The Samaveda, a sacred Hindu text dating to approximately 1000 BCE, is not merely a collection of hymns but a musical score where the very structure of the verses is designed to be sung. Unlike the Rigveda, which embeds musical meter without elaborate notation, the Samaveda organizes its content into two distinct formats based on musical meter and ritual aim, embedding a code of swaras directly into the text. These swaras, or octave notes, appear above or within the verses, acting as a skeletal framework that dictates which notes must be sung high and which must be low. This embedded coding system, known as parvans, represents one of the earliest known attempts to preserve music in written form, ensuring that the melodic content, rhythm, and metric organization of the hymns survived for millennia. The tradition of Indian classical music is fundamentally rooted in these sonic dimensions, where the music has been nearly always religious in character, serving as a bridge between the human and the divine through the sonic and musical dimensions of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Agamas.
The Theory of Bharata Muni
Before the classical traditions of India could flourish, they required a theoretical foundation, which arrived in the form of the Natyashastra, a classic Sanskrit text on performing arts attributed to Bharata Muni. This text, finalized between 200 BCE and 200 CE, established the four categories of musical instruments based on their acoustic principles rather than their material composition: chordophones, aerophones, idiophones, and membranophones. The chapter on idiophones, specifically the small bronze cymbals used for tala, became a theoretical treatise on the system of time-keeping that remains central to Indian music today. Bharata Muni's work classified the arts of syllabic recital, melos, and dance into a distinct genre called Sangeeta, which likely occurred before the time of Yaska, a scholar who included these terms in his nirukta studies. The centrality and significance of music in ancient India are further expressed in numerous temple and shrine reliefs, such as the fifth-century Pavaya temple sculpture near Gwalior and the Ellora Caves, which depict musicians with cymbals, proving that the art form was deeply embedded in the cultural and religious life of the subcontinent long before the medieval era.
The Ocean of Music and Dance
The definitive text that systematized the structure, technique, and reasoning behind ragas and talas is the Sangitaratnakara, written by Sarngadeva in the early 13th century. Patronized by King Sighana of the Yadava dynasty in Maharashtra, this Sanskrit text identifies seven tala families and subdivides them into rhythmic ratios, presenting a methodology for improvisation and composition that continues to inspire modern musicians. The Sangitaratnakara is one of the most complete historic medieval era Hindu treatises on this subject to have survived into the modern era, relating to the structure, technique, and reasoning behind ragas and talas. It serves as the definitive text for both the Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions, bridging the gap between ancient theory and contemporary practice. The text discusses the Murchana system and the evolution of regional music forms, providing a comprehensive review of the musical landscape of the time. While many original works on Indian music are believed to be lost, the Sangitaratnakara stands as a testament to the sophistication of Indian musical thought, influencing scholars and musicians for centuries.
The classical music tradition of the ancient and medieval Indian subcontinent was a generally integrated system through the 14th century, after which the socio-political turmoil of the Delhi Sultanate era isolated the north from the south. The music traditions of the North and South India were not considered distinct until about the 16th century, but after that, the traditions acquired distinct forms. North Indian classical music is called Hindustani, while the South Indian expression is called Carnatic. The North Indian tradition acquired its modern form after the 14th or 15th century, influenced by the Persian Rāk, which is likely a pronunciation of Raga, and the development of instruments such as the sitar and sarod. In contrast, Carnatic music developed further natively after this divergence, becoming a form from the south of the subcontinent that was distinct after Hindustani music was established. This split was not merely geographical but cultural, with the Muslim courts in the north discouraging Sanskrit and encouraging technical music, leading Hindustani music to evolve in a different way than Carnatic music.
The Father of Carnatic Music
Purandara Dasa, a Hindu composer and musicologist who lived in Hampi of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1484 to 1564, is considered the Pithamaha, or great father, of Carnatic music. He was a monk and a devotee of the Hindu god Krishna, and he systematized classical Indian music theory, developing exercises for musicians to learn and perfect their art. His teachings about raga and his systematic methodology called Suladi Sapta Tala, or primordial seven talas, remain in use in contemporary times. Purandara Dasa traveled widely, sharing and teaching his ideas, and influenced numerous South Indian and Maharashtra Bhakti movement musicians. The efforts of Purandara Dasa in the 16th century began the Carnatic style of Indian classical music, which tends to be more rhythmically intensive and structured than Hindustani music. His work laid the foundation for the logical classification of ragas into melakartas and the use of fixed compositions similar to Western classical music, establishing a tradition that would be further developed by later scholars like Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar, and Syama Sastri.
The Court of Akbar and Tansen
The development of Hindustani music reached a peak during the reign of Akbar, the Mughal emperor who ruled in the 16th century. Tansen, a musician who studied music and introduced musical innovations for about the first sixty years of his life with the patronage of the Hindu king Ram Chand of Gwalior, later performed at the Muslim court of Akbar. Many musicians consider Tansen as the founder of Hindustani music, and his style and innovations inspired many modern gharanas, or teaching houses, to link themselves to his lineage. The Muslim courts discouraged Sanskrit and encouraged technical music, which led Hindustani music to evolve in a different way than Carnatic music. Tansen's legacy is so profound that the identities of teachers, their own teachers, and their association with gharanas are often traced back to him, creating a genealogical link to one of the early great figures of music. The Hindustani style is mainly found in North India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and prior to the Taliban's ban on music, it also had a strong presence in Afghanistan.
The Art of Improvisation and Raga
Improvisation is of central importance to Hindustani music, and each gharana has developed its own techniques, starting with a standard composition called bandish and expanding it in a process called vistar. The improvisation methods have ancient roots, and one of the more common techniques is called Alap, which is followed by the Jor and Jhala. The Alap explores possible tonal combinations, the Jor explores speed or tempo, and the Jhala explores complex combinations like a fishnet of strokes while keeping the beat patterns. A raga is not a tune, because the same raga can yield a very large number of tunes, nor is it a scale, because many ragas can be based on the same scale. Instead, a raga is a concept similar to mode, something between the domains of tune and scale, and it is best conceptualized as a unique array of melodic features mapped to and organized for a unique aesthetic sentiment in the listener. The goal of a raga and its artist is to create rasa, or mood, atmosphere, and essence, with music, as classical Indian dance does with performance arts.
The Global Resonance of Indian Music
In 1958, Ravi Shankar came to the United States and started making albums, which started a 1960s penchant for Indian classical music in the States. By 1967, Shankar and other artists were performing at rock music festivals alongside Western rock, blues, and soul acts, and he performed at Woodstock for an audience of over 500,000 in 1969. The tradition has seen rapid growth in reception and development around the globe, particularly in North America, where immigrant communities have preserved and passed on classical music traditions to subsequent generations through the establishment of local festivals and music schools. Numerous musicians of American origin, including Ramakrishnan Murthy, Sandeep Narayan, Pandit Vikash Maharaj, Abby V, and Mahesh Kale, have taken professionally to Indian Classical Music with great success. Since 2023, the UK-based arts organization KalaSudha has presented the Kala Festival, a touring celebration of Indian classical music across major British cities, featuring leading Hindustani and Carnatic musicians, ensuring that the ancient traditions continue to evolve and resonate with new audiences.