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Read Part 2
Although the Tamils had their
own names for the seven notes of the gamut, the Kudimiyamalai inscription of
the 7th century A.D. on a rock face near Pudukottai has established
that the Sanskrit sol-fa names sa, ri, ga, ma , pa dha, ni were in active use
in that century. It was inscribed by a Pallava king who ruled from Kanchipuram
and is in a script called the Pallava Grantha. The inscription, which is the
only one of its kind in Iindia, was edited and published by Dr.Bhandarkar in
the Epigraphia Indica and is of great interest to both Hindustani and Carnatic
musicians and scholars. Excepting for two or three words in Tamil, the
inscription is in Sanskrit and gives the sancharas of seven ragas intended to
be played on a Vina of the time called Parivadini.
Owing to some unknown reason
there is a long interregnum in the history of South Indian music between the
ninth and the thirteenth centuries and no details of any musical treatise or
compositions written during this period are available. The only exception is
the collection and setting to music of the nearly 4000 verses of the Divya
Prabandham, the hymns of the Alvars, by Nathamuni (C.823) a Vaishnavite
preceptor. A similar service was done to the Tevaram by Nambi Andar Nambi two
centuries later. The South Indian temples resounded with the sacred music of
the Alvars and the Nayanmars and in the Vaishnavite shrines like Srirangam,
temple dancers called ‘Arayars’ performed dances based on the hymns.
But from the 13th
century onwards the Indian music scene shifted to South India, the part of
Bharat lies south of the Vindhya Mountains. The fact that there was only one
system of classical music throughout India and Sanskrit was the link language
is nowhere more evident than in the numerous works on music written in
Sanskrit by South Indian authors. The first of these was Jaaya Senapati
(C.1249), the master of the elephant forces under Ganapathi, the King of
Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. His ‘Nritta Ratnavali’, in eight sections, has
been written in a powerful and florid style and shows that he was a profound
scholar and master of rhetoric.
Gopala Nayaka (c. 1300) is
another colorful musical giant and perhaps a musicologist also, who figures in
some South Indian works of music. He is stated to be a South Indian himself
although this is a controversial point. He was taken along by Allauddin Khilji
to the North and is said to have had frequent discussions on music with Amir
Khusrau, poet and musician. Writers never fail to describe how Gopala Nayaka
was asked by his patron to sing the Raga Dipak and how, while singing it
standing neck-deep in the waters of the Yamuna, he was consumed by the flames
that shot up.
Gopala Nayaka’s name was
quite familiar to South Indian writers of music. Kallinatha (c. 1450) mentions
that the Nayaka was not only unrivalled in the practice of music but was also
the writer of some treatises. Venkatamakhi (c. 1620) in his ‘Chaturdandi
Prakashika’ pays a tribute to Gopala Nayaka as a renowned singer of the ‘Chaturdandi’,
namely Geetha, Prabandha, Thaya and Alapa.
Sage Vidyaranya (c. 1330) is
a well-known figure in the Advaitic literature of South India and played an
important part in the establishment of the Vijayanagar Empire. His ‘Sangita
Sara’ in Sanskrit is one of the earliest South Indian treatises on music.
Although the original of this text is not available, Govinda Dikshita (c.
1600) from Tanjore quotes extensively from Vidyaranya’s work in his own
‘Sangita Sudha’.
A succession of rulers of the
Vijayanagar Empire proved to be munificent patrons of music and encouraged
scholars to write books on the theory of music. During the reign of Rama Raja,
son-in-law of the great Krishna Devaraya, musicologist Ramamatya was
commissioned to write a work on Indian music reconciling the different schools
then existing. Ramamatya completed his ‘Swaramela Kalanidhi’ in 1550. It is
noteworthy that when V. N. Bhatkhande, the renowned scholar of Maharashtra
toured the Tamil Nadu area in search of manuscripts on music, he was able to
secure a copy of this work and he later published it in Bombay with notes in
Marathi.
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