Is music sacred?

[shankarank]

The so-called Unitarian Universalist Church, which is really not a "church" in the Christian sense, but a place where a free form spiritual enquiry is practiced, traces its lineage back to the deist beliefs of the founding fathers of America.

Yes. I see that. May be my terminology was wrong or misplaced. We hold our concerts in one such Church! Art of living workshops are given space there as well.

Amazed at how you make up stuff. We didn't rebel against them because it was to our advantage. They made much more sense and were more predictable than the majority of the rulers we had at that time.

In a different reading of history, you will see that the Maharajas were the ones who made the choice and forced to make the choice. And in an act of deception they were kept around to fool people as to who the real rulers were.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkCMHaLXgAU88jz.jpg:large - this was early 1800s in education.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkCNLXBXoAkMm8r.jpg:large

Your history reading is based on the wrong perception created by the second statistic! The second statistic is the creation of Caste inequality. And that is incidental. Other than the mylaporeans who remembers Alladi Krishnaswamy and VSS Sastri. No one! They had their role and even their English is an anathema today. They rose from very humble beginnings as children of priests , just like any other Indian.

That they rose as an incidental effect of British requiring to run their Admin, cannot be projected to mean Indian people accepted British rule as a better choice. That may be true in the case of Tipu Sultan! Oh he was a freedom fighter wasn't he? He didn't even rule long enough to know what vision of India he would have made. But we keep claiming he fought on our behalf.

If you read history with true Indian perspective, you will see that there was continuous resistance till 1857. There is a story that Muslims then implicated Brahmins as the cause of that mutiny and there was a backlash against them through all of Eastern India.

Even in a disarmed state in only 40 years, you had svAmi vivEkananda who started his resistance to recover the spiritual soul of India. Sri Aurobindo started his and that inspired many freedom fighters.

You know vAnchi maniyachi station?

[Ranganayaki]

Mccarthyism (...) was justified.

WHAT is this foolishness??

[SrinathK]

Mccarthyism (...) was justified.

WHAT is this foolishness??

Don't worry. None of us have ever understood either. Too many threads have become 'shankaranked'

[uday_shankar]

WHAT is this foolishness??

[shankarank]

Of late threads are also getting "Udhaychufied" before anything else further happens to them

Whats so shocking? Why do we need reductionism in rights? If they don't accept other core principles of a Republic , like right to liberty and property why do they need to be given free speech? They must be shut down!

[Anusha]

You can represent the "Sacred Complex" as :

Sacred = (Real)Sacred + j*(Imag)Sacred

Uday,
I loved reading your post on the Sacred Complex. Such an elegant anchor line!
While your post is not really complex (you have clearly proved that the Real part = 0), I must admit that it gives me a real complex .
Your 'rational' analysis coneys that - 'Irrational' are the ways of the human race, on the 'whole'.

[sankark]

You can represent the "Sacred Complex" as :

Sacred = (Real)Sacred + j*(Imag)Sacred

Uday,
I loved reading your post on the Sacred Complex. Such an elegant anchor line!
While your post is not really complex (you have clearly proved that the Real part = 0), I must admit that it gives me a real complex .
Your 'rational' analysis coneys that - 'Irrational' are the ways of the human race, on the 'whole'.

Eventually all the things that are held sacred become scared of, and scarred by, those that hold them sacred

[uday_shankar]

I must admit that it gives me a real complex .
Your 'rational' analysis coneys that - 'Irrational' are the ways of the human race, on the 'whole'.

Lol.

I use the symbol j for sqrt(-1) after a lifetime spent doing EE... but really humor and truth lie in the symbol i that mathematicians and physicists use.

1) Wolfgang Pauli, brilliant Nobel prize winning physicist, and equally brilliant jokester, was a contemporary of a lesser known German experimental physicist (albeit a Nobel prize winner too, for designing the ion trap) Wolfgang Paul. Being the eternal jokester, Pauli was known to refer to Paul as "his real part".


