Is music today same as Bharata's time?

[Vardhaman]

I was wondering if the music we hear today is same as Bharata's music? I know Hindustani has Persian influences and Carnatic music has blended some aspects of local folk music as well but is still largely purer. What are the differences between today's music and Bharata's music?

[rshankar]

And who is this bharata? The legendary son of duSyanta and Sakuntala, or the mythological brother of rAma?

[vgovindan]

This reference seems to be that of Bharata Muni who wrote Natya Sastra - A pdf version of the book 'Aesthetic Rapture of Rasadhyaya of Natya Sastra - can be downloaded from this link - http://www.docfoc.com/download/document ... j-l-masson

According to the book, Bharata is dated around 3rd Century AD.

[Nick H]

I was wondering if the music we hear today is same as Bharata's music?

Bharata is dated around 3rd Century AD.

Hardly likely, I would have thought.

Most of what we listen to is only a couple of hundred years old, isn't it? And the instruments that it is played on?

The question raises other questions, first, perhaps, why should it be? And if you equate ancient with pure, why?

People who have only heard the more popular Hindusatni music in the west, ask me if Carnatic music is very different, and I say stuff like, yes, but you'd probably still recognise it as being Indian. I wonder if... if we time travelled back a couple of thousand years, would we still recognise the music as being Indian? And if so, I suppose whatever it is that we are recognising, if it did survive that long, would be part of the answer to what, in this context, is purity.

My bet is that the question has a one-word answer: No. But it raises other thoughts, leading to much more than a one-word conversation

[kvchellappa]

It will be nice to give link to a sample of Bharata's music, then experts can decide whether it is the same or different.

[Vardhaman]

I meant Bharatamuni author of Natyashastra.

The Natyashastra is, states Emmie Te Nijenhuis, the oldest surviving text that systematically treats "the theory and instruments of Indian music"

Natyashastra describes gramas and moorchhanas in great details which are not discussed at all today.
I'm asking because I'm interested in the development of Indian music from ancient period to modern one.
Like we know once Carnatic and Hindustani were similar but went on different routes and music changed from devotion and bhakti as well. Our instruments have changed as well.

[rshankar]

It will be nice to give link to a sample of Bharata's music, then experts can decide whether it is the same or different.

This will be tough to do, as I am sure the quality of the music has changed from when Bharata Muni wrote his treatise, which incidentally involved all aspects of dramaturgy (and the word nATya in the title of his treatise is used in its catholic sense to denote dramaturgy, and the not in the narrow sense of dance alone - dance, IIRC, is covered in the 4th chapter).

If we want to hear how certain melodies sounded (perhaps as rAgas as we know them now, OR perhaps not), someone will have to use the descriptions from the text and recreate it - Just as Sri TMK, and Sri RK Shriram Kumar reconstructed some of the compositions from the descriptions in the SSP, or, as Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam has done for the pan-Indian dance form described in the nATya SAstra - the form that was probably the precursor of all the dance forms recognized by the Sangeet Natak Academy of India as 'classical' dance forms (i.e., bharatanATyam, kucipuDi, mOhiniATTam, kathakaLi, oDissi, kathak, maNipuri, sATTriya) - she has revived it, and it is called bharata nRtyam to distinguish it from bharatanATyam.

[kvchellappa]

Both TMK and PS are great, still it is like history. Two millenia is a great period in the human context and the changes in an oral-aural tradition over such a long time must be difficult to trace even for the most gifted minds. Possibly if from the written records, what it would have sounded like then can be reconstructed in TMK-PS way, how it is different from today's method may be inferred.

[Vardhaman]

It will be nice to give link to a sample of Bharata's music, then experts can decide whether it is the same or different.

This will be tough to do, as I am sure the quality of the music has changed from when Bharata Muni wrote his treatise, which incidentally involved all aspects of dramaturgy (and the word nATya in the title of his treatise is used in its catholic sense to denote dramaturgy, and the not in the narrow sense of dance alone - dance, IIRC, is covered in the 4th chapter).

