. It shows that it was a piece of religious song. The text of Li-tao-yuo-chueh states a very interesting point. It says that in the 13th year of the T’ien-pao period (753), the Chinese changed the title of Po-lo-men into a Chinese name Ni-shang Yu-i® and that Ni-shang Yu-i was one 5. Yinbua-lu (the records of tales) by Chao Lin composed in the9th century A.D ., Shuo-fu edition pp. 3 a & b. 6. About this see 7 z’u-Hai (The sea of the phrases) ed. by Chung bua Book Co., pp, Ch'iu 32?, 96 THB JOURNAL OP THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL. XXVUI of the finest musical pieces in Chinese history ; as it originated from the title ‘Po-lo-men’, we may say that the original stock belonged to Indians, because Po lo-men was a general name of India and Indians given by the Chinese. Some Buddhist Masters were good singers ; for example, the Chinese record that ‘Srimitra’ was skilful in music, and that he was a native of Kuche. According to the Japanese traditions, an Indian musician named Bodhi went to Japan with a Chinese mission in A.D. 736 and he taught music there. This shows that Indian musicians not only played in China, but they also went to Japan from there. We have traced the ancient Indian orchestras and the religious music in China; these were imported from India directly to China. There was another link of Sino-Indian contacts in the musical field, viz. the Greater Indian music in China. Chinese historians have divided the foreign music into the four groups, viz,, the south, north, west and east. They divided those groups not only because they were situated in these directions, but also beeause of the cha racter of the music. Indian, Funanese and Burmese were mentioned as the south; and Kuchean, Turfanese, Kashgarian and others as the west; the other two groups are not concerned with our subject. Now let us examine what their relations are with Indian music. Chinese sources mentioned that the earliest Funanese musical orchestra which went to China was dated in the end of A.D. 243 but they did not mention any connection between this early Funanese music with the Indian music. Later, we find in Tu-yu’s T’ung-tien and the Old History of the Tang Dynasty, that when the Sui emperor conquered the kingdom of Lin-i or Champa, from there the Chinese captured some Funanese musicians. As the Chinese king thought the Funanese instruments very simple, he did not use it in his court, but he ordered the officers to use Indian musieal notes for recording those Funanese songs. The Old History o f the Tang Dynasty7 further informs that the Funanese dancers were two in number, and that their dresses were of the same colour as those of Indians. From those statements, a few points are clear : X. Indian and Funan belonged to one group, 2. The number and the colour of dancer’s dress of Funanese corresponded with those of the Indians. 3. The Chinese used the Indian musical notes which recorded the Funanese song. That means that their musical system was similar. Besides this, we have found that the Chinese mention 7, Chiu-t’ang-shu (the old history of the Tang dynasty) by Liu Hsu (887-946 A.D.) ch. 29; FARTS I»-IV] TRACES OF ANCIENT INDIAN MUSIC IN CHINA §f a country called Gflih-tu or the red-clay. The C hinesesaidfhat thcr 8. Pai-shih (the history of the northern dynasties) by Li Yen-thou composed in 7th century A.D. ch. 95. 9. Yu hai (an encyclopedia) by Wang Ying-lin (1223-96 AD„) ch, 108. M 98 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol, XXVIII Ts'ao Miao ta. Some scholars thought tjiat Ts'ao was translated from Jhur. Chinese records preserved the seven musical notes of the Kuchean, and they seem to correspond with ancient Indian musical notes Scholars have pointed out the following seven notes viz Sha-t'o-li » Skt. Sadharita, Ki-shih =» Kaisika, S h a - shih « Shadja, Sha-hou kaa-lan = Shadja Grama, Sha-la - Shadava, pan-shan = Pancama, and Hou-li-sha =* Rsabha, or the bull's sound. The last five transcriptions of this list had been accepted by the scholars, but the first two have not so far been accepted. The first one the Chinese named Sha-t’o-li. Some have connected it with the Sha-t’o tribes of Turkish ; and the second One they thought was Chinese Ta-shih, i.e. Tajik in Persian. That means it was a Arabian note. They traced these from the pronun ciation of the Chinese names. But we have no more evidence to support these suggestions. Mr. H. Kenzo10, after examining those notes from the musical point of view, pointed out that these two notes also were the transcriptions of the Indian musical notes, and not anything else. We know these, seven Kuchean notes introduced to China during the 6th century by Sujiva. At that time, Sujiva also told the Chinese that before him his family members already used those seven notes through many generations. That means from 3rd century or even earlier than this, they were in existence in Kuche. But the Arabian and the Sha-t’o powers entered that region as late as 7th and 8th century A. D. With regard to this historical background also, Mr. Kenzo’s conclusion would be more right. We do not know what were the Indian influences on the music of Turfan and Kashgar; their orchestras were also played in China, and the Chinese connected those with the Kuchean music. It seems that they might have been influenced by the latter. Con- ■ sidering these relations and the Buddhist achievements in ’ those kingdoms, Indian music should have also once influenced them. So far we have discussed the Indian and the Greater Indian music in China; but when we look over the Chinese music in India, during the ancient period, our subject turns to a dark stage, as both the Indian and the Chinese have no adequate records about it. But we learn from Hsuan-tsang’s statement, that when the Chinese Master of law met king Harshavardhana11 and Bhaskara- 10, Sui-t’an? Yen-yueh-tiao Yen-chiu (A study on the tunes of Yen music during the Sui fang periods) by Hayasi Kenzo, pp. 14-J2. 1). The bife of Hiuen-tsiang, by Beal, pp. 147, PARTS i-iv] TRACES OF ANCIENT INDIAN I^USIC IN CHINA $9 varman19, the ruler of Kamarupa, both of them enquired of him about a Chinese song. That song was named P’o-chen Yueh, and it was composed after year 619 A.D. About twenty years after that, it already became very popular throughout North and East Indies. This shows that at least there was one Chinese musical piece once liked by the Indians, and it is possible that other Chinese songs might also have been played in India but we have no records regarding this. 12 12. Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Beal, pp, 11-198. 1U £ POPULAR AND CLASSICAL IN MUSIC* B Y ‘ D r . V . R aohavan ^ Not being able to mark off the precise scope of thfe Subject of this symposium, either under the main heading or under the eight sub headings into which it is broken, I thought it wiser in this paper of mine to go over all the titles. Is popular music necessarily devoid of classical music ? In other words, do popular and classical music form an antithesis ? The question of popular versus classical music would admit of a further extension of the problem when we take up the question of a rendering of classical music in a popular style or form, so as to please the mass or the general public. In all such consideration, it is clear that there are some features which we distinctly identify as popular, and some as classical. The question has recently attained some importance as the All India Radio is interested in providing a popular or lighter variety of music in place of the film music which it has rightly discountenanced. Foreign visitors and musicologists too frequently ask us what our folk music is and what our classical music is and what we understand by these names. The main difference between the two, which must be empha sised first, lies in the rendering; when the rendering is sophisticated, it is art or classical music ; when it is plain and simple, it is the popular or folk variety. Sophistication includes all those rules and principles into which an art and its forms are codified and systematised. The well-known definition of Desi in the text-books draws the line demarcating the classical and the popular in the Niyama or rules to which the former is subject and the freedom that the latter enjoys. To evolve a principle and to conduct ourselves in conformity to it is the mark of culture ; it is true of forms of art also. It is therefore the artistic criteria which have been evolved that form the standard of judgement. While others like other things, it is the artistic criteria that the connoissieurs care for and appreciate, says Bharata when speaking of drama ; similarly that is art-music in which artistic considerations alone prevail; the * Paper presented at the Symposium held by the Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Delhi, Sth—7th Feb 1956. Published here with their permission. * * * * * I-lV j TH * POPULAR AMD CLASSICAL IN lilUSIG l d l moment os* sihgs down to the populace, one relaxed the high austerity Of his art and makes concessions to popular taste by one or the other attendant features—simpler or even not strictly Correct or dignified but obviously more pleasing or at least catchy phrasings, the putting into the singing of more pure feeling—of exhilaration, sorrow Ot devoutness—, giving extra prominence to the rhythmic strikingness, or the volume, meaning and com textual importance of the words in the song. Now all these arc features whose extra-importance is markedly seen in folk or popular music. Firstly, its rendering is simple ; secondly, its rhythms are accentuated or palpable ; thirdly, in close relation to the feature of Simplicity is the circumstance that it is often sung by a group of people ; and on account of all these reasons, it is likely to become also stereotyped and monotonous ; its words are all-important; fifthly* it is rooted in a context, a festival, a season or an event ;and sixthly, it is emotional or dramatic in its expression. Now, in art-music in which expression is all in all% all these elements are to observe due proportion or to put it the other'way, be subservient to expression ; hence it is that Somesvara says (in the music section of his Manasollasa) that the AchSryas or savants like the music that is Sama, i.e., that in which all elements are in a fine synthesis ; i e., in which Bhava, Raga and Tala are evenly integrated. Even classical pieces of our great musicians who have mostly been Saints and Teachers are laden with thought and often with a profusion of literary and poetic expres sion ; when they are however rendered as vehicles of teaching or as means of pure devotional transport, they depart from the concert and take the turn towards Harikatha, Kirtan and Bhajan. The song in art-music has its own Sahitya, Bhava and Rasa; a gifted composer might clothe his Sahitya, which he has been careful enough to see is not Word-ridden, with a melody most suggestive of the mood ; in fact, the word Raga itself would justify its name by such employment ; but such.evocation of Rasa is to be achieved through the actual music and not by importing into the rendering any extraneous or adventitious aid of an accentuated Kdkti or intonation Or manipulation of voice or affecting an emotion palpably ; by doing which the music again departs froih the concert and turns towards the stage and drama. * ■ • r • ‘ The question of Raga and Rasa is frequently touched upon by speakers and writers. The term Raga-bhava .would mean tRe specific 1. ‘Variety and Integration in the Pattern of Indian Culture* contri buted to a Seminar organised in Poona, in 1954 by Prof, Milton Singer, Professor of Anthropology, Chicago University, and published in the Far Eastern Quarterly, x v , iv . PARTS l - iv ] THE POPULAR Afct> dLASSICAt m illJ9tC l6$ Ghandalas again are a class of people who had their Vinft w h ich Sanskrit lexicons specifically remember* Take the num erous technical