Whatever one’s personal background and aspirations may be, Carnatic music remains a quest for undiluted aesthetic experience (rasa). Three basic concepts are essential. Read the brief introduction for more!
Also read the course overview if you prefer a more systematic approach.
Before it could be used, it had to be invented.
“This invention of the zero and the way we write our numerals today is what is now the basis of all modern technology,” Princeton mathematics professor Manjul Bhargava told IDEAS.
“We often take it for granted. But it’s one of the greatest inventions of all time, really.” […]
Zero ultimately took hundreds of years to evolve from a placeholder into a full-fledged number in its own right — one that could be used in complex calculations.
That development is credited to the ancient Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, who developed a system of rules for calculations involving zero in the year 628 A.D. […]
Yet hundreds of years after Brahmagupta first incorporated it into his calculations, the number zero continues to confound us.
Full episode & transcript: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/zero-number-series-ideas-cbc-1.6977700
Contributors include Amit Chaudhuri, Dheepa Sundaram and Manjul Bhargava
Rasa is Aesthetic Emotion. Aesthetic Emotion is Rasa. Rasa literally means juice.
Nectar is one slightly fanciful translation. Let’s say juice.
Sweets are dipped in ras. So it’s any kind of enlivening elixir or juice.
I’m Amit Chaudhary. I’m a writer and a musician. I live in Calcutta, which is where I am right now.
Rasa, R-A-S-A, a Sanskrit term. In Indian aesthetics, there are nine rasas, denoting the nine emotions that are stirred by works of art.
So the earliest use of the word Rasa really means anything that’s liquid or fluid. But then beginning around the earliest centuries of the common era, the word Rasa is picked up in a tradition of literary theory in Sanskrit, in which it’s used to denote what’s usually described as aestheticized emotion. And the idea of Rasa really relates to this question of what is it that’s actually happening when we perceive a work of art.”
Amit Chaudhuri is a singer and the author of Sojourn, A Strange and Sublime Address and Finding The Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music.
Dheepa Sundaram is a professor of Hindu Studies at the University of Denver.
Amit Chaudhuri is a singer and the author of Sojourn, A Strange and Sublime Address and Finding The Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music.
Full episode & transcript: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/nine-number-series-synchronicity-1.6979794
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While “democratic values” would seem an anachronism in the context of the hierarchical society wherein its inventor flourished, we are free to envisage new possibilities inherent in the melakarta scheme as such:
The research in the field of pure musicology yields some interesting theoretical results, useful from technical and historical points of view. Venkatamakhi while justifying the derivation of 72 melakartas by permutation and combination interestingly remarks that countries are many with people having variety of tastes and it is to please them ragas have been invented by musicians. Some are already known while some are in the process of being brought to life, while some may be invented in future, while those surviving only in treatises and the ragas not known at all during their time may be brought to life in future, for the benefit of the people.
Dr. S. Seetha in Tanjore as a Seat of Music (During the 17th, 18th and the 19th Centuries) (University of Madras 1981), pp. 433-4 [Download Link]
So appreciating and practicing Carnatic music is worth the effort not just for the sheer joy of it: there is unlimited scope for growth, like benefitting people irrespective of their cultural background or status in modern, democratic societies – even if this potential seems far from having been realized … until now!
Let’s, for a moment, ignore the tabular arrangement of the 72 melakarta ragas and instead, regard each of the 12 cakra-s as a “range” or “district” (see sanskritdictionary.com). As a result, the melakarta system would lead us to the very realm wherein people having variety of tastes are free to explore new melodies. This would naturally involve fellow musicians from widely different cultural and social backgrounds connected – even related to one another – thanks to melodic features that merit closer attention.
As regards the raga-based music that underpins dramatic representation today (“classical” as well as “regional” dance and drama), the preference for some combinations of notes appears to follow a tendency widely shared across cultural boundaries, outlined as follows by Dale Purves:
“Musicians and listeners must have been aware long before the abstract conception of scales came into use that different tone collections tend to elicit different emotions” which entailed particular restrictions presumably serving “to maintain a mood of subdued reverence that differed from popular (‘folk’) music that then, as now, elicits more carnal emotions pertinent to the needs, desires, and disappointments of daily life”. – Music as Biology: The Tones We like and Why (Harvard University Press 2017), pp. 79-80
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Understanding “caste” in the context of Indian democracy: The “Poona Pact of 1932”
“Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar differed over how to address caste inequities through the electoral system. Their exchanges led to the Poona Pact of 1932, which shaped the reservation system in India’s electoral politics. […]
Two prominent figures who have significantly contributed to this discourse are Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Nation, and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Father of the Constitution. The two stalwarts of Indian politics, while revered equally by the public, had contrasting views on the caste system. Their subsequent debates have shaped the course of Indian society and politics. While Gandhi denounced untouchability, he did not condemn the varna system, a social hierarchy based on occupation, for most of his life. He believed in reforming the caste system through the abolition of untouchability and by giving equal status to each occupation. On the other hand, BR Ambedkar, a Dalit himself, argued that the caste system disorganised and ‘demoralised Hindu society, reducing it to a collection of castes’. […]
And yet, despite their differences, they developed an understanding to work for the betterment of the marginalised.” – Rishabh Sharma in “How Ambedkar and Gandhi’s contrasting views paved way for caste reservation” (India Today, 6 October 2023)
URL: https://www.indiatoday.in/history-of-it/story/ambedkar-gandhi-caste-system-poona-pact-1932-reservation-2445208-2023-10-06