2) What we think of as 'i' is always imaginary... it is the false ego which disappears the moment we try to pin it down. And you can do that only through self-realization

[HarishankarK]

No. Not all music is sacred. Definitely songs like 'choli ke peeche kya hai' or kolaveri are also music but never ever are they sacred.
Carnatic music, bhajans etc are sacred. It totally depends on the purpose of the music.

[Anusha]

I use the symbol j for sqrt(-1) after a lifetime spent doing EE... but really humor and truth lie in the symbol i that mathematicians and physicists use.

Thanks for the explanation. I had assumed that j was a typo.

[shankarank]

What he described there is the 2 dimensional cakra of samsara. We know that these things are sacred and must act in a way we transcend this cyclicality. But we act as if we want to remain here!

That is Real + j(imagined)! A two dimensional surface that has rotation as a phenomenon.

[uday_shankar]

May be my terminology was wrong or misplaced.

Keep in mind, it's not a matter of terminology. It is a deep seated misunderstanding to confuse the Unitarian "Church" and deism with protestant Christianity. To further draw conclusions based on equating it to "American protestantism" completes the nonsense (not accusing you or anyone of doing it). In the eyes of Protestants and Catholics alike, Unitarianism is a contemptible mishmash of pagan non-Christian ideas.

What he described there is the 2 dimensional cakra of samsara. We know that these things are sacred and must act in a way we transcend this cyclicality. But we act as if we want to remain here!

This kind of interpretation wasn't my intention, just to clarify. My intention was the straightforward one described by Anusha above... we neglect the real part completely while making a fetish out of the imaginary part.

The imaginary part is irrelevant. DhArmic action will automatically result if we focus on the real part.

DhArmic action doesn't need the guidance of Smrithis or Shrutis or the burden of a Rajiv Malhotra polemic or narrative.

It is not easy, but it's possible to open one's eyes and heart, look for the True and go get a dhArmic life...

[shankarank]

All this comes to my mind when I hear anybody argue that India is a free country, he or she can sing anything and get away with it. The moment we sense the sacred in music, it is difficult to make it an instrument of protest, or political or social activism or worst, economic opportunism.

Do whatever the heck the street freedom given to you by the nitwitsm that goes for college education! And get lost! But just shut up about real people ( and their conflicts) who preserve and carry on sampradaya through many challenges!

[shankarank]

My intention was the straightforward one described by Anusha above... we neglect the real part completely while making a fetish out of the imaginary part.

Yes the secular Sierra club will run a mill out of environmentalism and keep California spic and span. But across the Ocean you dump plastics and get a dump back and then dump it back into Ocean. So the pursuit of Secular thought has not gotten us anywhere!

[uday_shankar]

Yes the secular Sierra club

In your deserted and limited world view, Sierra Club represents the height of environmental action. You should go out and meet real people, away from the public eye, sometimes in it, who work deeply with such questions at all levels and walk the talk, without talking the walk.

And just to put it all into perspective:

McCarthyism - "justified" in some ways.

Bale bale.

Sierra Club - evil secular all bad

Bale bale.

[sureshvv]

And just to put it into perspective:
McCarthyism - good in some ways
Sierra Club - evil secular all bad

There is something quintessentially Indian here. We always try very hard to find the silver-lining in the dark cloud and the smudge in the fresh clean linens.

[shankarank]

Yup like the marxist , who flew to germany with a mac ( lined with silver - I mean only the color) to present how technology has caused all these issues!

[sureshvv]

You forgot the links

[shankarank]

You should go out and meet real people, away from the public eye, sometimes in it, who work deeply with such questions at all levels and walk the talk, without talking the walk.

This is all knowledge and sense they learnt from natives who have been relegated to run Casinos. Whilst China agreed to become the dump yard after Maoist cultural revolution!

[shankarank]

You forgot the links

He is home grown looks like: https://twitter.com/Karl_Maarx/status/9 ... 1191439362

However there is a another view that says Tech. And Automation will help their cause:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 04706.html

[humdinger]

Well, this is what late Zahiruddin Khan Dagar seems to have written (source here):
"Dhrupad is a gift of Samaveda. This music emerges from sacred mantras of that holy scripture....you can not sepearate hindustani classical music from the worship of god."

