| HINDUSTĀNĪ
SAṄGĪT PADDHATĪ |
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| BACKGROUND |
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| Central and Southwest Asian
Influences |
| Between the 8th and 11th centuries,
C.E., successive waves of Turkish, Persian, and Mughal Muslims invaded
South Asia. As part of a fundamentalist drive to convert India, they were
unimpressed with Hindu beliefs, but they did like Indian music and often
patronized Indian musicians as well as their own music in their courts
despite puritanical elements that saw some types of music as promoting
immoral behavior. The music of Muslims (particularly Persians) and Indian
music flourished together in the same court settings. Eventually, an amalgam
of the two traditions emerged with singers from Gwalior (India) and instrumentalists
from Mashhad, Tabriz, and Herat (Persia and Afghanistan) dominating. |
| The court of `Ala' al-Din
Khilji, Sultan of Delhi (r. 1296-1316) proved a particularly fertile ground for exchange between cultures. By far the most notable musical figure in this interchange, Amir Khusraw (ca. 1253-1325) performed in the musical styles of both India and Persia. Today, many know him for his poetry, but musicians widely recognize his participation in the era's cultural fusion. Many scholars credit him with inventing the sitār and tablā, many rāgs and tāls, and several vocal forms. |
| At the Indian courts of the 16th-17th centuries, resident scholars wrote numerous treatises describing the aesthetics of music. The association of sentiments (rasa), colors, Hindu deities, etc., with particular rāgas was common. A particularly important era in the patronage of Indian music came during the reign of the Mughal emperors. The Emperor Akbar (1555-1605) patronized two outstanding musicians at his court: Miyāṅ Tānsen and Bāz Bahadur; the Emperor Jahangir (1605-1627) employed Bilas Khan; and the Emperor Shahjahan (1628-1658) contribution came in the form of Lāl Khān. |
| The treatises of the 16th-17th centuries show a clear break from the tradition of the Nāṭyaśāstra and increase in the importance of Arabic and Persian musical ideas. Towards the end of Mughal period (18th century), court scholars had Sanskrit treatises translated into Persian allowing them to learn about the music of ancient India. A recurring theme in South Asian culture appears in many treatises written during this period as scholars attempted to reconcile differences between the millennia-old treatises and the contemporary practice. |
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| THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES |
| During the 18th and 19th centuries, with the demise of a centralized Mughal power and the ascendancy of the British Rāj, Indian musical life began to move to provincial capitals and courts. There, musicians flourished in smaller and less affluent settings for a variety of different kinds of patrons, some of whom knew a great deal about the music, and some of whom simply wanted the prestige of the performance. |
| Indian culture both repulsed and enchanted the British, as it had other invaders before them. One group of British scholars, sometimes referred to as Orientalists, took an active interest in India's history and culture. Sir William Jones — a linguist and translator — compiled his On the Musical Modes of the Hindus (1799) largely from Indian sources, but without much comment on current practice. Captain Augustus Willard, in his A Treatise on the Music of Hindustan (1834), draws attention to the gap between theory and practice and shows that much contemporary musical practice in the courts involved a mix of Indian and Persian-Afghani musical ideas. |
| Indian treatises of the period show continued evolutions in the musical system. Muhammad Reza, in his Naghmāt-i-Āsafi (1813), describes the "major" scale (Bilāval ṭhāṭ) as the "natural" scale rather than the "minor" (Dorian) scale that had long been associated with the ṣaḍjagrāma. |
| Perhaps the most important
figure in 20th century Indian musical thinking is V. N. Bhatkhande (1860-1936). In his Śrīmal-laksyasangītam (1910), Hindusthānī Saṅgīt Paddhati (1932), and Kramik Pustak Mālikā (1937) he reconciled theory with practice, interviewed court musicians and collected their music, and analyzed and catalogued contemporary rāgas. Many 20th-century writers on Indian music have continued this trend of
attempting to reconcile ancient practice with contemporary musical practice and terminology. However, scholarship increasingly has separated the two with the study of ancient musical practice on the one hand and examinations of the modern performance practice on the other. |
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| PERFORMANCE TRADITIONS |
| Musicians become musicians
in much of South Asia historically through membership in a family tradition. This has been true for both regional and national traditions. |
| For Hindus, the transmission of traditional musical knowledge is accomplished through the gūrū-śiśya or teacher-pupil relationship. The relationship is only sometimes familial. The artistic "lineage" that results from generation after generation of teaching, learning, and teaching is a parampara. |
| For Muslims, the gharāna delineates the transmission of musical knowledge and the line of musical authority. The teacher-student relationship between an ustād and his śagīrd, provides instruction in everything from musical performance to conduct in public. Moreover, gharānas are extended familial relationships in which the senior male of the tradition, the doyen or qalīfa, is the ultimate official arbitrator of disputes. |
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