terms, names of gamakas, varieties of voice, its q u a lities etc.; they are all in a local language of western India. One of the most influential currents of the twin tradition of music and dance is the one whose course can be clearly seen from Kashmir to Tanjore, from the times of the great commentators on Bharata’s Natya &astra like Udbhata and Abhinavagupta of Kashmir to Venkata* makhin and Tulaja of Tanjore. This tradition which followed the rise and fall of empires and the ebb and flow of patronage at different courts, flowed from Kashmir to Malwa and Gujarat and to the Deccan and the South of the Pallavas and Cholas ; fnetit Malwa and Gujarat, it reached the Yadavas of Devagiri and the Chalukyas of Kalyan in Maharashtra and its border-land with Karnatak ; from there it reached the Andhra of the Kakatiyas, the Reddis and the Rayas, and the Karnataka of the Ballalas ; the whole thing then, entering Tamil country for a second time, converged to Tanjore, where Karnataka, Telugu and Tamil genius thronged. In this course, it is known from Parsvadeva’s Sangita Samaya Sara, it was Bhoja of Dhara who first introduced all the Desi terminology in a language called Bhandira Bhasha. Not only is the concept of Deal well-established as a department of our classi cal music—in descriptions of music as Ghana, Naya and Deiya and the like—but the intimate technical, critical and aesthetic terminology as far as the South goes, abounds in vernacular expressions. In the Prakirnaka-chapters of our books we read that a musician is entitled to the foremost status of Gandharva if he is proficient in both the Marga and the DeSi. Not less prominent are the Desl-strands in the art of dance. Suffice it to point out that so far as the well known historical periods are concerned, treatises on music and dance, like those of 6arnga- deva, Somesvara, Parsvadeva and Jayasenapati, included descrip tions of local and folk dances. Jayasenapati’s Nrttaratnavli, my edition of which is almost ready, specifically sets apart its last three chapters to De$i-nrtta and its varieties. Perani, Kolhatika, Bhdndika> Bahurupa etc., are all such local forms. The Telugu Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somanatha says that the &aivite Perani dance came from Saurashtra and was shown as such in the court of Kalyan. At Kalyan itself, as Jay a says, Somesvara was captivated by the dance of the hunters, the Gondalis and he systematised it in a set-scheme and described in his work, from which it passed into the regular N 106 THE JOURNAL OP THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVITI repertoire of dancers elsewhere. In fact, such local dance- forms were taken in, to an increasing extent, with the older Marga forms growing less and less. Thus the history of the arts of music and dance shows a dual stream, of a Ganga and a Yamuna, a frequent invigoration and enrichment of the main tradition by local forms which were fitted into the basic technique and higher ideology of the classical tradi tion The Deal supplied the material, the Marga refined it and assigned it a place and wove it into the larger and richer scheme. The popular and the classical were thus the two currents, so to say, of the energy of our culture. Our art and culture thus stand forth like the image of Parvati and 6iva in one, the Ardhanarlsvara, a synthesis, of two in one inseparable unity. THE GOD’S PLEASURE DANCE OF MANIPUR BY Dr, Maheswar Neog, Gauhati University Manipur is very well known as a land of dances and dancers. Manipur is “ the place of jewel ” , a place which was made beautU ful with the light froin the jewel on the head of the Serpent God, Pakhangba, who holds heaven and earth together. The laiharaoba, one of the most ancient dances of Manipur, explains the ways of God to men, and the origin of the land of Manipur, and the origin of the universe as a whole. Once upon a time Krishna was one night performing the Rasa dance at Dwar aka in the company of the Gopis of Vraja. So tljat none might interfere with his pleasant occupation, the Blue God posted Siva, rough and ready, at his door as door-keeper with a big stick in his hand to ward off all intruders. Siva forgot alto* gether that he had to return home. Parvati was exasperated with watching through the night and waiting for her husband to come back. When he reached back Kailasa the next morning, he must needs have an explanation to offer to his wife for keeping away from home the whole night. He was, he deposed, invited and taken almost by force by Krishna to witness the great Rasa. As a result of this false deposition, Siva had now to create an imitation Rasa for Parvati. This he achieved through intense meditation, because he had never before seen Rasa in actual performance. The divine pair now migrated to the eastern country in search of a land fit for the Holy Dance. They came to the region, where now Manipur is, surrounded on all sides by hills. They, however, found it submerged under a big sheet of water. With his trident Siva pierced through the surrounding line of hills and let the water flow out in a running river. Only a small lake, Logtak, remained. Now commenced the imitation Rasa of Siva and Parvati in the com pany of nine celestial damsels, which Rasa came to be known as laiharaoba or “ the pleasure of gods ”, as it pleased all the gods who began to come and see this new improvisation of Krishna’s famous dance by the God of Destruction. Pakhangba lighted up the land with his bright head-jewel, 108 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII In the beginning of all beginnings there was the adiguru, sarva-guru or sad-guru, Sidwa. He was surrounded by bright rays of light coming from the Great Void: coutscfpf time the Void divided itself into twor pieces—darkness and light. Sidwa entered these pieces, and invoking his own guru, expressed the desire to see a universe newly created, full of flowers and fruits, men and animals. Sidwa’s guru expressed his inability to create such an universe. Pilled with much ire, Sidwa brought into being nine gods from his left shoulder and seven goddesses from the right, and hade them all create the universe he desired to see. Seven upper and nine lower worlds were thus created. , The laiharaoba is, in fact, an annual festival of dances—a dance-drama, consisting of soloJ, duet and group performances. It a long programme extending over seven to fifteen days preceding the season of cultivation. It is ritualistic, but an entertainment all the same. At the basis, the laiharaoba seems to have been a fecundity festival* still a great stress being laid on sex, and sex sym bolisms being widely adopted. The lyrics sung and the conversa tions held from time to time are often pronouncedly erotic in tone. The leading roles are played by the maiba, high priest, and maibis, priestesses, of the village deity, umeng-lai. The instruments used are more primitive than those used in the Manipuri Rasa dances, the alleged prototype of laiharaoba. These are : the pung or drum, and pens (possibly, from Skt. vina) pena-khotnba, a stringed instrument. The preliminaries performed by the maiba and maibi, are in the form of dances, known a nandai-jogai, which depict cosmic creation and the creation of heaven and earth from out of water, which only was there at the beginning of all things. After obeisance is presented to the gods, represented in bronze idols, the creation of the earth is depicted in the first dance, called leken, which is then followed by lenet, indicating the giving of poise to the nascent earth by bringing down the blessings of heaven, and the final piece, leitei, which exhibits the process of replenishing the earth with life and prosperity and the division of the cosmos into some distinct parts. The whole laiharaoba is generally divided into twelve parts: The leingkoba is mainly invocatory, the maiba and miUbis invoking the deities to take form* PARTS I-1V] THE Next comes aman-athan-kophaya, expressing the joy of the maiba and maibi that the deities have manifested as prayed for. • There was now a danger to creatiefn, and Sidwa sent a god dess to save the world from this catastrophe. The fourth stage of the laiharaoba is a celebration of this event, and is danced by the maibi. Now follows a very colourful dance of women in a huge circle. The women are dressed in sparkling colours, and are decked with ornaments and leaves of trees. This dance reminds the people of that period of the story of creation when Sidwa prayed to his guru so that the universe might come into being. The dance of women is followed by a dance of men, depicting the consolidation of the universe, which has already been created. After this comes the laiban-shaba, the jocular dance of the original sixteen gods and goddesses, cutting jokes at each other in sex symbols. This refers to an early stage of the drama of creation. The herao enacts Sidwa's first thoughts on, and first attempts at creation and is the most difficult part of the whole dance festival. The varipus movements of the limbs and the choreography become very intricate and very graceful. And no mistake must occur in course of this dance, lest the dancers incur the displeasure of the gods, resulting in adverse effects upon the king, the religious head of the secular state of Manipur, and his subjects. The herao is followed by the lebao, which gives the history of the creation of man, the maibis naming the various limbs of the body, representing them by gestures and pointing to them one by one. The phangarel, which now comes, represents another early stage of the development of the universe, When fire (phanga) came to play a part in man’s life, 110 THE JOURNAL OP THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL. ffEYXll Next comes the history of the beginning of man’s family life in the form of » dance, ugri-htjen. o The final section of laiharaoba, known as lairenmathek, * the zigzag movement of the Serpent *, that is, the Serpent God, Pakhan- gba. This dance symbolises by its swaying movements the attain, ment of perfection by the earth and, in fact, all creation which is held in poise by the Snake God. • The cosmological laiharaoba represents an early phase of the vigorous history of Meitei dances, and is by far the mOst charac teristic part of Manipur’s dance activities. It points to a period of their racial history when they were still to be hinduised : and when they accepted Hinduism in the Vaishnava form, they did not give up this beautiful dance, but made a new version of the under, lying story of its origin to suit the new times. This is how theV stuck to the proud dance tradition and adapted themselves to new circum stances. At stages this dance-drama is connected with the love-legend of the fishermen, Khamba, and the princes Thaibi, supposed to be incarnations of Siva and Farvati, told in the Manipuri pUrana, Mairang-parva. At present the festival is known in two varieties, the Mairang luiharaoba, and the Umeng laiharaoba. This dance form betrays some simple and primitive aspects of folk-dance, but the group dances are always colourful and vigorous. N»ng-N»t •«c3e Laotian Music Instruments MUSIC OF LAOS* BY Prince Souvanna-Phouma, President of Council, Government of Laos We have no pretensions and we are hardly qualified to under take a complete study of Laos music. Numerous works have been written on the subject by more competent persons; Lefevre-Poutalis (Songs and Festivals of Laos), M. Galerne (studies published in the Courrier Musical in 1925), and specially G. de Gironcourt (Resear ches on the musical geography of Indo-China) to mention only the most famous names. The following exposition is only a cursory view of the present character of this music still unknown to the public. Fond of mirth and merriment, the Laotian has a veritable passion for music; in Laos* songs and concerts are the indispensable accompaniment of every festival. But before I proceed to speak of musical works, it is necessary to give some information on the instruments most ordinarily used: Wind (Khony, Khene), stringed (So I, So 0), percussion (Nang Nat or Rang-Nat, Khong-Vong). The Khene* 1 23 is made of a series of bamboos of small diameter of diverse and progressively diminishing lengths juxtaposed in twos, like two big flutes of Pan*, most commonly arranged in seven conse cutive rows. These bamboos are joined to one another by two semi-calabashes8 fixed with wax which serve as bellows and are pro vided with a little circular orifice serving as a mouth-piece. The inside of the bamboos is pierced with holes, some of which give passage to the air, and the others are closed in case of necessity with the fingers of the hand the whole palm covers exactly the semi calabash, in order to get at the required notes, the air which pro duces these notes knocking against the metallic tongues contrived in the upper part of each bamboo. “ The most curious fact in the functioning of Khene lies in the simultaneousness of several notes and in their absolute continuity. It results from the air passing, according to the fingering, into several bamboos at the same time and the performer blowing out *Translated by Sri K. S. Venkatararaan from France Asie Nos. 118-9, M arch-April, 1956. 