[shankarank]

They worship music truly as divine, the way they fall in love with the sound! If the term "God" helps express that I am fine! There is no other framework under which such beauty will pass on to the next Gen! Certain things have to be accepted as given and sacred and by experience one will get a sense why they are so.

That which stays is sampradaya - assuming people operated within certain principles of Dharma!

From a Darwinian perspective, all that happens is for Good is a circular statement. But in the realm of consciousness that only affirms the cyclical nature of reality.

[HarishankarK]

Well, this is what late Zahiruddin Khan Dagar seems to have written (source here):
"Dhrupad is a gift of Samaveda. This music emerges from sacred mantras of that holy scripture....you can not sepearate hindustani classical music from the worship of god."

Well said

We should all feel the same way about carnatic music also. Then only we can protect its divinity and sanctity.

[shankarank]

"Dhrupad is a gift of Samaveda. This music emerges from sacred mantras of that holy scripture....you can not sepearate hindustani classical music from the worship of god."

While the current dialectic demands that we trace the origin of something to something in order to prove continuity, authenticity, and a presumed ownership, it is not required to be so. This demand reflects the history centrism of the Western knowledge systems and their anthropology of connecting historical traits with one another.

If we link dhrupad to sAmavEda what do we link this one to: https://youtu.be/-tuWsN5yWG0?t=2116

If you think closely that is the discipline! Written notation again is today's demand ( or mid - SSI era demand shall we say!). The Siksha! And the mAtra Shuddham. Improvisation is left to Palghat MaNi IyervAl!

That concert is a must listen for anyone who wants to examine themselves to see if they appreciate true values of Carnatic Music.

We only know MSS, MMI and Dr BMK for their respective Srutis and voice tones and sometimes we are moved by their voice expression. Divinity goes with voice - Divine voice. We forget to notice how much mAtra Suddham goes with their rendition that adds to the experience of beauty as well!

When vEda is proclaimed to be apauruShEya ( authorless!) and anAdi (beginning less) , then tracing the origins of later developments to vEda is unvEdic in spirit! RSHi mUlam and nadi mUlam need not be enquired into. Such a requirement does not exist in the vEdic sphere of thought!

These are parallel or concomitant systems of values. If one is traceable to the other or where something is picked up is immaterial and suffice it to say even if they had independent beginnings each exemplifies the spirit of the other.

if a new system like what pANiNi devised ( based on what existed) with a rule generation , but respecting and not purging the old, then that is also vEdic.

[sureshvv]

Well, this is what late Zahiruddin Khan Dagar seems to have written (source here):
"Dhrupad is a gift of Samaveda. This music emerges from sacred mantras of that holy scripture....you can not sepearate hindustani classical music from the worship of god."

Well said

We should all feel the same way about carnatic music also. Then only we can protect its divinity and sanctity.

Hope you noticed the fact that they carefully avoided mentioning a specific "God".

[shankarank]

This kind of interpretation wasn't my intention, just to clarify.

In post modernism it seems , there no such thing as intent or original interpretation. Everybody can make up their own myths! . Like Devdutt Patnaik!

[shankarank]

Hope you noticed the fact that they carefully avoided mentioning a specific "God".

There is no specific God. There is only one God for all Abrahamic offshoots! So when U.S motto refers to One Nation Under God or In God we trust, that is the Judeo Christian conception of God.

[SrinathK]

This kind of interpretation wasn't my intention, just to clarify.

In post modernism it seems , there no such thing as intent or original interpretation. Everybody can make up their own myths! . Like Devdutt Patnaik!

??

Sir, please do not mind me pointing this out, I see that you've stuffed your mind with a lot of info over the decades, but I think its high time for some serious meditation and defragmentation (like those old hard drives). There is a lack of cohesion and focus in your posting, it is jumping from one thing to another whatever comes up in memory. It's causing discussions to meander a lot. It will be so much better if all this knowledge was kept in order, not disorder. My 2 cents.

[Pratyaksham Bala]

Gone astray !
What are we discussing ?
Proselytism ? Foreign vs Indian ? Disparity in Hindu society ? Or …

[SrinathK]

Or shankarank's next thought...