If we want to hear how certain melodies sounded (perhaps as rAgas as we know them now, OR perhaps not), someone will have to use the descriptions from the text and recreate it - Just as Sri TMK, and Sri RK Shriram Kumar reconstructed some of the compositions from the descriptions in the SSP, or, as Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam has done for the pan-Indian dance form described in the nATya SAstra - the form that was probably the precursor of all the dance forms recognized by the Sangeet Natak Academy of India as 'classical' dance forms (i.e., bharatanATyam, kucipuDi, mOhiniATTam, kathakaLi, oDissi, kathak, maNipuri, sATTriya) - she has revived it, and it is called bharata nRtyam to distinguish it from bharatanATyam.

Sir do you have any link to the research above. I tried searching on google but did not find any result at all.

[arunk]

Vardhaman,

As you pointed out, early music was based on grama system with moorchanas etc. In that "sa" is not always the tonal point (it was one of 7 swears albeit with elevated status as "the first"). We have no way of really knowing how it sounded since recording technology did not exist for like 1600-1700 years later. In the mean time, from say about 14th-16th century, the mela system came into play (where no more gramas, and "sa" became tonal center and thus all ragas described mainly based on sa). There is also a gap between 12th century (from Sarangadeva's Saengeeta Ratnakara with grama system) and 14th-16th century (Vidyaranya and Ramamatya with mela system) where we don't have texts, and while there are connections made to earlier grama system, the later mela based texts don't exactly provide unambiguous corruption to the early system. So we don't know *for sure* how the earlier grams-based ragas mapped to the new mela-based system or vice-versa.

So given the two it is hard to know how it would have sounded. The work TMK and RK ShriramKumar is again based on SSP, which is as late as early 20th century. So while the text does refer to earlier tradition from an author who is considered to adhere to older tradition, it cannot be extrapolated to reflect fairy/accurately a system that was in play say more than 600 years earlier.

But there are perhaps remnants of the earlier system in today's ragas like nAdanAmakriyA, kurinji, cencuruTTi etc. They don't go sa-to-sa, but say ni-to-ni, and thus ni-murchana. But note that even in that context the tonal centre for these is still "Sa" (unlike in the older system as per old texts on it). But still, this is perhaps something that is retained in some form in older system.

Also, In certain dikshitar krithis (I forget the details) there are ciTTaswarams which (in some pATAntarams) are sung "differently". A "musical phrase" that say goes (aurally) as s r g m is instead "voiced" as n s r g. In other words, you the note/syllable is sa pitch but you say ni, you sing at ri pitch but say ri). This again is supposed to reflect/honor the older system. (NOTE: the exact raga and exact swarms in it, I forget now. So not necessarily s-r-g-m/n-s-r-g

Arun

[vasanthakokilam]

Arun, Graha Swara is I think what you are refering to. subbarAma dIkshitar focusses our attention to such usages with a footnote like 'The graha svara in this suddhasavEri gIta is to be noted.'

Also in the SSP, each raga has a Graha specification as part of the lakShaNa vivarNa .
While a lot of ragas are specified as Shadja Grahas there are a few with other Grahas. For example, Suddha Saveri is Panchama Graha, geyahejjajji is madhyama graha, dhunibhinnaShadjam and Gurjari are rishaba graha

The author notates the graha svaras with a Svaram/Graham and they are separated by a horizontal line. The symbols above the line are the svaras and below the lines are the Grahams.

For example, for the Gurjari krithi 'guNijanAdinuta guruguhOdayE gurjari rAgapriyEvA shivE ' by MD, Subbarama Dikshitar provides these Graha svaras for the mukthAyi ( Click on the picture below if it is too small to see )


There are 23 ragas that are identified with non-sadja grahas of which 14 ragas with compositions where such Graham svara passages are provided in the SSP. The ragas in mainstream use today for which SD has provided Graham passages are Bhairavi, revagupti, bowli, ritigowla, kedaragowla, narayanagowla, arabhi etc

[vasanthakokilam]

While we do not know how the music sounded around Baratha's times, going back to a prior era is not as hopeless as it might seem. Nick, specifically, while the music we hear now is 200 years old, those composers lived at a time when this same music was thriving big time. So we can safely go back another 200 years as a first step.