1. Khene is spelt near to ‘Can ’ 2. Pan has many meanings: here it is likely to mean membrane. 3. Calabash is a kind of gourd. 112 The journal o t the Habeas music academy {V o1. ex.Viu and inhaling alternately. The sounds produced from the Khene which are very sweet and whose combination rests on the principal harmonies, are a golden mean between those of the Harmonium and' Accordian”. (quotation from M. Galerne) The Khony is a keyless flute generally made of bamboos, giving very clear sonorous sounds. ^ The So’s, violins with two cords, consist of a long handle made erf worked wood and a harmonic box. The latter is a half coconut closed by a small wooden plaque in the case of So O, and by a simple cylinder of May-don of of May-Kha-Grong in the ease of So I ; the end of the cylinder carries a tense boa-skin. The So-Bang, poor parent of the first two, is but a bamboo tube mounted on a rvatic handle. Its register (draw-stop) being narrow it has no place in an orchestra. \ i In the case of all these violins the bow, which is made with the help of horse-hair, passes between the strings. Among the percus sion instruments the Nang-Nat or Rang-Nat is unquestionably die most popular. A veritable xylophone, it is made of wooden sheets of different thickness suspended above incurvated boat-shaped Wooden pieces, forming a resonance box. The Kong-Vong consists of 16 bronze cylinders arranged on & semi-circular frame work of wood or ratan. For playing upon these two instruments the musician uses the two mallets—whose top is made of elephant skin in the case of the Khong-Vong—with which he strikes the frets making them glide on these. x x x x The Lao orchestra formed by the combination of these instru ments admits of two formations ; the Seb-Noi or Ma-Ho-Ry and the Seb-Gnai. The first is made up of several So-O, a variable number of Khenor, a Rang-Nat, a Khong-Vong and tambourines. During the last few years the musicians have introduced into the orchestra, western violins and even accordians. The role of the Seb-noi is to accompany by way of mute (damper) a chorus or a solo; it is also employed as a prelude or a conclusion of a vocal performance. The concerting instruments of the Seb-Gnai are the same as the Seb-Noi, barring the So and the Khene. They include in addition PARTS I IV] MUSIC OF LAOS 113 two big drums and a sort of clarionet or pi. This orchestra is never accompanied with a song. Its place is in a royal or religi ous procession. It occurs sometimes in the war dances of an^epi- sode of the Ramayana ; for example, it is in that case expressive enough and can regulate itself according to the action and follow its diverse turns without any written score. In fact the performers play always from memory, for no nota tion system exists in Laos* A musician’s education takes place solely by the ear and the understanding; the musical sense makes up for this absence of writing. Musical compositions are thus very few and are nothing but transcriptions of songs. Pure symphonies are' unknown in this country, at least so far as our knowledge goes. All these compositions, besides, are mere repetitions of very short musical sentences, and are remote reminders of the roulades and the ritounelles of the Middle Ages. (Note: Roulade is “ trill **; ritournellas means * flourishes ’). Vocal music is also very much cultivated in Laos, and even more than instrumental music. It is rare indeed to see Laotian woman playing the Khdne or violin, although we frequently come across women or young girls modulating a song, especially on the country-side. Songs are of two kinds : (1) those which are formed by poems celebrating the exploits of legendary heroes and transmitted from parents to children, from teacher to pupils, and often developed as improvisations according to the fancy and genius of the singers; and (2) those which work upon the theme of love. In the latter case, the song is but a group of strongly measured sentences following one another, and goes to the extent of making use of rapid exercises (without words) such as for example, the songs of Luangprabang. Generally, the poverty of melodic inven tion is due to the importance attributed systematically to words. Inspite of everything, the following amorous couplets are not lacking in charm for those who know Laos and its people. “ Like the bird of paradise Whose wings are so delicate Thou hoverest around me Thou muscst over me, O, my friend ’’ Is there anything more melodious than the charming song of Khene alternating with the notes of amorous refrains darting from young hearts in the moon-lit nights ? O 114 TH E JOURNAL OF TH E MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. X X V III ** My husband is like the dove Which does not feel at home in the cage ; f She quits the cage and full of joy takes wing, Why not admit thy lover and let him Dwell in the cage ? so shalt thou feel at home in it. ** In fhe accompaniment of a song the Khene plays unceasingly the same leit-motives (themes associated throughout the piece with some person, situation or sentiment)- and the music, in this case, is but a simple harmony of support. The songs celebrating the exploits of ancient heroes or legen dary personages (Sin Xai, Inn Nas etc.) are long recitations, in which the singers often interpolate syllables without meaning pierely for prolonging a note or completing a rhyme. ! This practice, like that of repeating several times the sanpe verse in a song, reveals the traces of musical magic (charm) still honour ed among autochthonus peoples (peoples of antiquity), Thai-Neua Phu - Thai, kha etc. “ The magic incantation is the prototype of musical art,*’ says M. Combarieu in his work ” History of music” . First, magic with its incantations; then religion with its lyricisms in diverse forms, liturgical lyricisms, orders, dramas etc.; last of all, the appearance of an art whi BY Prof. G. H. Ranade, Fergusson College, Poona 4 The Sruti-doctrine and its proper interpretation form one of the most abstruse problems of our (Indian) Music System and have been the cause of acute difference of opinion among the leading scholars and musicologists of the past few generations. We have however, to grant that all ancient writers on the Sruti-theory of our music hold the unanimous view that in one octave there are 22 Srutis. The oldest among them is Bharata and none of the later theorists have taken the freedom of differing from him either as regards their number or about the mode of deducing the various Sruti-intervals in one octave. A literal interpretation of the passages dealing with the Sruti- doctrine leads one to draw the only natural conclusion that all the 22 Srutis have the same uniform interval-value, throughout. Or in other words, the Sruti Scale is a scale of 22 equal steps or inter vals like the 12 semitones of the equally tempered scale of the West; and forms a regular G. P. Against this may be stated the strong belief, nay, a conviction, of both ancient and modern artistes and musicologists that all Srutis do not sound as being equal in value and their effect in the different Ragas is different. Even in one and the same Raga, they slightly vary in pitch, according to their context i. e. in the Aroha, Avaroha etc. Evidently, to all rationalists, these two positions are contradic tory and only one of them can be accepted as the correct one. But our artistes and musicologists are mostly self-complacent and do not worry about which one is the correct. In fact, the one which suits their immediate purpose is often quoted as the correct. To all scholars and students of Indian Music, particularly to the European scholars, this sounds as a great dogma and they are therefore induced to stamp our music system as being uncritical. Even our own scholars like Pt. Bhatkhande hold similar views while some others have gone to the length of calling it hypocrisy. Now I want to submit here that it is not a case either of dogma or of hypocrisy, but it is a true and correct representation of things 116 THE JOURNAL OP THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII as they stand. I hope to show that it is a paradox which lends itself to a simple and rational explanation and that there is nothing essentially contradictory or absurd in holding the double view. Several instances of such apparent contradiction can be cited but when one knows their bearing, the contradiction automa- tically disappears. For instance, would you believe that under certain circumstan ces two notes differing not by 1 or 2 but by as many as 16 vibra tions per second are judged by the ear as being in unison, while two others of which the frequency has been previously tested and regulated to be the same, when sounded together are extremely dissonant to the ear ? Yet it is a fact and I place before you some independent and rigorously scientific evidence in support of it, particularly because it is both interesting and helpful in solving the riddle of the Srutis. Further it may bring to light what part the Gamakas of our system play in moulding the Sruti interVhls as functioning in practical music. Before quoting the relevent facts, I should like you to note that the experiments, I intend to mention presently, were done by some leading scientists for the sake of pure acoustic research which has advanced tremendously since the first world war. Whether for war, or for everyday life, the transmission of speech and music from one place to another and their faithful reproduction at the other place is a matter of great importance and was therefore studied very care fully and has evidently made some very important contribution to acoustic research. It is therefore up to you not to doubt the bona fides of the experiments. , I now refer to one such experiment conducted by S. S. Stevens at Harvard. Starting with a 150 cycle tone he found that its pitch was the same as that of a low power tone of 147 cycle—a difference of two percent. If the power level of the 150 cycle tone as it reaches the ear is 76 db. the frequency of the other tone has to be reduced to 145 cycles to be equal in pitch, at 93 db. to 134, a difference of 16 vibrations or 11 per cent between physical fact and mental appraisal. In one of his published papers, Fletcher describes the pitch- relationship of two pairs of tones. A pure tone of 200 cycles at 40 db. gave the same sensation of pitch as one of 222 cycles at 100 db. A pure tone of 400 cycles at 40 db. had the same pitch as one of 421 cycles at 100 db. This means that a very intense vibration of 222 cycles produces the same sense of pitch as a moderate vibration of 200 cycles; and similarly for the intense *AfeTS I-lv | THB ETERNAL PARADOX IN INDIAN