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“That upper caste groups should declare themselves to be OBCs [Other Backward Castes] and want to avail of the reservation policy is a pandering to caste politics of course, as also are caste vote-banks. It is partially a reflection of the insecurity that the neo-liberal market economy has created among the middle-class. Opportunities are limited, jobs are scarce and so far ‘development’ remains a slogan. There’s a lot that is being done to keep caste going in spite of saying that we are trying to erode caste. We are, of course, dodging the real issue. It’s true that there has been a great deal of exploitation of Dalit groups and OBC’s in past history; making amends or even just claiming that we are a democracy based on social justice demands far more than just reservations. The solution lies in changing the quality of life of half the Indian population by giving them their right to food, water, education, health care, employment, and social justice. This, no government so far has been willing to do, because it means a radical change in governance and its priorities.” – Romila Thapar (Emeritus Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University) interviewed by Nikhil Pandhi (Caravan Magazine, 7 October 2015)
URL: https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/discipline-notion-particular-government-interview-romila-thapar
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“Casteism is the investment in keeping the hierarchy as it is in order to maintain your own ranking, advantage, privilege, or to elevate yourself above others or keep others beneath you …. For this reason, many people—including those we might see as good and kind people—could be casteist, meaning invested in keeping the hierarchy as it is or content to do nothing to change it, but not racist in the classical sense, not active and openly hateful of this or that group.” – Book review by Dilip Mandal for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (The Print, 23 August 2020)
URL: https://theprint.in/opinion/oprah-winfrey-wilkerson-caste-100-us-ceos-indians-wont-talk-about-it/487143/
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“The theoretical debate on caste among social scientists has receded into the background in recent years. [However] caste is in no sense disappearing: indeed, the present wave of neo-liberal policies in India, with privatisation of enterprises and education, has strengthened the importance of caste ties, as selection to posts and educational institutions is less based on merit through examinations, and increasingly on social contact as also on corruption. There is a tendency to assume that caste is as old as Indian civilization itself, but this assumption does not fit our historical knowledge. To be precise, however, we must distinguish between social stratification in general and caste as a specific form. […]
From the early modern period till today, then, caste has been an intrinsic feature of Indian society. It has been common to refer to this as the ‘caste system’. But it is debatable whether the term ‘system’ is appropriate here, unless we simply take for granted that any society is a ‘social system’. First, and this is quite clear when we look at the history of distinct castes, the ‘system’ and the place various groups occupy within it have been constantly changing. Second, no hierarchical order of castes has ever been universally accepted […] but what is certain is that there is no consensus on a single hierarchical order.” – Harald Tambs-Lyche (Professor Emeritus, Université de Picardie, Amiens) in “Caste: History and the Present” (Academia Letters, Article 1311, 2021), pp. 1-2
URL: https://www.academia.edu/49963457
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“There is a need for intercultural education. We all need to work together to bridge these divides not only between religions and castes but also regions. It is not correct to think that one part is better than the other. Some of the limitations of India as a whole are due to our common heritage, say the one that has restricted women from having a flourishing life for themselves.” – Prof. V. Santhakumar (Azim Premji University) in “On the so called North-South Divide in India” (personal blog post in Economics in Action, 13 April 2024)
URL: https://vsanthakumar.wordpress.com/2024/04/13/on-the-so-called-north-south-divide-in-india/
The Kaṭapayādi sūtra is an aid to memory or “mnemonic system”.
Its name corresponds to a “thread” (sūtra), here provided by the initials of four sets of letters within the Sanskrit alphabet:
Ka Ṭa Pa and Ya
A total of 33 letters are distributed among ten numbers including 0 (zero):
K (1st) to 9 (nava = 9) + 0 = 10, Ṭ (1st) to 9 (nava = 9) + 0 = 10, P (1st) to 5 (pañca = 5) = 5, Y (1st) (aṣṭa = 8) = 8
Note:
For details please refer to the file attached below (PDF, 145 KB)
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Enjoy your exploration of a wonderful music!
“Rasa is realised in from the combination of the sthāyibhāva (permanent and dominant emotional mood) with the vibhāva-s (the objects of emotions such as the hero and the heroine, and the exciting causes such as the spring, flowers, moonlight and the bower), anubhāva-s (the external manifestations of emotions such as the movement of the eye-brows, glances and smile) and the vyabhicāribhāva-s (accessory moods) which come and go helping in the manifestation of the rasa). Bharata mentions eight dominant emotional moods, or sthāyibāva-s, that may be aroused by a dramatic representation into the state of aesthetic pleasure.1 These are rati (love), hāsa (laughter), śōka (sorrow), krōdha (anger), utsāha (energy), bhaya (fear), jugupsā (repugnance) and vismaya (wonder); the rasa-s corresponding to these are respectively called śṛṅgāra, hāsya, karuṇa, raudra, vīra, bhayānaka, bībatsa and adbhuta. Later writers accept a nineth rasa called śānta corresponding to the sthāyibāva of nirvēda (detachment). Really the rasa or the aesthetic pleasure derived from literature is one and the same in all cases; the division into various rasa-s is based on the difference in the sthāyibāva-s which contribute to the rasa- s. This rasa is a condition produced in the spectator, is a single feeling and a pleasurable one”. (p.286- 287 Indian Theories of Meaning, by K Kunjunni Raja)
Dr. V Premalatha, Department of Music, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur , “Rasa and Kāla of Rāgas, by V Premalatha,” MusicResearchLibrary, accessed October 22, 2024, http://musicresearchlibrary.net/omeka/items/show/2287.
Tip: find more in-depth studies here: https://musicresearchlibrary.net >>
“Music Research Library is a collection of publicly accessible and downloadable electronic resources related to Indian Music organized into various collections. These include manuscripts, articles, books, periodicals, source texts and teaching resources.”