SSP provides notations for gItas of Chaturdandi PrakAsika which is what Shriram Kumar and TM Krishna attempted to sing. As their attempt shows, the music has indeed changed. At least in one major way we know of, namely, in the sophistication of gamakas. The earliest recordings of turn of the century stalwarts also are definitely rougher around the edges. I think there is a recording of Nannu Palimpa from that time. It is also possible that they had to sing at a much higher volume than usual since the recording technology then required that.

Now, author of CP Venkatamakhin states things like (from SSP) "this hejjajji raga is the fourth among the nineteen mELas known as pUrva mELas, and is the thirteenth among the mElaprastAra.' So, he is invoking ragas that existed during his time and several generations before him. As Arun stated there have been books going back quite a few centuries from CP times where the same raga names occur. Then of course there is this issue of the shift of musicology that Arun refers to namely from the Grama system to Melas . That definitely throws a monkey wrench into it given such a continental divide between eras. I do not know if anyone has successfully and convincingly provided a plausible mapping between the two systems. If that has already been done or somehow our researcher Vardaman pulls that off, then that is a significant achievement since we can go quite a few centuries back.

Member Vardaman can definitely engage in such matters and discover some interesting things, especially under the able stewardship of researchers like Professor Dr. N. Ramanathan.

Just as an aside, SD writes these kinds of statements which may provide a clue to these mappings.
Again talking of this hejjajji raga and what CP says
"Since this is the first rAga in the third cakra, the pUrVaCaryas have declared that the niSada is varjya in the ArohaNa, for the sake of ranjana, and for easy handling of the voice."

Interesting he refers to 'ease of handling of the voice'. What does that have to do with the first rAga of the third Chakra?

Again, another clue is, CP does group ragas by the graha they belong to. SD is making an indirect reference that since this raga is a madhyama graha, singing high notes is not easy. If so, he seems to be saying that the graha thing is related to the sense of 'tonic' (tonal center) which takes us to the 'grama' system of Sa being not the tonic necessarily. That brings us to what Arun says above. So CP seems to provide clues to construct the mapping between the Grama and Mela systems. ( May be this has already been done? ). If so, we can get a good handle on how a particular raga would have sounded at least a 1000 years back.

[vasanthakokilam]

As a foot note to the above, there is an article written by Prof. Ramanathan in the compiled book titled 'The Traditional Indian Theory of Music and Dance' (edited by Jonathan Katz ). The title of the article is 'The post sangita ratnakara svara system'

it may be available in full at the research site http://www.musicresearch.in/ but it seems to be down currently

Google has some partial pages of this article in the above book. Hope the following URL takes you to that spot in the book

https://books.google.com/books?id=HVjyf ... sp&f=false

[Vardhaman]

This website gives some information on melas and gramas but I think it's more focused on Hindustani music. http://www.dharambir.com/indian-classic ... tem-grama/
May be someone knowledgeable would be able to understand better.

Arun, Graha Swara is I think what you are refering to. subbarAma dIkshitar focusses our attention to such usages with a footnote like 'The graha svara in this suddhasavEri gIta is to be noted.'

Also in the SSP, each raga has a Graha specification as part of the lakShaNa vivarNa .
While a lot of ragas are specified as Shadja Grahas there are a few with other Grahas. For example, Suddha Saveri is Panchama Graha, geyahejjajji is madhyama graha, dhunibhinnaShadjam and Gurjari are rishaba graha

The author notates the graha svaras with a Svaram/Graham and they are separated by a horizontal line. The symbols above the line are the svaras and below the lines are the Grahams.

For example, for the Gurjari krithi 'guNijanAdinuta guruguhOdayE gurjari rAgapriyEvA shivE ' by MD, Subbarama Dikshitar provides these Graha svaras for the mukthAyi ( Click on the picture below if it is too small to see )


There are 23 ragas that are identified with non-sadja grahas of which 14 ragas with compositions where such Graham svara passages are provided in the SSP. The ragas in mainstream use today for which SD has provided Graham passages are Bhairavi, revagupti, bowli, ritigowla, kedaragowla, narayanagowla, arabhi etc

Sir, could you please give a list of non-sadja raagas? I searched google but didn't find any result at all. I have been taught that there's no music without Sa because Sa gives birth to all other notes. Thank you

Also thanks to @Arunk sir for taking time to provide this valuable information.