MUslC-THE SllUTlS |1 7 at 421 cycles and the moderateat 400. The 400 cycle tone is of course the Octave of the 200 cycle. Is the 421 eycle tone an Octave above the 222 cycle tone ? Fletcher found that when soun ded successively, they were judged to be an Octave apart, but when sounded together they proved to be extremely dissonant. This naturally leads one to raise the question * Is pitch as understood and interpreted in objective science or pure acoustics the same as appreciated in music by the ear ? ’ * The experiments, previously referred to, suggest that it is not. If so, what makes this difference? Let us therefore survey carefully what pitch means in each. Loudness, Pitch and Timbre are the three essential characte ristics of a musical note and in acoustics each one of them is judged and defined independently of the others. Pitch is the high or low character of a note and is directly dependent upon the frequency of vibration of a sounding body. It is often expressed in actual frequency numbers and is considered to be independent of both loudness and timbre or even of intensity and the upper partials which modify the timbre. The sensation of pitch as recorded by the human ear is how ever subjective and is not completely independent of cither inten sity or the overtone structure as presumed in pure acoustics. The experiments referred to previously show that the sensation of pitch as registered by the human ear', though largely governed by the frequency, is subject to variations both in intensity and timbre. The ear therefore does not ascribe to a vibration a sensation of pitch which is equal to its frequency. It is markedly so Tor notes with a power level of more than 50 db. above reference intensity. For frequencies below 2000 cycles it rates pitch lower than frequency and for higher frequencies, makes a slight mistake in the opposite direction. Between 100 and 200 cycles the maximum variation appears between mind and matter; from 200 to 2000, it becomes progressively less. In all these cases the test is to be made by referring the sensa-r tion caused by the high power tone to a reference sensation of a low power tone of which the pitch can be adjusted. It is therefore clear that the sensation of pitch as experienced by the human ear is not exactly the same as understood or defined in objective science but is a quantum effect in which all the three elements viz. pitch, intensity and timbre of a note function as i l8 the journal of the Madras musics academy [Vol, xxvm constituents. So long as this quantum-effect persists at a constant level, it does not matter how the balance between the proportion of these three constituents is maintained. A small variation in any one of them can be counter-balanced by effecting suitable changes in the other two. This is done by an artiste on the spur of the moment and herein lies the secret of individual great art—art with the true touch of life. Such effects are worked up by our artistes by what hre known as Gamakas in which the vibrato usually predominates. * Parsvadeva’s definition of a Gamaka is very significant in this context. He says:— That when in a song, a note peeps over from the regio^i of its own legitimate Srutis a shade into the region of its (higher or lower) neighbours, a Gamaka is there. This means that the actual frequency of the note is slightly rais ed or lowered than the true one prescribed for that Raga Or in other words, the Sruti-ratios of the notes with a Gamaka are slightly extended or compressed and thus become un equal in practical music. How then the music of the Raga is not disturbed but on the other hand, becomes more beautiful and life like ? The answer is that the quantum-effect or what our artistes call 35R (or weight of a note), in common parlance, is maintained at a constant level. Thus in pure acoustics, the Sruti ratios are all equal but in practical music, they undergo slight changes. Such changes are essential to make music beautiful and living. This is true of all known systems of music and without them there can be no music,, but it will be all acoustics. Thus both the views viz., that all Srutis are equal and that the Sruti-interval is not the same everywhere, are correct when we know their context. It is therefore only a paradox and not a contradiction in terms or hypocrisy when one holds that both the views are correct; only one ought to remind oneself of their context. Further, music is a living and subjective art, and tradition, inheritance and association have always played an important part in its development and appreciation. Science and mathematics are instruments which help to explain what happens in practical PARTS I tV] THE ETERNAL PARADOX IN INDIAN MUSIC-THE SRUTIS 119 music. They are however unable to express it in exact words or figures. But their real value is in the fact that they make the nearest approach to the real thing and guide us in making a true intellectual or aesthetic appreciation of it. Thus in pure science the frequency ratios for consonant intervals are of a fixed mathematical value as 1 : 2, 2: 3, 3 :4 etc., but it is a well-known fact that in practical music a sustained note is often not held at a constant pitch but is played or sung with a vibrato, which is however not felt. Vibrato is not confined to human voice, but it also occurs in string tone. What is not perhaps fully realised is that vibrato is present practically in every note of every song, whether the note is long or short, high or low, weak or strong. When the pitch variation is very small it escapes observation as a Varia tion in pitch, but is taken only as a specific quality of tone. The rate of variation is about 6*5 cycles per second and the range of the variation is about a semitone. A similar vibrato in loudness is sometimes associated with the pitch vibrato but is comparatively of a secondary importance. In all such cases the mean pitch coin cides fairly accurately with the true pitch. This piece of scientific research lends additional support to my statement that in Gamaka the Sruti intervals do undergo changes, though they be small and for the time being, and this is how Srutis are all equal in their acoustic bearing, and are yet not the same everywhere in practical music. Before concluding, I should like to say that this aspect of the problem demands greater attention of our artistes and musico logists and may be of some importance in shaping the music of the future. LALITA AND MANJI RAGAS* BY Sangita Kalartidhi Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer I 60 sfl p grrr a ud riSUBjjl gjrep (so * Courtesy, A. I. 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R* 5 * dE IP W A NEW KIRTAJMA OF P a t n a m S u b r a h m a n y a I y e r AND A NEW VARNA OF R a m n a d S r in iv a s a I y e n o a r E d it e d b y Sangita Kalanidhi Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer & Vidwan B. 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C hennakesaviah Asthana Vidwan, Mysore. i As in Telugu, Tamil and Marathi provinces, so in Karnataka ‘many Haridasas flourished. By the grace of God, by heriditary qualities, by the force of environment, by a realization of the insipidity of the pleasures of the earth or disgust towards life on earth, they developed a detached outlook and became animated by a deep love of God. The depth of their faith in God and the intensity of their love of Him forced them to surrender themselves to the will of God and spend their lives in the worship off God by composing and singing songs in praise of God and His infinite excellences. Some of these Haridasas became: Sanyasis and took to a monastic life and became realized souls. They served the people also by bading them to the godly path. Some others utilised their great knowledge in popularising the subtle teachings of religion and philosophy by means of books in easily understandable style, employing the vernaculars of their provinces for their purpose. Others composed Kirtanas, songs and fables for the same purpose. Thus their work, directly and indirectly, served the people and art also. Some of them realized that Kirtanas were the best means for inculcating and developing a true love of God in man and woman* Composed with care, their Kirtanas are technically perfect and reveal a fine sense of harmony of melody and rhythm. In the line of such Haridasas we have Sri Achalanadadasa, Sri Sripadaraya, Sri Vysarayaswamy, Sri Purandaradasa, Sri Kanakadasa, Sri Vadirajaswami, Sri Raghavendraswamy, Sri Vijayadasa, Sri Jagannathadasa and a host of others. They have given the world thousands of Devaranamas, Suladis and other compositions. To this great line of Haridasas Sri Anandadasa of Surapuram belongs. Sri Anandadasa was born at the village Cheekalaparavi on the banks of the Tungabhadra in Raichur district. He lost his parents very early in life. Young Ananda and his younger brother Sesha came to Surapura and found shelter in PARIS I-IV] SRI ANANDA DASA OF SURAPURAM 141 the house of a noble Brahman named Rajabharya. Ananda was gifted with a remarkably keen arid retentive memory. The learned pandits of the three sects of Brahmins felt proud of him and educated him. A Srivaishnava musician who had won the title of Kantha Veena” taught him music. Ananda soon became a good musician as he was endowed with a rich voice also. In course of time Ananda acquired scholarship in Nyaya, Vedanta and Sahitya. In addition, he acquired great skill both in Northern and Karnatic styles of music. The Raja of Sura pura who was a patron of music, appointed Sri Ananda as one of the musicians of his court and engaged him to teach the dancers of his court. Thereafter Sri Ananda began to lead a life of disciplined habits He would get up early, take physical exercise and practise on the Veena and sing songs .regularly. Then he would teach Sastras to his students. After having some rest in the afternoon he would teach Bharata Natyam to the court dancers. In the evehing he would go for long walks and imitate the cries of birds apd beasts of the locality. After supper, he would study advanced treatises on the sastras, compose new Kirtanas and then he would go to bed. This was his daily routine. At the instance of Srisadasa, a pupil of Sri Jagannathadasa, Ananda became a Haridasa (Kirtanakara) with the symbol of “ Kamalesa Vitthala”. It is said that he composed many Devaranamas and Javalis. He is said to have composed forty “Harikathas” and a treatise named “ Kirtanagita ” , His compositions reveal a rare and simple style in Kannada and are known for their technical perfec. tions and Madhyamakala Vinyasam. After the death of the Raja of Surapura, Ananda suffered acute poverty and began the Upasana of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune. He had a call in his dream to go to Kolhapur and have darshan of Sri Devi at the temple. Accordingly, he went to Kolhapur and in the presence of Devi’s image composed a Kirtana in Dhanyasi Raga, Adi Tala beginning with words meaning “ Kindly open your eyes, O Goddess” and began to sing it. A Maratha nobleman who was there was deeply moved by the song and gave liberal presents to Ananda. This unexpected good luck moved Anajda with joy, that he began to sing a Kirtana composed in the Arabhi raga, Adi Tala praising the Goddess beginning with the words ‘‘ Rama Samudrana Kumari ”. 1 4 2 THE JOURNAL OF THE MAOItASMUStC ACADEMY [V <4. XXVJtf After a few days JSri Ananda Dasa went to Udupi and worship ped Sri Krishna. There he composed a Kirtana in the Behag Raga* Rupaka Tala, beginning wih he words “ Kandu Dhanyanade Sri Udupi Krishna ”. Later he reached Mysore and stayed there for two years. He performed forty Katha Kalakshepas before Mummadi Sri Krishnaraja Wadiyar and won great honour and rich presents. The great musicians like Mysore Sri Sadasiva Rao, Vecna SriSambiah, TanjoreSriSundaram and Sri Sutfbiah had a very high opinion of Ananda Dasa’s style of singing. Then Ananda returned to Surapura. Once he visited Mantralaya and by the grace of Sri Raghavendraswami he realised God and returned to Surapura. While performing Kirthana in Gopalakrishna Temple and singing a Devaranama in Behag jRaga, Adi Tala, beginning with the words Bedu vadena bhava Yjmo- chana ” , it is said that he passed away. 