What I find really interesting about this is that, in a certain sense, it doesn’t matter at all. It is entirely possible to take the categories we are presented with unquestioningly, and use them to structure our appreciation of Carnatic music — indeed, that is precisely what pretty much everybody in the audience had done until today. Of what use, then, is such historical investigation?

This question is of immense importance, not just for the relatively obscure field of South Indian classical melodic structures, but for the entirety of the South Asian (and hence South Asian American) effort to make sense of our heritage. For a variety of reasons (largely attributable, in my opinion, to the epistemic rupture caused by colonialism), we have been cut off from older ways of thinking and living, and are hence struggling to make sense of our past as we march towards the future. The question we need to ask ourselves, as TMK has done in this field, is very simple: does history matter? Do our past customs and traditions mean something to us? Are they worth preserving and investigating?

I should clarify that there are two things that can be meant by “disregarding” history.

1. The first is to actually believe that all the categories we use to understand the world, all the texts we have, everything we call “culture” or “tradition”, are eternal and unchanging. This view is deeply problematic and leads to severe, crippling misunderstandings of our past and therefore our present. This is not what I’m talking about here.
2. I’m more interested in the second possibility: that we acknowledge our past, accept that things were different and things have changed and things will change, but then consciously decide that there is no present relevance to studying the past. This is more like saying, “sure, R.D. Burman’s music came before A.R. Rahman’s and may have influenced it, but I’d much rather listen just to ARR, or for that matter, to that new DJ in that new up-and-coming club down the street.”

The second choice is a historically conscious choice to choose to disregard the effects of our past on our present and our future. And it will have moral, ethical, political, even aesthetic consequences. (Well, most things do, but you’d need history to tell you that!) What are those consequences, and are we okay with them?

I’m curious to know what y’all think about this matter. I’ve been thinking about other formulations of this question off and on for a while now, and those of you who know me probably know where I stand on the matter I’d love to hear from you all.

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Behold, you fools! You search for a thousand Gods… Will you not listen to the many thousand scriptures that describe consciousness (lit. wisdom) as the real god? Will you not listen to those who say that such consciousness is the real Shiva? Or will your pride be destroyed only after stumbling through frenzied religions? All such states are ones filled with Parasakthi. This state of peace is the state of Vedanta; this has been experienced by the wise. Such consciousness is the soul of everything that exists. Slowly, the number of Gods have grown, but have been reduced to mere stories, and several fake religions have been inspired — how do you not see it?

And the actual text:

ஆயிரந் தெய்வங்கள் உண்டென்று தேடி
    அலையும் அறிவிலிகாள் ! - பல்
லாயிரம் வேதம் அறிவொன்றே தெய்வமுண்
    டாமெனல் கேளீரோ ?

மாடனைக் காடனை வேடனைப் போற்றி
    மயங்கும் மதியிலிகாள் ! - எத
னூடும்நின் றோங்கும் அறிவென்றே தெய்வமென்
    றோதி யறியிரோ ?

சுத்த அறிவே சிவமென்று கூறுஞ்
    சுருதிகள் கேளீரோ ? - பல
பித்த மதங்களி லேதடு மாறிப்
    பெருமை யழிவீரோ ?

வேடம்பல் கோடியொர் உண்மைக் குளவென்று
    வேதம் புகன்றிடுமே - ஆங்கோர்
வேடத்தை நீருண்மை யென்றுகொள் வீரென்றவ்
    வேத மறியாதே.

நாமம்பல் கோடியொர் உண்மைக் குளவென்று
    நான்மறை கூறிடுமே - ஆங்கோர்
நாமத்தை நீருண்மை யென்று கொள் வீரென்றந்
    நான்மறை கண்டிலதே.

போந்த நிலைகள் பலவும் பராசக்தி
    பூணு நிலையாமே - உப
சாந்த நிலையே வேதாந்த நிலையென்று
    சான்றவர் கண்டனரே.

கவலை துறந்திங்கு வாழ்வது வீடென்று
    காட்டும் மறைகளெலாம் - நீவிர்
அவலை நினைந்துமி மெல்லுதல் போலிங்கு
    அவங்கள் புரிவீரோ ?

உள்ள தனைத்திலும் உள்ளொளி யாகி
    ஒளிர்ந்திடும் ஆன்மாவே - இங்கு,
கொள்ளற் கரிய பிரமமென் றேமறை
    கூவுதல் கேளீரோ ?

மெள்ளப் பலதெய்வம் கூட்டி வளர்த்து
    வெறுங் கதைகள் சேர்த்துப் - பல
கள்ள மதங்கள் பரப்புதற் கோர்மறை
    காட்டவும் வல்லீரோ ?

ஒன்று பிரம முளதுண்மை யஃதுன்
    உணர்வெனும் வேதமெலாம் - என்றும்
ஒன்ரு பிரம முள துண்மை யஃதுன்
    உணர்வெனக் கொள்வாயே.