[humdinger]

Well, this is what late Zahiruddin Khan Dagar seems to have written (source here):
"Dhrupad is a gift of Samaveda. This music emerges from sacred mantras of that holy scripture....you can not sepearate hindustani classical music from the worship of god."

Well said

We should all feel the same way about carnatic music also. Then only we can protect its divinity and sanctity.

Hope you noticed the fact that they carefully avoided mentioning a specific "God".

Dear Suresh, I don't think I can support your observation. Here obvious reference is to the worship of that god who is espoused in "vEdas", of which sAmavEda is a part.

[uday_shankar]

I don't think I can support your observation. Here obvious reference is to the worship of that god who is espoused in "vEdas", of which sAmavEda is a part.

In the vedas, there is only mention of multiple demigods/deities such as Indra, Varuna, sUrya, Agni, Vishnu, Mitra, etc...

The notion of a dualist "God", eternally separated from man and situated in heaven, is hard to coax from the vedas. "Brahman", which is widely mentioned, cannot be interpreted as such. Nor too, "Isvara", which is kind of a saguna Brahman. So there is really no "God" in the vedas in this simple dualist sense, a God who is permanently separated from existence, residing in a place called Kailasa or VaikunTa, who is a object of worship. All that came later, the smritis, puranas, etc.. Of course, all along, most ordinary folks were worshiping their local deities, and had nothing to do with vEdas...

Even the demigods/deities were not worshiped in the contemporary sense of the word. They were just offered Ahuti's in the yagnya so they may bless us with better specific things, Surya for vision, Varuna for rains, etc... Very transactional, kind of applying for special favors from specialists in that kind of favor.

So it appears there really was no "worship" of any god, or God, in the Vedic practice.

So I really don't know what you're disagreeing with with Suresh .

[Sachi_R]

Humdinger,
I agree with you.

Dhrupad is a musical tradition from the Samaveda.

The Dagars go back to 7 generations and were Hindu Brahmins from Delhi. This is stated by Ustad Baha’uddin Dagar in the Amazon Prime Harmony video also.

Uday Bhawalkar in a Parivadini lecdem has stated how he found the Dagar family to be very "Hindu" in their belief and tradition.

The Dagars stand for Dhrupad music, centred in Hindu traditions. Nothing Abrahamic in their sentiment.

The sacredness discussion is not about my God vs their god. Please.

[Sachi_R]

In the vedas, there is only mention of multiple demigods/deities such as Indra, Varuna, sUrya, Agni, Vishnu, Mitra, etc...

Uday, I think you know this one:

इन्द्रं मित्रं वरुणमग्निमाहुरथो स दिव्यो सुपर्णो गरुत्मान् ।

एकं सद्विप्राः बहुधा वदन्ति अग्निं यमं मातरिश्वानमाहुः ॥

“indram mitram varuNamagnimAhuratho sa divyo suparNo garutmAn |

ekam sadviprAh bahudhA vadanti agnim yamam mAtarishvAnamAhuh ||” - RV1.164.46
This is from the Rigveda.

Throughout the Vedas, the attempt is to seek and worship that enternal principle we call God in English.

Samaveda contains Kena Upanishad. The word Kena means "by whom is..." The Upanishad gives a beautiful allusion to this God principle.

I think this type of discussion often uses the word God or god in several ways, but I am pretty sure what God Ustad Dagar was referring to... The Vedic principle of God.

There is this famous shloka i. BHAGAVATAM:
SB 12.13.1
sūta uvāca
yaṁ brahmā varuṇendra-rudra-marutaḥ stunvanti divyaiḥ stavair
 vedaiḥ sāṅga-pada-kramopaniṣadair gāyanti yaṁ sāma-gāḥ
dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yogino
 yasyāntaṁ na viduḥ surāsura-gaṇā devāya tasmai namaḥ

This shloka is often quoted to show how in Hinduism the many approaches to God all tie into the core concept of a Supreme Being, call it Parabrahman or Ishvara.

Sorry I have used different transcript methods, all copy paste

[humdinger]

Humdinger,
I agree with you.

Dhrupad is a musical tradition from the Samaveda.