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E a - g-ee C ? » ? =t J e , 0 =, e B§4 , '^ ? u, 6* a to e E>Tft ft *• e *• ; I .I I '* » ? ? » '* I .I I ; Tft £ 1, , =* 9, ^ ? • § ® - 19, I £ | . ” | © . | & 19, •C Q. ©Tft QTft Qfj -I §-TftJ . c =< c c |. * f Tt SS ^S Tft Tft 1* I-e§ e * e 5 E 5 & c ft f ^ a» ^ ft s , t 5 g.Tft. j 5 te i k a, c- i- S- c c ^ *»=» =» Q ^ ! t I* ft !• § ^ =< ^ TftS §-8* 3 i 3 * 8 - ,§ § $) I- c - E =H E " Tt *» Tft. - |-Tft |* a |* |-Tft ^ * *Ml **:M ■If* Tft %• t Tft © ft ^ ft ft p a 00 ^ ft o r q u =i u ^ 3 ft t ft E ft ® *» ® 2 s C [AM MHVd [AM § © ft - *• r- JS . c g. t ft ft p ft ft ft =?* ^jrmriD 150 150 [This was the last song sung by Anandadasa on his last day] THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC [VOL* XXVillACADEMY Q u 3porT<5s urrffiaijb 3 ^ITSITli) U 60606$ G u3©3©jG^365r u^cnsQGmrrtfssr ffflroboito 1. «^,®iJsn)(T^4(55rQ O usogqqS * r3 eh) , /§) $rr u in <35 IT , m u m <55 rfl ero rS eroir Qu Q fflj (Bp ear u eiJ e3 (Binrr idjsjd & pesor pm piLjth ^siGSurrsoQei) urru-ei^in. The Upanishad Brahma Math and the Agastyesvaralinga there mentioned in the previous article UPANISHAD BRAHMA YOGIN D r . V . R a g h a v a n In my detailed account of Upanishad Brahma Yogin and his life and works in the last volume of this Journal (pp. 113-150), I mentioned that besides the compositions relating to Rama which formed the bulk of his contribution, Upanishad Brahman composed also some pieces on Siva; on p. 123 of the above- mentioned paper, I referred to his song in Asaveri-Adi on Siva, Pa hi man Sri Chandrachuda. Since writing the above .account of Upanishad Brahman, I found some more songs of his in a miscellaneous palm-leaf manuscript preserved in my Department in the Madras University ( RAS. Collection) A few leaves in this manuscript contain music-compositions which include a song of Tyagaraja (O Ranga- sayi)y a long Sanskrit composition on Krsna by one Ndrayanq Muni, who is probably not Narayana Tlrtha, author of the KrSnallla- tarangittf, and some pieces which are clearly the work of Upanishad Brahman. These pieces of Upanishad Brahman are interesting from two points of view : firstly there are songs here on deities other than Rama and secondly they suggest that Upanishad Brahman was not stationary at Kanchl, that he had gone to Tiruvayyaru and that apart from meeting Tyagaraja at Kanchi during the latter’s pilgrimage, Upanishad Brahman had perhaps occasion to know or meet Tyagaraja’s family during his visit to. Panchanadakshetra. In this southern tour, he might have visited Chidambaram ; for one of his songs newly found in the University manuscript is on Nataraja : 5iwit WTWtfh: WWtWHC 4INMK w PO T app The following pieces would indicate his visit to Srlvanchyam, the well-known kshetra in Tanjore District:— are ] 152 THE JOURNAL OP THE MADRAS tti& K S ACADEMY IVOL. XXVOT ...... a 11 rii M ^ i qifa B w a ^ w ^ ^ fprfw ci^r ir % 11 H$i&3i(q) ••• g ^ g g « ro g r mwflR- 3W5W usi^jom^i *i$33 ii «11 mf^ifepi m iw ;3*iw ^i^pw (wf) i H ’- ' —filw : g«ff a * gfiRqrc gam N m gsw$rc vl?tera*ftfaa feRimnc i HUH^HdUTR • • • —fergspR nwfft w * 3 ^ m « w ^r: i foRi^^irca*: fa*af33t3 (^$$3 *rfa»ial3T*:?n$ Br r »fTOrf$r-*'’•* *•31311 s^g r^ e n g ^fergr^vcf^i? s f t q i r a ^ s ’ Pd-ai*miy liafSlR T O N *J|[55 SjfaFSJSTdTSIR 51**% 3W& sfiWd&fadre rtf& q f e l ^ w jfaa ra PT m ® * m m w m 3RJTff3 f$l9igvR5?5Sfl^l His visit to Tiruvayyaru, Tyagaraja’s' place, is confirmed by this piece : q ^ r F t y q w ^ r 3 f 3 SlfIRHf)RTfOTrJI% * $ 3 ^ 3 3 ^ ^ 1 3 1 % 5WTf?3 I have also reproduced here photos of the Upanishad Brahma Math at Kanchi and of the Agastyesvara Linga therein. NOTES During the year, three foreign musicologists visited the Academy and special meetings, talks and demonstrations were arranged for them. Mr. Nicholas Nabokov Secretary General, Congress for Cultural Freedom, came to the Academy and read a paper bearing on East-West contacts in the history and evolution of Western music. On the side of Indian music, short papers and talks were contributed at the meeting by members of the Academy’s Experts’ Committee Sangita Kalanidhis Sri T. V. Subba Rao, Mudikondan Sri Venkatarama Iyer, Mr. Alain Danielou, Dr. V. K. Narayana Menon and Dr. V. Raghavan. After discussion, Mr. Nabokov was given an opportunity to listen to South Indian vocal and instrumental music by some of the leading artistes : Srimati D. K. Pattammal, Messrs Devakottai Narayana Iyengar and Kalyanakrishna Bhaga- vatar (Vina) and T. Viswanathan (Flute). These were followed by Srimati T. Balasarasvati • who performed select items of Bharata Natya. Mr. Nabokov’s paper is reproduced in this issue. Mr. Egon Vietta from Germany gave a talk at a special meeting of the Academy on the possibilities of musical drama and the latest experiments in his country on this line which showed an ap proximation to the ancient Indian Dance-drama technique. Sri N, Raghunatha Iyer presided over the meeting. Explaining the ancient Indian technique in this respect, as laid down in Bharata and as reflected in the masterpieces of the Sanskrit Stage, Dr. Raghavan pointed out how the adoption of this technique would mean, even on the part of the writer and the literary side of the plays too, a method different from that of the modern realistic play. Miss Ruth Douglas Professor of Music at the Mount Holyoke College, Massachu setts, visited the Academy on 6th May 1957, when the Academy T 154 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. XXVHI arranged for a special meeting to afford her an opportunity to have discussion and listen to South Indian music. Miss Douglas expressed admiration of the way in which the art of Carnatic music had been preserved in this country for centu. ries. After explaining at length the activities of the National Recreation Association, founded in 1956, and the teaching of music in the United States, Miss Douglas described music as *‘an interna, tional language” which could bring nations together. Referring to her visits to different countries, she mentioned how the Ministry of Culture in Thailand was taking steps to preserve ancient arts and hoped that the example would be emulated by others. Miss Douglas heard Devakottai Sri Narayana Iyengar and Sri Kalyanakrishna Bhagavatar on veena and Karaikudi Sri Muthu Iyer on the mridangam, Smt. D. K. Pattammal (Vocal) accompanied by Sri V. Thyagarajan on the violin, and Palghat Sri Kunjumani on the mridangam, and Sri T. Viswanathan on the flute, accompanied by Master Chandra- sekharan on the violin, and Karaikudi Sri Muthu Iyer on mridangam. A discussion followed on the different aspects of Carnatic music, in which Dr. V. Raghavan, Messrs. T. V. Subba Rao, Mudikondan Venkatarama Iyer and others took part. Miss Douglas rendered a couple of songs on request from the gathering. As Raga improvisation was the forte of Indian music, Miss Douglas gave a donation of Rs. 50 for a prize to be awarded to the young lady competitor who rendered Raga best in the Academy’s competitions during the 1957 Conference. BOOK-REVIEWS Sri Vasudeva Kirtana Manjari (Second Part). By Sangita Kalanidhi K. Vasudevacharya. Published by the Author, “ Krishna Cottage ”, Damodar Gardens, Adyar, Madras-20. Price Rs. 5/- Vidwan Vasudevacharya is one of the few composers of this century who have made a lasting impression on contemporary Karnatic music. His early education was intended to make him a Sanskrit pandit but the discovery of his predilection for music by the then ruler of Mysore resulted in that ro> al patron sending him to Tiruvaiyaru to sit at the feet of Patnam Subrahmanya Iyer for a course of training in vocal music. Subrahmanya Iyer was indisput ably the greatest among the composers of the post-Tyagaraja period and Vasudevacharya not only imbibed his guru’s stately madhyama kala style of singing but also learnt the know-how of the art of composing kritis with a balanced blending of music and language. His early foundation in Sanskrit stood him in good stead when he embarked upon his career as a music composer. The first part of “ Vasudeva Kirtana Manjari ” published in 1929 caused a stir in the music field as the kritis contained therein were nicely chiselled sahityas set to exquisite melodies which closely adhered to the raga bhava. Songs like “ Brochevarevarura ” in Khamas soon became the favourites of our musicians and audiences while kritis like “ Palukavademira ” in Devamanohari and “ Sri Chamundeswari ” in Bilahari were hailed by critics as the nearest approaches to the classical pieces of Karnatic music. Vasudeva charya composes in Sanskrit and Telugu; his Telugu sahityas are faithful echoes of Tyagaraja and his own guru Subrahmanya Iyer; and a graceful diction marks his Sanskrit kritis. The book under review is the second part of “ Vasudeva Kirtana Manjari ” , and contains in all 70 new kritis of Vasudevacharya, 54 in Sanskrit and 16 in Telugu. Almost all the songs are devotional except a few which are didactic. Continuing the “ Kesavadi Dwadasa Nama ” kritis published in the first part, he has now composed four kritis in praise of Sankarshana, Vasudeva, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, the four vyuha-forms of Vishnu and eight kritis on the other avatars of Vishnu. The rest of the songs 1 5 6 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. XXVIII are on the other gods of the Hindu pantheon like Vighneswara, Saraswati, Siva, Mahalakshmi, Rama, Krishna and Chamundeswari. There are a few kritis on saints like Sri Raghavendraswami and Purandara Dasa. The author could have avoided commencing so mapy kritis in Sanskrit with the words “ Pranamamyaham ” and “Paripahi Mam” and the too frequent use of expressions like “ Dharanija Ramana ” . His vocabulary in Telugu is not perhaps so extensive as his command of Sanskrit and phrases like Neekenduku Nirdaya and Nenu Emani Pogadudu repeat themselves. The style of his later compositions published in the second volume is, however, more graceful, scholarly and appealing than the early pieces published in the first part. In handlingragas, Vasudevacharya shows a considerable amount of originality and his chittaswaras and madhyamakala prayo^ds are really sparkling. This volume contains many songs in rare ragas like Vakulabharanam, Ranjani, Kadana Kutuhalam, Balahamsa, Garuda- dhwarfi and Sunadavinodini. Vasudevacharya’s kritis are a distinct contribution to con temporary Karnatic music and are veritable repositories of the tradition of the masters of the system. T. S P arthasarathy. The Ragatattvavibodha of Srinivasa. Gaekwad's Oriental Series CXXVI. Rs. 4/-. Srinivasa’s Ragatattvavibodha in Sanskrit was long ago printed from Poona, and copies of the work are not available now. The work has now been edited by Mr. Vibhukumar S. Desai, B.A., who wrongly says in his Introduction that it is published now for the first time. The book has been brought out by the Oriental Institute, Baroda, with the assistance of the Central Sangita Natak Akadami, New Delhi. This edition is based on a single Ms. in the Palace Library, Bikaner. Srinivasa might have written in the 17th century, as he quotes Ahobala and is quoted by Bhavabhatta. The work deals with North Indian music, though, by name and knowledge of the concept of Mela, the author seems to have hailed from South India. Besides general matters, Sruti, Grama etc., the central part of the work devoted to Raga-lakshana describes hundred and one Ragas. V. R. p a r t s m v ] b o o k - r e v ie w s 157 Silappadikara Isai Nnnukka Vilakkam (Tamil). By Sangita Bhu- shanam S. Ramaoathan, 20, Sydoji Street, Triplicane, Madras-5. Price Rs. 1-8-0. In the history of Indian