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Read Part 1
Between the ninth and the
twelfth centuries A.D., a number of works on music were written in Sanskrit n
various parts of India. South India accounts for a sizeable number among them.
North Indian writers appear to have visited South India; Haripala )c 1175) was
a Chalukya King who ruled from Navanagar in Gujarat and strangely enough wrote
his ‘Sangita Sudhakara’ at Srirangam on the banks of the river Kaveri in South
India.
Sarngadeva, the author of the
‘Sangita Ratnakara’, was a colourful personality and a true symbol of the
cultural unity of India. According to the details of his genealogy, furnished
by himself in his work, Sarngadeva belonged to Kashmiri stock. His grandfather
migrated from Kashmir to the south and his father attached himself to the
court of King Sighana Deva who ruled from Devagiri, now called Daulatabad,
from 1210 to 1247. Later Sarngadeva himself was employed under the King in the
role of an accountant.
The ‘Sangita Ratnakara’ is
the epitome of all the current musical knowledge of Sarngadeva’s time. Many
commentaries were written on it by later writers who belonged to different
parts of India including the south. The best commentary seems to be the
‘Kalanidhi’ of Chatura Kallinatha who was the court Pandit of Deva Raya II
(1446 – 1465) of the Vijayanagar empire who ruled from Hampi in Karnataka.
Sarngadeva appears to have visited the Tamil country as he mentions certain
Ragas as ‘Tevara Vardhani’, Tevaram being the collective name for hundreds of
verses composed by three Shaivite saints of Tamil Nadu (5th to 8th
century). The Tamil term ‘Pann’ is synonymous with the Sanskrit term ‘Raga’
and researchers in the ancient Tamil music have identified all the Panns used
in the music of the Tevaram and equated them with the Ragas of the present day
Carnatic music.
There is a Tamil metrical
version of the ‘Sangita Ratnakara’ preserved in the Saraswati Mahal Library at
Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. There are also two commentaries in Telugu, one of them
written by Hamsa Bhupala.
The grass roots of what is
now called Carnatic Music are to be sought in the music of the ancient Tamils.
The Tamils did not give any specific name to the music obtaining during the
Sangam age and called it merely as ‘Isai’ or music. The term ‘Carnatic Music’
came into currency only recently. According to Chatura Kallinatha mentioned
earlier, the areas lying between the rivers Krishna in the north and Kaveri in
the south were known as the ‘Karnataka Desa’ after they came under the
sovereignty of the Vijayanagar empire. This demarcation included almost the
whole of Tamil Nadu and large portions of Kannada and Telugu speaking areas.
The music of South India is the common property of all the four states now
called Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra.
The most ancient literature
describing South Indian music is, however, to be found in Tamil, particularly
the Tolkappiam, Silappadikaram and Kallidam and their commentaries. These show
that the Tamils were a highly musical people, had a well developed system of
music and were familiar with the sol-fa method, concordant and discordant
notes and other acoustic phenomena. They knew that new musical scales could be
produced by a modal shift of tonic note and without the help of any gadgets,
they had discovered that there are 22 Srutis in an octave.
The early classical music of
the Tamils was essentially devotional and consisted of the Tevaram hymns
composed by Nayanmars (Shaivites) and Alvars (Vaishnavites). The Ragas to
which these hymns had been set were called ‘Panns’ in Tamil but strangely
enough many of them had Sanskrit names like Gandharam, kaushikam, Megharagam
and Panchamam. The Tevaram music is still being sung in temples in Tamil Nadu
while in other parts of India no records are available to show which songs
were being sung and in which Ragas, till we come to the twelfth century when
Jayadeva composed his ‘Gita Govinda’.
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