The Dagars go back to 7 generations and were Hindu Brahmins from Delhi. This is stated by Ustad Baha’uddin Dagar in the Amazon Prime Harmony video also.

Uday Bhawalkar in a Parivadini lecdem has stated how he found the Dagar family to be very "Hindu" in their belief and tradition.

The Dagars stand for Dhrupad music, centred in Hindu traditions. Nothing Abrahamic in their sentiment.

The sacredness discussion is not about my God vs their god. Please.

This could be of interest to you. Dagar family can be traced back to 19th generation, and the generation before that was hindu, a person named Gopal Das Pandey: http://dhrupad.org/about/dagar-tradition/

Not my intention to bring this god vs that god, was just responding to Suresh's observation.

But from the above statement of dagar ji, I deduce he definitely feels that his music is sacred.

[humdinger]

I don't think I can support your observation. Here obvious reference is to the worship of that god who is espoused in "vEdas", of which sAmavEda is a part.

In the vedas, there is only mention of multiple demigods/deities such as Indra, Varuna, sUrya, Agni, Vishnu, Mitra, etc...

The notion of a dualist "God", eternally separated from man and situated in heaven, is hard to coax from the vedas. "Brahman", which is widely mentioned, cannot be interpreted as such. Nor too, "Isvara", which is kind of a saguna Brahman. So there is really no "God" in the vedas in this simple dualist sense, a God who is permanently separated from existence, residing in a place called Kailasa or VaikunTa, who is a object of worship. All that came later, the smritis, puranas, etc.. Of course, all along, most ordinary folks were worshiping their local deities, and had nothing to do with vEdas...

Even the demigods/deities were not worshiped in the contemporary sense of the word. They were just offered Ahuti's in the yagnya so they may bless us with better specific things, Surya for vision, Varuna for rains, etc... Very transactional, kind of applying for special favors from specialists in that kind of favor.

So it appears there really was no "worship" of any god, or God, in the Vedic practice.

So I really don't know what you're disagreeing with with Suresh .

I was only disagreeing with Sureh's observation that the statement was not specific.
I don't have the required education to do the veda bhashya like you so can't comment on your observations. But told by elders that the gist of vedas is to realize the god/brahman in your true self. And I don't think this concept is espoused by any abrahamic faiths, so in that sense the idea of god is certainly different for them.

[Sachi_R]

Humdinger,
Thank you.
It's my turn to share:
https://youtu.be/N96gZGTBDqY
Please cue to 1hr 9 min.

[sureshvv]

Well said

We should all feel the same way about carnatic music also. Then only we can protect its divinity and sanctity.

Hope you noticed the fact that they carefully avoided mentioning a specific "God".

Dear Suresh, I don't think I can support your observation. Here obvious reference is to the worship of that god who is espoused in "vEdas", of which sAmavEda is a part.

OK. Let me try to say it another way and may be you will agree.

It is the same God that they (the other religion which Zahiruddin Khan Dagar belongs to) also worship.

[Ranganayaki]

. Let me try to say it another way and may be you will agree.

It is the same God that they (the other religion which Zahiruddin Khan Dagar belongs to) also worship.

Yes.

[Ranganayaki]

Even the demigods/deities were not worshiped in the contemporary sense of the word. They were just offered Ahuti's in the yagnya so they may bless us with better specific things, Surya for vision, Varuna for rains, etc... Very transactional, kind of applying for special favors from specialists in that kind of favor.

So it appears there really was no "worship" of any god, or God, in the Vedic practice.

Yes, we "propitiated" them.

(Just responding to the content of individual posts without a sense of the direction of the thread. )

[shankarank]

Throughout the Vedas, the attempt is to seek and worship that enternal principle we call God in English.

vEdas were not taught to anybody in general, except those committed to learn it. So all claims in that context are private, between the Guru and Sishya. To publicly discuss them and allow them to be characterized this way or that way is somewhat unfair! Just because some people from the West published translations of them that too!

I go only as far as the general cultural sense they convey and I challenged the brahmin community based on them - as to if chandas is sacred why did they walk out of Mridangam tani? Only a sweet or powerful voice is divine?