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There is much to be said; Carnatic music is as old as the vedas, and I shall not even attempt to try to summarize three thousand years of tradition in three hundred words. That said, it serves us well to briefly survey the roots of carnatic music for a better understanding of what it denotes. Carnatic music stems directly from the sama veda, expanding from a three note chant to the framework that it has acquired today. This article describes, in great detail, the relation. It is said that “one of the yogic approaches that awakens the Kundalini is the naada or naadopasana or devotion through music.”

That is:

It is believed that the root of our spinal column, there is a chakra or stahanam (place/location). Starting from here and going up to the crown of a person’s head, Prana, passes through knots or granthis. There are three knots, Mooladhara Kshetra, Manipoora or Vishnu Granthi and Agnya chakra or Rudra granthi. The path, sound takes through these granthas is called srotha. And, the practice of taking the sound to the prana and achieving liberation is called nada yoga.

Since the vedas, several composers have contributed to the field, most notably the Trinity of Carnatic music.

Carnatic music has been inextricably intertwined with bhakti (or devotion), and most compositions are an expression of this bhakti. Some of the songs are associated with staggering displays of bhakti. For instance,

On Deepavali day,in the year 1835, Dikshithar performed puja as usual and asked his students to sing his song “Meenakshi Me Mudam” in the raga Gamakakriya. As his students sang the line Meena lochani pasa mochani ["The lotus-eyed one who liberates from worldly pleasures"], he raised his hands and saying Sive Pahi, ["Shiva! Protect me"] left his mortal coil.

Or, as Syama Shastri painfully cries out in his Maayamma (Ahiri, Adi):

mAyammAyani nE pilacitE mATlADarAdA – nAtO-ambA

When I am calling out to you Mother, why don’t you respond and speak to me?

Is it fair O Meenakshi, who else is there but you?

Arguably the most famous of the Trinity, Shree Tyagaraja writes in his krithi (song) Sangeeta Gnyaanamu bhakthi vina (Dhanyasi, Adi):

Sangeetha Gnyanamu Bhakti Vinaa Sanmaargama Galadhe Manasa

O Mind (“Manasa”)! Mere knowledge (“gnyanamu”) of music (“sangeetha”) without (“vinaa”) devotion (“bhakthi”) can never lead (“galadhe”) to the right (“san”) path (“maargamu”).

and that “there is no other way to salvation than knowledge of music integrated with unalloyed devotion.” In his Swara raaga sudhaa (Shankarabharanam, Adi), he states the same:

svara rAga sudhA rasayuta bhakti svargApavargamurA O manasA.

The validity of such a claim is obviously questionable, but regardless of whether you believe in his sentiment, the lyrical finesse of this sentiment is indeed admirable.

As Tyagaraja so eloquently puts it in his Nidhi Chaala Sukhama (Kalyani, Misra chaapu):

mamata bandhana yuta narastuti sukhamA surapati tyAgarAja nutuni kIrtana sukham

Is it not obviously the height of bliss to sing the glory of the eternal compassionate Lord, rather than flatter or praise a short-lived mortal bloated with arrogance and self conceit?

There is more:

In his composition, Sribapriya Sangeethopasana in Atana, he conjures up visions of the mind travellin in the swaras – “Sapthaswara Chaari” and melodic ragas manifesting themselves in delightful forms – “Ranjimpa chesedu ragambulu, manjulamagu navatarambulethi.” He stresses other and nearer terrestrial benefits of sangita gana – “Prema Bhakthi [devotion], Sujana Vathsalyamu [wealth], Srimath Ramaa vara Katakshamu [the blessing of Shri Rama], Nema Nishta Yasodhanamu” as the rewards of acquiring Sangita Sastra gnana.

Two weeks ago, I came across an equally endearing understanding of naadopaasana. Every year, as part of the Season, at the Margazhi Mahotsavam, artists pick a theme and base the concert on it. Usually, this involves a deity, composer, raagam, etc. For his concert this year, Shri TM Krishna, did not specify the theme beforehand; he sang about mountains, and love, and fishermen. Later he announced that the theme of his concert was bhakti and explained to a puzzled audience that bhakti doesn’t need a Rama or a Krishna, but that bhakti is an intrinsic quality that can take any form — it was bhakti regardless of what he sang about — whether that was mountains, or women, or love. For those who understand tamil, here is the clip (skip to ~5.00)!

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If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics,” Santayana wrote. What makes music and math so special? Math is unique among the sciences in that it describes itself. If we want to draw conclusions (theorems) about objects in some set S, then we must start off with statements (axioms, definitions, or more fundamental theorems) about objects in some superset of S. In other words, because mathematical proofs must be based on deductive reasoning, math is a closed system.