music, there is an interregnum between Bharata’s Natya Sastra and Matanga’s Brhaddesi. Casual references to music are of course contained in the works written during the intervening period. For instance the Pancha Tantra and the works of Kalidasa contain a few references to music. It is in this context that the copious references to music contained in the Silappadikaram (2nd cent. A.D.; assume special importance. This Tamil epic was written at a time when a single system of music prevailed throughout India. There was a common musical theory though the technical concepts were known by terms in the local languages. Thus the Tamil words, pan, palai, alagu and kural tiripu corresponded respectively to the terms, raga, murchhana, sruti and graha bheda. The Silappadikaram contains a wealth of detail relating to the music of the ancient period. Mr. Ramanathan, the author of the book under review has taken pains to collect all of them and has given an intelligent interpretation to them. One of his important conclusions is that the Mullaippan corresponded to the raga Mohana. Although the raga Mohana is very old, the name ‘ Mohana * for that raga is of recent origin. Prior to that time, this raga was known by the name Regupti. The name Mohana does not occur in the Sangita Ratnakara (13th cent.) nor in the Kirtana plates of the Tallapakkam composers. When musicians from the south went to the Andhra Desa early in the 19th century and sang the Hamsadhvani raga created by Ramaswamy Dikshitar (1735-1817), the vidvans there remarked with surprise : “ What is this new and fascinating raga ? They have deleted dha from Regupti and have substituted Kakali ni instead.” The Tiruvachakam of Manickavachagar was, and is still being sung in Mohana raga. This itself is proof of the antiquity of this raga. The five notes figuring in Mohana, sr g p d are compared to the Panchaksharas. Some persons hold the view that Gandharam and Sadari were possibly the names for Mohana raga in the ancient period. But these pans, as traditionally sung by accredited oduvars, are sampurna ragas and correspond to the modern Navaroj and Pantuvarali (51st mela) U 1 5 8 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [V o l. XXVIII ragas respectively. Mr. Kodandapani Pillai has confirmed the correctness of Mr. Ramanathan’s conclusion that Mullaippan is Mohana raga. The svaras figuring in the Mohana raga are the first five notes to be derived in the cycle of fifths (Shadja-Panchama bhava or Kural-Ili krama). But the fifth note in the cycle i.e., the tivra antara gandhara of frequency 81/64 cannot from its very nature be an amsa svara. It naturally gave place to the contiguous stable note the antara gandhara of frequency 5/4. The antara gandhara in its turn led to the use of its samvadi svara, tisruti dhaivata 5/4 x 4/3 » 5/3. It was possible that in the early harp age, the notes 81 /64 and 27/16 were used. But with the emergence of the concept of adhara shadja, all ragas came to be sung to a common tonic note and the Mohana raga with the notes of frequencies : 1 9/8 5/4 3/2 5/3 came to stay. The suddha mela of ancient Tamil music corresponds to the modern Harikambhoji mela. This is the madhyama murchhana of ancient shadja grama. The interpretation given for the term ‘ pagai * is open to ques tion. The terms Inai, Kilai, Natpu and Pagai have an ostensible parallel in the terms : Vadi, Samvadi, Anuvadi and Vivadi. These terms have a significance only in the context of the effects produced during the simultaneous sounding of the concerned pairs of notes. These are truths which hold good in Western Music as well. To say that the third and sixth notes are inimical notes (pagai svaras) is neither logical nor true to sangita anubhava (musical experience). The position is not altered by sticking to the frequencies 81/64 and 27/16.' In the experiments relating to the perception of the vadi, samvadi, anuvadi and vivadi effects or the inai, kilai, natpu, and pagai effects, the pairs of notes simultaneously sounded were stable and steady notes and were sounded in a lengthened manner and without shakes. P. Sambamoorthy Kudimiyamalai Inscription on Music by R. Sathyanarayana. Sri Varalakshmi Academies of Fine Arts, Mysore, 1957. Price Rs. 6-0-0. Musical epigraphy is a subject of absorbing interest. It includes thfe study of all those inscriptions which throw light on the history of PARTS I-1V] BOOK-REVIEWS 159 Indian music. Inscriptions like those at Tanjore which furnish valuable details pertaining to the constituent members of concert parties, gifts made to musicians, the honours bestowed upon them, and the items performed by them during temple rituals provide valuable material for writing the history of Indian music. The inscription in Kudimi- yamalai occupies a prime place in Indian musical epigraphy. The phrases that go to establish the nadatma rupa of ragas found in the later Raga katakas and Tana Pustakas are anticipated in the Kudimi- yamalai Inscription of the 7 th cent. A. D. The book under review is the first of the three volumes to deal with this inscription. The various .archaeological and literary sources for the inscription are culled and presented. The relevant slokas are given in Roman characters. The inscription is reproduced in Roman script. The publication of the subsequent volumes dealing with the interpretation of the inscription will be awaited with interest. P. Sambamoorthy The Story of Indian Music : by O. Goswami. Asia Publishing House, Bombay 1. Rs. 14*50. In his introduction the author says that this book on Indian Music is addressed to the lay public and is intended to enable the uninitiated and the novice to appreciate their musical heritage. Also, we are told, the book is intended for the Western readers who are genuinely interested in but are quite unfamiliar with our Music. The book is therefore in the nature of a comprehensive treatise dealing with the origin, growth and development of Indian Music. The author, it is stated, has studied North Indian Music from well-known musicians like Sri Girija Sankar Chakra- borty of Calcutta, Ustad Karamat Khan of Jaipur, Pandit Beni Madhav Misra of Benares, etc. In addition to Sanskrit works from Bharata’s Natya Sastra down to Venkatamakhin’s Chatur-dandi- prakasika, the list of books referred to and consulted by the author includes treatises and text-books by Western authors, so that the book might be found useful not only to the lay reader for whom it is primarily intended but also to the musician and the musicologist. The beginnings of music are dealt with in the first chapter. After referring to what are called the pathogenic and the logogenic origins of musical sounds and the subsequent discovery of definite 160 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL. XXVIII music intervals between notes of varying pitch, leading in course of time to the full evolution of the complete musical scale, the author speaks of the the Rig-Vedic Chants, which were simple and were sung in one Note, and the Saman chant which was a downward scale and, which in the author’s view, was more or less the same as the Kankangi Scale of our present Karnatic music. The Swaras, Sa, Ma, and Pa of the present Karnatic Scale retain the same Vedic interval value. Then the author discusses the nature and extent of the influ ence of Non-Aryan and pre-Aryan cultures on Aryan musical culture. Some of the views here stray away from the subject and tread on controversial grounds. In Chaprers II to VI the author traces the development of our music after the Sama-gana stage to that of Marga and Desi music. Discussion of Srutis, the basic and its octave and the six notes bet ween them, the present day scale of North India and its rough correspondence with the C. Major Scale of the West, a discussion of the names of the 7 primary notes, Shadja, Rishabha etc., and their abbreviations into Sa, Ri, etc, and their musical significances and appropriateness, the naturalness of A-kara and I-kara intonations, Shadja Grama, Madhyama Grama and Gandhara Grama, semitones, microtones, and their values in cents, their musical inter-relationship, Vadi-Samvadi-Anuvadi and Vivadi Swaras, and the evolution of the Jati, the precursor of the modern Raga, in the days of Bharata and Matanga—all these are described and discussed. Dealing with ** technical ” matters these chapters will be found interesting and useful to the musicologist and to the musician rather than to the lay reader who is more likely to feel overwhelmed with the profuse details and “cannot see the wood for the trees! ” The evolution of the Raga, its development and classification into Ragas and Raginis, other kinds of classification with reference to the time of the day when the Ragas were intended to be sung, and subsequent classification into “Thats” of the North Indian music and Mela-Kartas of South Indian music—all these are discussed at some length in the next two chapters. This chapter again dis cusses the question of Aryan and non-Aryan elements, and launches again into problematic and speculative matters. There are some sweeping statements here which are unfair. The names of our Ragas afford a fascinating study and our author has many interesting observations to make, though some of PARTS I-IV] BOOK-REVIEWS 161 them appear, to us quite fanciful and rather quaint. For example: Piloo, a North Indian melody “seems to have been composed in remembrance of a particular type of tree called Piloo or as a tribute to a particular elephantine gait, for the Sanskrit word “ Piloo ” also means an “ elephant ” ! The name “ Todi ” suggests to the author that the melody must have originally belonged to the Toda people of Non-Aryan origin who still survive in certain parts of Chota Nagpur and in the Nilgiri District. We have, in the Music Academy, Madras, listened to and worked on what the Todas of Nilgiris sing and from what we have recorded in the Academy’s journal, it should be clear that Todas aud Todi have nothing to do with each other. The pursuit of Names often leads our author to strange conclusions. The word “ Sri ’’ is not only the name of a well known Raga but also means “Goddess of Wealth”. Now Matanga refers to Takka Raga as pleasing to Lakshmi. The author therefore infers that “ Takka ” later came to be known as “ Sri ” ! In the chapter “ Ragas round the Clock ” there is an analysis of the Ragas with reference to the particular hours of the Day and Night and classified under eight heads according as they take the flat or sharp varieties of Swaras. The psychic and emotional appeal of various Ragas at various times of the day and night are elaborately explained and discussed. But, as the author himself recognises, the hours assigned to different melodies changed from time to time, the morning Ragas of the old days becoming evening Ragas at later times. Indian music, whether vocal or instrumental, is invariably accompanied by the drone of the Tambura. A whole chapter is therefore devoted to the drone and how it controls the pitch of the music and provides an effective background. The history of the tambura is sought for from the word “ Tumbu ” or Tumbura “ meaning a gourd (Tumba). Several Austro-Asiatic tribes call themselves ” “ the issues of the Gourd ”. The author therefore cannot resist the inference that the Tumbura was an instrument used by these pre-Aryan people and must have been taken and adapted in the Aryan musical culture! Be that as it may, the author, it may be noted, discusses here the necessity and the purpose served by the tambura, how it aids the singer in the correct use of true harmonic intervals, how it particularises and strengthens 162 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVIII the modal effect and helps to maintain the tonal relationship between individual notes and the fundamental, and whether the drone is or is not meant to be heard by the audience and whether its pitch should be equal to or greater than that of the