BY SRIMATHI RAGINI DEVI

The art ideals of India in the past reached a stage of excellence far above present world standards. Especially is this true in the art of music which ancient India considered the life and soul of religion.

According to the shastras, the first manifestation of Divine Energy in the cosmos was in the form of sound or Nada. Before the creation of the universe it existed as the all-pervading sound of OM ringing through space. The art of music is said to have been revealed by Brahma, the Creator, who entered into meditation and from the depths of Divine thought brought forth the arts for the joy of the universe.

The music of India has always had a living power because it is one with Creative Nature. To the ancient Aryans the musical order was but a reflection of the Divine order, and the ancient hymns and incantations of the Rishis were an expression of the divine relationship between the Cosmos and Man in terms of sound and rhythm.

The history of Hindu music is woven into a mystical and ancient past, and owes its unusual and highly-involved rhythms and complex sruti scale to those ancient progenitors of art–the Rishis. The spiritual relations of the regions and quarters and the seasons to the attainment of the soul's salvation was the mystical conception of these Vedic poets, who harmonized the cyclic phases of the human soul with the cyclic phases of Nature.

The ancient hymns and mantras composed by them were far from being primitive musical adventures. They indicate a remarkable knowledge of the nature and potency of sound and its influence on human life.

Being endowed with an inner mathematical sense and having a divine insight into the operation of universal laws, these ancient sages evolved a doctrine of mathematical symbols to explain the manifold nature of the cosmos and its ruling principles. Vedic music was an exalted interpretation of these principles. It is our belief that archaic scales and gramas were originally musical symbols of sacrificial mysteries, mathematically related to various cosmic principles in much the same manner as the chief metres such as Gayatri, Trishtubh, etc.

The sacred "three-fold" Vedas are said to have sprung from the mystic Sacrifice of Purusha. From this sacred rite, were born the Rig Hymns and the Samans.

The Aryans were doubtless the first race to perfect the vocal art and to realise in their sacred chants the highest fulfillment of the true art of singing. There is abundant evidence of the high attainment of vocal art in the records of ancient wisdom.

Vocal music has always been of first importance in India because the human voice was considered a divine instrument, having the energizing motive force of soul-fire. The Hindus called the body the divine lute made by the gods, the lute made by man being an imitation of it.

The fact that vocal music was of first importance in ancient India does not necessarily indicate that instrumental music was not also highly developed. In the Vedas harps with a hundred strings and numerous ceremonial drums are mentioned which indicate a high development of instrumental music.

There is very little to guide us concerning Vedic scales and the various physical and metaphysical meanings of tones, gramas etc. However the ancient names of the notes indicate that Vedic music was descending, which view is supported by authority.

The descending trend of Vedic scales and gramas has a definite relation to universal laws governing the scientific manifestation of sound. In order to understand what descending music really is, we must realize that there are two kinds of natural sound progression,–one descending and the other ascending. Jean Philip Rameau, a French musician of the seventeenth century, has named these two kinds of progression the arithmetic and harmonic series respectively.

The arithmetic progression is a descending harmonic series characterized by regularly increasing lengths of vibrating string. That is, each tone corresponds to a number of fixed units of measurement, the sounds produced being progressively lower and lower in pitch, as the length of the string is regularly increased.

The harmonic series is the natural series of overtones produced from a musical wire, which vibrates first as a whole, secondly in two segments, thirdly in three segments, etc. The tone given by the whole string is the lowest in sound, and is called the fundamental or prime. The tones given by the successive segments of the wire are known as overtones or harmonics, which become progressively higher and higher in pitch, as the initial unit (number of frequencies of the prime) adds itself to itself.

Archaic Vedic music (like most ancient music that we know about) was evolved from the descending arithmetic progression. The Sata-tantri Vina doubtless owes it origin to the arithmetically divided monochord of many strings, regularly increasing in length. That is, stringed instruments designed to produce descending scales used a fixed unit of measurement and a sliding bridge or fret for ascertaining the proper places of the scale notes or srutis. Thus every tone could be simply and accurately obtained by moving the bridge to the required division point. If twenty-two wires were attached to a monochord, the whole sruti sequence could be produced, in descending order.

Systematic music probably had its origin in Vedic India from whence it spread its influence throughout the ancient world. Since then the music of India has followed a consistent course of development–first as descending music or the Gandhara grama based upon the descending harmonic series, and later as ascending music, based upon the ascending series of overtones. Thus Indian music has always a natural and scientific foundation.

Modern India has forgotten the great fundamental truths of music and the meaning of symbols relating to the arts. Accounts of the origin of music, of the twenty-two srutis and their spiritual and emotional associations and functions, are generally dismissed as fanciful legends worthy of only antiquarian interest.

But the true scientific system which the ancient masters perfected is not entirely gone. Even though Indian musicologists are denying the practical existence of the twenty-two srutis, the srutis are actually being sung and played by some first-class musicians at least who, perhaps fortunately, know little or nothing about the physics of sound, intervals, vibrations, etc. They simply carry on the oral traditions and intonations bequeathed to them.

Owing to the melodic nature of Hindu music, the fundamental or tonic drone SA is required to be fixed in the consciousness of the musician. Against this sustained keynote, all the fine gradations of tone are clearly discernible and accuracy of pitch is assured. By moving his frets a little this way or that, the Indian instrumentalist is able to select the tones which best satisfy his musical sensibilities.

Another aid to accuracy of pitch is the use of mend or rhythmic glissando as an essential element in the melodic scheme. The Indian musician sings or plays the interval as much as he does the ‘note’ and in thus gliding between ‘notes’ he maintains a continuous musical flow to the accompaniment of the resonant drone.

The Hindu musician is really endowed by Nature with an inner sruti sense, for the human ear readily attunes itself to a natural melodic progression of sounds. The fundamental law which operates in the natural harmonic series also rules our musical sensibilities.

The efforts of modern theoricians to explain the Hindu musical scale in terms of twelve semi-tones, or any other artificial divisions of the octave have no real significance in the true Hindu musical system as originally based on the natural order of sound.

Western musical theory offers no solution to the sruti problem. It is only from Nature and from the ancients who alone understood her that India can once more discover the truth of music–the eternal law of modes.

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