Similarly, music is different from all other art forms since it is also a closed system: the form and the medium are the same. When we create (i.e. either compose or perform) a piece of music, which, following Edgard Varèse, we loosely define as “organized sound”, we necessarily start off with smaller, constituent blocks of sound that we ourselves have produced for the explicit purpose of creating music. On the other hand, when we create a sculpture, which we can loosely define as “organized mass”, we do not necessarily start off which smaller, constituent blocks of form that we ourselves have produced for the explicit purpose of creating sculpture. The marble or bronze that might serve as our medium need not have been created specifically for our sculptures. Therefore, music is also a closed system; more precisely, music is closed under artistic purpose.

So why does music seem to draw out the spiritual in people, more so than other art forms? Eduard Hanslick, a conservative 19th century Austrian music critic, might argue that it is because music does not have to represent anything:

[T]he beautiful is not contingent upon nor in need of any subject introduced from without, but that it consists wholly of sounds artistically combined. The ingenious co-ordination of intrinsically pleasing sounds, their consonance and contrast, their flight and reapproach, their increasing and diminishing strength-this it is which, in free and unimpeded forms, presents itself to our mental vision. (Hanslick, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen, Chapter 3)

Stravinsky also subscribed to this school, claiming that “the form is everything. [The composer] can say nothing whatever about meanings” (Stravinsky, Expositions and Developments [quoted from Wikipedia]). On the other hand, a composer like Wagner would argue exactly the opposite:

“[The language of music] expresses altogether, and in full measure, the emotional content of the elemental human language, independently of our word-language, which has become purely an informational tool. (Wagner, Drei Operndichtungen nebst einer Mittheilung an seine Freunde [quoted in Weiss and Taruskin, Music in the Western World]).

On the one hand we have critics arguing that music is not representative at all; on the other we have critics arguing that music is hyper-representative of the deepest experiences of human emotion.

But perhaps these two sides are not so different after all. In both cases, music is transcending something, allowing us to go beyond the specificity of our daily routines. People have a habit of incessantly characterizing objects, categorizing them and thereby dividing and subdividing the world into some kind of overgrown, blinding taxonomy. Perhaps the thinking is that the more dimensions along which we can characterize an object, the better we can understand it. In both Hanslick’s and Wagner’s formulations, music allows us breaks free of our taxonomies.

Music is uniquely suited to this purpose precisely because it is a closed system. A closed (or complete) system generates itself while an open (or incomplete) system does not. I suspect that the temptation to try to complete an incomplete system is so strong that we run outward, away from the fundamental, generative principles at the heart of the system, and let our taxonomic tendencies run rampant. On the other hand, if we are given a complete system, we might try to run outward, but we are more likely to eventually return to the system’s core, if only for a brief moment of epiphany.

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There are so many different raags in Hindustani music that can be used to describe the different times of the day. What I have also realized is that if a morning type of raag, or a Sattvic raag, such as Bhoop or Mohanam in Carnatic (Sa Re Ga Pa Da Sa) at a medium pace, is played in the morning, the listener can truly enjoy the raag and his or her sattvic characteristics will be brought out. Similar is the case with the other times of the day — if one listens to Rajasic raags at a faster pace, during the Rajasic part of the day, it helps him or her maintain the energy need to perform the action. Also, if a Tamasic raag, such as Darbari Kanada or Todi at a slow pace, which have a combination of mellow notes, is played at night, it will help to calm the mind and body, getting them ready for sleep.

These direct relations between the raags and the times of the day form an important part of Hindustani music. Because of this, if one were to listen to a raag at a time other than its ideal period of the day, it will not have as much of an effect on the person. It may even have a negative effect at times.

However, in today’s world, we are exposed to so many types of music from all over the world. Along with that, there are countless different genres of music that are being introduced to us. Obviously if we are to listen to music, it won’t always be Hindustani or Carnatic classical music. From my own experiences with music and its effects at varying hours of the day, I have come to realize that the genres of music can also be related to each of the gunas.

Generally speaking, I’d like to think of all types of classical music to have Sattvic quality, which will enhance our spiritual self and also will inspire us with better thoughts for the day. When it comes to Rajasic music, there are so many different genres I can think of; pop, hip-hop, R&B. These genres, I feel, get our minds and bodies moving and excited, which will keep us energized for the day. Something interesting I realized, though, was that when I think of Tamasic music, I think of rap, heavy metal, rock and even techno to some extent. I kept wondering to myself why I thought of these genres to be Tamasic when I know that none of these types of songs help me go to sleep. I then realized that when I listen to Tamasic raags, not only is my body being put to sleep, but my spiritual body was being put to sleep as well. When I listen to the Tamasic genres, maybe the music puts my spiritual self to sleep while my body stays wide awake.

This is not to say that people that listen to a certain genre of music that is related to a certain guna is good or bad. However I feel that there is a time and place for each type of music. One wouldn’t want to listen to classical music while he or she is at the gym. And one wouldn’t want to listen to heavy metal while he or she is meditating or getting ready to go to the temple in the morning. We must know which music will be ideal for us depending on the situation and the time of the day. I feel that listening to certain types of music at certain times would not only help us grow spiritually to some extent, but also will help us be more productive and will give us the determination and motivation to get through the day.

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