singing voice. The Chapter on “ The Human Voice in Music ” gives an account of Sravaka, Ghana, Snigdha, Madhura, and other qualities which are sine qua non for a good musical voice. The author refers to Bharata and Sarngadeva and explains the requisites of a good voice as laid down by them. However he adds that voice is no * more important than handwriting is to a poet, and that is the inter pretation of the Raga that matters. But he also recognises the indis putable value of a good melodious voice. Regarding this, the author thinks that the system of tuning in our instruments has acted as a handicap and prevented more careful develop ment of tone. Our instruments, partly because of tradition and partly because of the way they are tuned, do not lend themselves readily to changes of pitch and that is why the author thinks that most sijigers give their entire performance in one Key. He argues that one song may be good for the upper reaches of the voice while another may mate demands on the lower registers. But he is none the less aware that our singers do develop a wide range and do full justice to both kinds of song. He however thinks that such practice does a good deal of harm to the voice itself. But it is difficult to conceive that a musician who renders the various items of his music performance in various keys can give us that sense of complete aesthetic satisfaction which we get from a musician singing in one pitch, and in its fourth for change, which does not mar but rather conduces to a total unity of impression. Evolution of Musical Forms, current North Indian musical forms, and an analysis of the compositions form the subject of the next three chapters. The next three chapters deal with Raga Alapana, Embellish- mets or Alankaras in music and with tala, laya and rhythm in music. In Chapters XIX and XX Karnatik music is noticed. Karnatic Music, the author points out, has a common origin and tradition with North Indian music and differs only in details and not in funda mentals, But he also states that the earliest text on this type of PARTS i - iv ] b o o k - r e v ie w s 163 music is Silappadikaram. What he evidently means is that the theory and practice of music as they were in vogue in the South are to be found in this Tamil work, which, by the way, is not a treatise on music, as would appear to be taken by the writer, but an epic poem. We are afraid that the proper account of ancient S. I. music and the evolution of what is now called Karnatic music has not been given clearly enough by the author, and the uninitiated and the Western readers to whom the book is specially addressed are likely to get the wrong impression that, as a result of the Aryan influence, the original and indigenous musical traditions and practices have completely vanished or have been so throughly transformed that they are now as good as lost. The fact is they are all there. Only, at this distance of time we cannot positively say in the case of every Pan what its modern Raga name is. The development of the theory of Karnatik music is then traced, from the time of Someswara, through Vidyaranga, Purandara- das, Ramamatya and Yenkatamakhi. The South Indiaq Mela scheme and Ragas are discussed in relation to the North Indian counterparts. Referring to the style of singing in the North and the South, the author remarks, “ Being sung on longer time-beats with proper intonations, North Indian music seems steady, bold and distinct, whereas in Karnatic music, the notes being sung on smaller time- beats seem indistinct and there seems to be a pervading restlessness in the South” . Again, the author’s impression is that in Raga Alapana the Hindustani style allows a longer duration to the sonant and sub-sonant notes and that this is completely unknown in the Southern style. Again, the author thinks that in the South there is more stress on permutations and combinations of the swaras and more accent on the rhythm than on the melody, even among the musicians of the first order ! These are the personal impressions of the author, who has had his training in and who has all along been used to North Indian music. Being personal impressions, the matter does not admit of any argument. All the same, our view is that in our music there is equal stress on rhythm and on melody, and no musician of the first order will ever care to sacrifice melody to rhythm. Our author, we are afraid, has not listened adequately to Karnatic music, to Pallavi singing by a first-rate musician, or to 164 THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [Vol. XXVlH any first-rate Nagaswaram performance, where the notes are more often taken in very slow time-beats with full and ample rests on th Mudikondan V enkatarama I yer INTRODUCTION C lassical I n dian D ance L iterature From the very beginning, the Indian drama depended a great deal upon the element of dance, as it did have music, both instru mental and vocal, to play an important1 part in it. The dramatic art consisted of representation (abhinaya), classified into angika (physical, gestural), vacika (vocal), aharya (depending on costume and make-up), and s&ttvika (temperamental or emotional). Angika referred to the artistic movement of various limbs of the body such as the head, the hands, the feet, the eyes, the eye-balls, the eye brows, the neck and the thighs. From the earliest times drama and art critics had tried to fix codes for the movement of the limbs, of which the hands have always been receiving the greatest attention. There are references to dances, codified or not, to be found in Indian literature of all ages. The Bgveda, I. 92. 4, mentions the dancing of a courtesan (nrtu). In Panini (5th or 4th cent. B.C.) IV. 3. 110-111, we find references to the Nota- sutras of ^ilalin and Krsasva ; but the exact nature of the contents of these sutras could not now be determined. . The NatyaMstra is not only the earliest detailed treatise on Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, but is also the most authoritative work on the subject ever to be written in this country. It is ascribed to sage Bharata, a name supposed to be merely eponymous by some scholars, as the word * bharata ’ meant ‘ an actor \ The text seems to date back from the second or first century B.C. There are altogether thirty-six chapters (made into thirty-seven in one of the two recensions) in this masterly work. Of these : (1) Chapter IV provides a description of these td,ndava dance, and deals quite elaborately with 32 angaharas (composite movements of limbs), which consist of karanas, poses numbering 108 in all and being described in this very chapter. The 4 types Of recakas of the feet, of the waist, of the hands, and of the neck are then taken for discussion. Pindis or pindi-bandhas (combinations of dancers) are then described. (2) Chapter VIII goes into details of physical representation, that is, gestures, which are classified into : (a) gestures of the limbs, (Sarira) being (i) 6 angas or major limbs, viz., the head, 2 HASTAMUKTAVALI : INTRODUCTION hands, breasts, sides, waist and feet; (ii) 6 upangas or minor limbs, viz., the eyes, eye-brows, nose, lower lip, cheeks and chin; (b) gestures of the face (mukhaja) ; and (c) gestures of the body as a whole (cestakrta). There are 13 gestures of the head, 36 glances {drsti, including 8 to represent rasas, 8 representing stMyibhUvas and 20 representing vyabhicaribhdvas,) 9 gestures of the eye-balls, 8 additional glances, 9 gestures of the eye-lids, 7 gestures of the eye-brows, 6 gestures of the nose, 6 of the cheeks, 6 of the lower lip, 6 of the chin, 6 of the mouth, and 9 movements of the neck. There are four different hues of the face here noticed. (3) Chapter IX is wholly engaged with the 67 gestures of the hands, which are of three types,—24 gestures of single hands, 13 ges tures of combined hands, and 30 nrttahastas or pure dance hands. There are four classes of karanas of the hands, and lp ipovements of the arms. w (4) Chapter X deals with the gestures of the other limbs and their use in abhinaya,—5 of the breasts, 5 of the sides, 3 of the belly, 5 of thf waist, 5 of the thighs, 5 of the shanks, and 5 of the feet (5) Chapter XI deals with the cari movements and their uses. There are 32 car is, of which 16 are earthly (bhaumi) and 16 aerial (akasiki). There are, moreover, 6 sthanas or standing postures and 4 ways (nyaya) of handling weapons. (6) Chapter XII describes mandalas which are combinations of car is, of which 10 are earthly and 10 aerial. (7) Chapter XIII prescribes gaits (gati) for different characters like kings, merchants and ministers, ascetics and sectarians, the sick and emaciated, lunatics, jesters, etc., for different sentiments, and for different situations. The date of Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpana has not been as certained with any degree of certainty. It is taken by some as anterior to 6arngadeva’s Sangltaratnakara, After usual invocations and introductory matter bearing on the subject, Nandikesvara enumerates 6 ahgas, 6 pratyangas, as many as 16 upangas (12 being in the head). But among the movements of these limbs he describes only 9 of the head, 8 of the eyes {drsti), 4 of the neck, 51 of the hands (28 single and 23 double, the 13 nrttahastas mentioned being not ^different from the single and double hands) with 16 different applications for gods, 10 for the avatQras or descents of the Supreme God, 5 for castes and rUksasas, 11 for different relations, 9 for the signs of the zodiac ; 4 kinds (10 mandalas, 5 utplavanas, 7 bhramarls, 8 pddacQrikas) of movements of the feet, and 10 gaits. NATYA LITBRATURE 3 The Sangitaratnakara of 6arngadeva (c. 1247 A.C.) in chapter vii (Nartanadhyaya) describes : (a) movements of 7 angas : 19 ges tures of the head including Bharata’s 14, 67 gestures of the hands (24 single> 13 combined and 30 pure dance hands, one gesture being added at the end to each of these three types), 5 gestures of the breast, 5 of the sides, 5 of the waist, 13 of the feet and 5 of the shoulders ; (b) movements of 9 pratyangas : 9 gestures of the neck, 16 gestures of the arms with the mention of karavartanas and cQlakas, movements of the back-and-abdomen not detailed, 4 gestures of the belly, 5 of the thighs, 10 of the shanks, 5 of the wrists, 7 of the knees; and (c) movements of 12 upangas: 36 glances (sub divided as in tie Natyasastra), 7 gestures of the eye-brows, 9 of the eye-lids, 9 of the eye-balls with 8 additional glances (visayanistha tardkarma), 6 movements of the cheeks, 6 of the nose, 19 ways of breathing, 10 gestures of the lower lip, 8 of the teeth, 6 of the tongue, 8 of the chin, 6 of the mouth. Also are dealt 8 movements of the ieels, 5 of the ankles , 7 of the fingers, 5 of the toes, 5 of the soles of the feet, and four different hues of the face. Bharata speaks of three ways of moving the hands (KaraPracSra). Other natya authorities added two more such, while 6&rngadeva describes 15 karapracaras in all, 4 karakaranas, 20 karakarmans and 14 karaksetras. He then comes to 108 nrttakaranas, 32 angaharas, 4 recakas, carls of which 16 are earthly and 16 aerial, adding 54 desi- caris. Then do we find accounts of 6 purusasthanas, 7 stristhanas, 23 deSisthanas, 9 upavistasthanas, 6 suptasthanas, 10 aerial and 10 earthly mandalas, 10 lasyangas and 6 ghargharas. The AgnipurUna, greatly after the Natyasastra, deals with natya and nrtta. In chapter cccxli are mentioned different movements Of the limbs of the body in acting, including 24 single hastas and a number of combined hands The Visnudharmottara, III. 20 et seq, also deals with these topics. It is supposed to belong to a period not later than 500 A.C., or it must anyway be older than the Sangitaratnakara, which includes some verses in common with it. Names of persons connected with sangita literature, with its three branches of gita, vadya and nrtth, are legion. Apart from mythical names like Brahman and &iva, many of the writers who are mentioned by or are quoted from are mere names to us. Even in the body of the Natyasastra natya writers like Kohala, who seems to have written extensively on music, dance and drama, are found men tioned. Kallinatha in his commentary on the Sangitaratnakara cites 4 HASTAMUKTAVALI : INTRODUCTION a number of karavartanas from Kohala.