Or if they say it is all entertainment - then they have no basis to complain of anything now.

Or if they buy into the "fad" "intellectual" definition of "art" - then can I claim they are poor art connoisseurs as they have not seen the "art" in Mridangam?

The reason it is fair to critique the dominant religions of the world is because they make public claims about various other cultures not in their direct dominion as of yet and publicly and forcefully make such claims to the people of native cultures without their asking.

If somebody says publicly using free speech and freedom of religion about me, I have the duty to respond.

On top of that you say "God" in English. Is English language a religion or a culture with sense of sacred? When did it by itself define God?

[Sachi_R]

Shankarank,
I don't buy your comments.

When someone says Vedas have no mention of God, I clarify by quoting Vedas.

I also clarify that the word God comes from English and has specific connotations (derived from religions that are associated with English originally) and those concepts vary from our idea of Paramatma or Parabrahman or Ishvara.

Period.

[shankarank]

You are hand-waving and quoting a suburban rail traveler or a European football fan! You either check out the authoritative cosmologies described in specific in each of the scriptures about God or just stop using the word in any serious discussion, especially if you start quoting from vEdas which are NOT public documents or enforced documents.

[humdinger]

Humdinger,
Thank you.
It's my turn to share:
https://youtu.be/N96gZGTBDqY
Please cue to 1hr 9 min.

Thank you, I remember watching it when someone quoted this video earlier on this forum.

[humdinger]

OK. Let me try to say it another way and may be you will agree.

It is the same God that they (the other religion which Zahiruddin Khan Dagar belongs to) also worship.

I can't say because I don't know what they are worshiping. The extent to which I see it doesn't convince me to agree and I haven't studied that in more detail to be able to comment authoritatively. While it is absolute commonsense that there can be not but one god, I see a problem with the statement people especially current day educated Hindus so easily make - " all religions are same/lead to same god". Everyone whom I know who made that statement never tried to learn what is the essence of his/her religion, forget about comparing it with other religions. Just because it is fashionable and politically correct to say that, people get away talking authoritatively on stuff they didn't even spend a day studying about.

You can also refer to the post#61 of mine above to know more about what I think on this.

[shankarank]

Oh Common you finally end up with dictionary?? Dictionary is your source?? You are even worse than a coffee table conversationalist. Oh I forgot we are all just rasika forumites!!

[Ranganayaki]

Replying to 61: it's not completely true that realization is not a part of their faith, it is certainly true that Christianity has mostly suppressed it - the Church. I am reading Brother Lawrence - The Practice of The Presence Of God. Christian monk from the 17th century. He was suppressed, but his practice seems to coincide with Vedanta, but is rooted in the Christian faith.. Will come back to you on that.

If self realization is not something we thought of , but a totally natural thing, it goes without saying that there are realized souls everywhere.

[shankarank]

Oh Common you finally end up with dictionary?? Dictionary is your source??

And why does that refer to Christians ., Jews and Muslims if there is an English meaning of "God"? How many of those faiths originally have anything to do with the language of English? And why is that not a legitimate question, when all their narratives are rooted in physical history of their origins?

Are you saying V.S Srinivasa Sastry and Dr Radhakrishnan had in their minds a certain conception of "God", based on their knowledge of English and English alone?

Isn't English a sacred language of Indian people now? What it has to do with the English of England man or the queen? Including the broken ungrammatical English that I hear every Hindi medium, tamizh medium, telugu/kannada medium guy speak for livelihood in all conference calls?

[shankarank]

Isn't English a sacred language of Indian people now?

If only we understood that, would we not have composed a song in praise of Bharat in English and in praise of our culture in English and teach that to kindergartners, instead of the imported curriculum of ba ba black sheep??

We became Bakri! We fools!

[sureshvv]

While it is absolute commonsense that there can be not but one god, I see a problem with the statement people especially current day educated Hindus so easily make - " all religions are same/lead to same god".

What about if we amend it to say, "all true religions lead to the same god".

And its corollary, "any religion that claims that it is supreme/superior is fake".

Of course this will apply equally to us and them.