- Abhinavagupta in his ‘ AbhinavabhBratl ’ commentar} on the NatyaSastra cites authorities like Dattilacarya, Nandi or Nandikesvara, Tumburu, Visakhila. Of these Nandikesvara is perhaps to be identified with the author of Abhinayadarpana. The only commentary on the NatyaSastra which has come down to us is that by the Kashmirian Saiva scholar, Abhinavagupta (the end of the 10th or the beginning of the 11th century A. C.). Others like Lollata, Udbhata, Sankuka (-la), KJrtidhara, Matrgupta, BhattanSy- aka and Srlharsa, are said to have prepared digests of, or composed commentaries, on the treatise ascribed to Bharata. But not one of these writings is available to-day. Later works on dramatics like Dhananjaya’s DaSarupUka (10th century) and Ramacandra and Gunacandra’s Natyadarpana (12th century) and Visvanatha Kaviraja’s Sahityadarpana ^ith chapters on dramaturgy almost leave aside completely the element of dngika in dramatic representation. And there now begin to appear works entirely devoted to this aspect of abhinaya or some particular phase of thaf aspect. Dr. V. Raghavan refers to the following works dealing wholly or partly with dance in his papers on ancient and later Sangita literature {Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, III and IV) :— Abhilasitarthacintamani or MQnasollasa of the Calukya king, Somesvara, III, with chapters on nrtta (1131 A. C.). Arjunabharata, on music and dance, in the Tanjore Sarasvatl Mahal Library. Aumapata, on music and dance, Madras Govt. Oriental Mss. Library.1 2 Bharatacandrika or Bharatarthacandrika, with a Telugu com mentary, noticed in the Catalogue of the Govt. Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras ; Bharatarnava,8 in 4,000 slokas, referred to in the Abhinayadar pana, which is supposed to be the gist of this big work; a treatise of this name is available in the Madras and Tanjore Manuscripts Libraries and the Bhandafkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. Kohaliya AbhinayaSastra, available in the Govt. Oriental Manus cripts Library, Madras. Nandibharatoktasanakarahastadhyaya, in the Madras Govt. Oriental Mss. Library. 1. Since printed by the above Library. 2. Since printed by the Tanjore Library. n a t y a litiratujui 5 NrttaratnQvali of Jayasenapati, in the Tanjore Manuscripts Library.1 234 SangitacintUmani of Vemabhupala (end of the 14th and begin ning of 15 th century). Manuscripts in Trivandrum Palace Library. ' ; ■ Sangitadarpana of Damodara (c. 1630 A.C.), with sections on dancing. Sangita or Nrtya PuspdHjali of Veda. (Early 17th century) Manuscripts in Tanjore Library. Sangitamuktavali of Devanabhatta or Devendra (c. 1400 A.C.), in the Tanjore Sarasvati Mahal Library. Sdngitarnja by Kumbhakarna of Citrakuta (1449 A.C), later ascribed to Kalasena of Brahmadri, with a chapter on dance.* Sangitasardmrta of King Tulaja of Tanjore (1729-35 A.C.), also noticing the art of dancing8. Sangitasudhakara of Haripaladeva (14th century ?) Manuscripts in South Indian Libraries. Sangitasamayasara of Parsvadeva, a Jain writer.* • Sangitasuryodaya of Laksmana or Laksmlnarayana under Krsnadevaraya of Vijayanagara.(1509-30 A.C.), also dealing with nrtta. Sangitamakaranda of Veda, written for &ambhuji, elder brother of 6ivaji.e Sangltanarayana of king Narayana of Parlakhimidi. Sangitasarasamgraha of king Jagajyotirmalla. Besides, the Madras Music Academy has published the Abhinayasarasamputam on dance, in Tamil, by Narayana Aiyangar (19th century).5 6* Prof. P. Sambamoorthy of the Madras University mentions the following works in his Dictionary of South Indian Music : Abhinavabharatasara, on dance, by Cikka Bhupala. 1. Since edited by Dr. V. Raghavan for the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. 2. Being issued in print by Rajasthan Puratattva Mandir, Jaipur. 3. The dance section of this work was recovered and edited by Dr. Raghavan in his Introduction to the Madras Music Academy edition of the Sangitasaranarta. 4. Printed in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series. Dr. Raghavan is pre paring a critical edition of this. 5. Previously published serially in their journal, anti now issued sepa rately as a book. 6. This is now appearing serially in the journal of the Sarasvati Mahal Library, Tanjore. 6 HASTAMUKTAVAU : INTRODUCTION Abhinayalaksanam by Srngarasekhara, in the Tanjore Sarasvati Mahal Library. m Balardmdbhara tam, on dance, by Balarama Vienna Maharaja of Travancore (1758-1798). ' ’ Bharatakalpalataman jarit on dance, in Madras Oriental Library. M. Ramakrishna Kavi in his Introduction to the Bharatakosa mentions the following among others:— The Abhinaya section, in 2,000 slokas, of a big Sanglta work by Asokamalla. Ndgendrasangita of Nagamalla, King of Jyotipura (Jodhpur) (c. 1700 A. C.). Rasakaumudi of J&rikantha flourishing in the court of ^atrusalya of Jamnagar (16th century). \ Sangltacudamani of Vipradasathe dance section. ‘Nrttaprakasa’, only is available, being commented by King Jyotirmalla of Nepal (beginning of the 17th century). V The following works have also been mentioned by other writers : Adibharata, Hastadhyaya, Natyamanorama and Gandharvaveda. The Kathakali of Kerala depends upon, besides Bharata’s work, a treatise on hand-poses called Hastalaksanadipikd. A work on dances, Abhinaya-candrika, is said to have been written by Mahesvara Mahapatra of IJtkal (12th century). The traditional dancers of Assam speak of a Tauryatrikasdra or a Mudradhydya, which books, however, are not available today. SUBEANKARA KAVI AND HIS HASTAMUKTAVAU AND SANGITADAMODARA : MANUSCRIPTS Subhankara Kavi is an important writer on music and dance, who seems to have been a popular authority on these arts till very recent times. He is also one of the earliest music scholars to have adopted the system of raga and ragini division after the Sangita-makaranda. In his works so far discovered, namely, the Hastamuktdvali and the Sangitadamodara, he exhibits a love of detail and painstaking industry and some amount of independent thinking. The Hastamuktdvali or Sri-Hastamuktavali, as it should be called according to an injunction in the text itself, is the earlier of Subhan- kara’s two works, as it is so mentioned in the Sangitadamodara of the author. MSS. OF H ASTAMUKTAVALI T A sufficiently reliable Agar wood bark manuscript of the work in old Assamese script was lying in the monastic archives of the Aunlatl-sattra in Majuli (a small island on the Brahmaputra, hallow ed by the existence of numerous Vaisnava sattras or establishments) in the Sibsagar district. The numbering of slokas runs up to 916, although a few fines seem to be missing here and there. This seems to be the most complete copy of the work so far noticed. The value of the manuscript is greatly enhanced by the elegant rendering of the original Sanskrit into lucid Assamese. The name of the copyist is Jagara. The manuscript also contains at the end the words ‘Sucanda Rai Oja’s book’ (Sucanda rai ojar pustaka); and we can perhaps conclude that this oja (literally, master-musician or the leader of the chorus of a sattra or village) was responsible for the translation into beautiful Assamese prose. The language of the translation, we be lieve, could not be later than the eighteenth century A.C. Apart from the literal rendering all through, the Assamese writer expounds in places the original text, especially in the description of the mani pulation of hastas to signify different objects. The translation would also help us a great deal in fixing readings of the original text. The Assam Research Society at Gauhati took a loan of the manuscript for some time from the Auniati-sattra and prepared a transcript. Profs. S. N. Chakravarti and D. Goswami edited 132 initial slokas of the work and published them in the Journal of the Society, Vols. VIII-IX 1941-43, with parallel English translation by the latter. The Society’s transcript is at present found missing. Another copy, however, was prepared by the late Shri Kaliram Medhi, which was made available to me for the purpose of editing and publishing the text. About half the work with the old Assamese rendering was edited and published by me in a local Assamese monthly, the Ramadhenu,\ols. III-IV. The Sanskrit text was serially published in The Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, from Vol. XXIV, 1953. An undated manuscript of the Hasta-muktavali in * Bengali cha racter,’ with* ‘fresh’ appearance and ‘generally correct’ orthography, was discovered in the Durbar Libary of Nepal, and has been described by Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Sas^ri in A Catalogue of Palm- leaf and Selected Paper Manuscripts belonging to the Durbar Library Nepal, Calcutta, 1905 pp. 270-72. The last sloka in this manuscript is numbered 955, and is followed by the words * iti Subhankara viracitd HastamuktUvali samaptn * although the last line of the manuscript is really the first line of the sloka, numbering 902, in the 8 HASTAMUKTAVALI; Il«RODUCTION sattra manuscript (sarvalokanuragasca nrpad tie sada sthitih). From the extracts cited by Mm. Sastri, them seem to have been considerable variations in the text from the Assam manuscript. In the Durbar Library, Nepal, there is also a manuscript in Newari script of a commentary of the Hastamuktavali, styled as HastamuktQvali^Ura-samuddhrtika, written by one Ghanasyama in 795 of the Newari era, that is, 1675 A.C., for the edification of the son of Ananta, the Nepali king Jagajjyotirmalla’s (1617-33 A. C .p daughter’s son. This work is noticed by Haraprasad Saitri in his Catalogue on page 272. There is another undated, incorrect and worn-out p^M-leaf copy of the Hastamuktavali in Mithila ih in the posse$sm(irfof Maha- mahopadhyaya Paramesvara Jha, Tarauni, Ft O. S'ak^l, Parbhanga. This copy, however, extends up to the description of the mrgas'irsa-hasta (corresponding to the end of sloka 603 of the Assam manuscript), the detailed application of twelve of the asamyuta-hastas and all the samyuta-hastas being thus left out(Kashi Prasad Jayaswal, A Desrciptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Mithila, Patna, 1933, pp. 170-f.). The Assam sattra manuscript is thus the most complete among the different available copies of this work of &ubhankara. * That this copy was prepared with the help of several manuscripts is perhaps evident from the statement at the end of sloka 177:— ^ -To * ii Dr. V. Raghavan in course of his European tour a few years back found in a Library in London a copy of the Nepal Durbar Library manuscript of the Hastamuktavali, a microfilm of which he has brought; he is adding useful notes from there to this editio princeps of purs. In the Bodleian Library, Oxford, (H. H. Wilson Collection) there is a fragmentary manuscript copy of a work, styled as Ha$taratn&vali, in Assamese-Bengali script, a photostat reproduction of which was obtained by my friend, Shri N. S. Krishnamurthy pf Andhra. This was compiled by a Bfahmasrl RaghavarSya, wt& could not bep3i eiur@&(&,ib QptsoijD @tqjji5$i Gifopgl. 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Qurr(njd@ib, urrrru(oLtrrQ^d(gtb q^&ldsd QsujajQonurrrQtb. Q-gfrirStisr iLira, giourjr urrsos^jdrgtb, m -^girgrrp^drgib rsu-d(§th mtbuir LD&auuil-®, mm—ap ^ im &u u8 b ® b tt Co 1 3 1 3 3-1 J 3 3 <5 >■ eg ”.a ® b .te b •fe *1 *1 fe b ^ *0 ©, 1 | l «BL 3 S.3 * 3 * 3 3«6l ‘g| | g •* ^ 1 © 1 © q © 9 J 3J © ®3q 9 9S^ 4*0 I © 3 jg. b © ^ 3 1 -1 b •6 8 « 1 3 $ *■ « B *8 *$. © CMos * [This is a Javali composed by Ananda Dasa, The last two charanas of this are not available.] lf$ /THE JOURNAL OF THE MADRAS MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL, XXVHl