Cidābhāsa - Conciousness Reflected .. [Apparently]

Vecchestar tiruppatikam - Shifting Tevaram Geographies

2011-12-09T00:43:00.001-05:00

A poetic excursion into how the geographic cultural references to the Tevaram would change if set in North America. Patikam is a group of ten songs that appar, cuntarar and campantar usually composed at a pilgrimage spot on Siva.

The West Chester Tiruppatikam in Tamil

Indic Unfunnies

2011-11-11T22:29:00.001-05:00

There are plenty of subject jokes, funny oneliners in various other subject areas even Karnataka sangita. Somehow the field of indology and indic studies has remained rather humorless. So here is a beginning:
More to come..

1.What is a naiyāyika's favorite Tamizh movie? guṇā

2.What did śankara say to the abominable snowman? Yeti Yeti
3.Why was the vyākaraṇa paṇdita never offered coffee. Because he declined it.
4. Why did the kāsmira śaiva love Halloween? Because he could trika treat.
5.Who is an advaita vedantins least favorite poet? Maya Angelou

6.What did pāṇini do when the other grammarians asked too many questions?

He became a grilled panini

7.What do you call a tortilla chip that defies death? Nachoketas.

8.Which are the smallest set of sūtra-s. Jai'mini' Sūtra-s.

PaniniPress

2011-10-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

Lunch time thoughts..

Vegetarianism and the Rāmāyaṇa-s

2011-10-05T15:27:00.003-04:00

In the Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa, in the conversation between sīta and rāvaṇa (3-47-22:3-47-23), she seats him and tells him that her husband would be back with the meat after hunting.

samāśvasa muhūrtam tu śakyam vastum iha tvayā || 3-47-22
āgamiṣyati me bhartā vanyam ādāya puṣkalam |
rurūn godhān varāhān ca hatvā ādāya amiṣān bahu || 3-47-23

The rāma household depicted here was obviously not a vegetarian one. On the other hand, here is a scene from the Kamparāmāyaṇa where Kampan depicts the following conversation between Guha and Rāma where Guha offers him honey and fish and Rāma accepts it saying that even though they are not generally acceptable as pure he accepts it owing to the spirit with which they were offered.

இருத்தி ஈண்டு’ என்னலோடும்
     இருந்திலன்; எல்லை நீத்த
அருந்தியன், ‘தேனும் மீனும்
     அமுதினுக்கு அமைவது ஆகத்
திருத்தினென் கொணர்ந்தேன்; என்கொல்
     திருஉளம்?’ என்ன, வீரன்
விருத்த மாதவரை நோக்கி முறுவலன்,
     விளம்பலுற்றான்;

அரிய, தாம் உவப்ப, உள்ளத்து அன்பினால் அமைந்த காதல்
தெரிதரக் கொணர்ந்த என்றால், அமிழ்தினும் சீர்த்த அன்றே?
பரிவினின் தழீஇய என்னின் பவித்திரம்; எம்மனோர்க்கும்
உரியன; இனிதின் நாமும் உண்டனெம் அன்றோ?' என்றான்.

Now, This is not obviously the same Rāma who is hunting varāha-s in the forest. In the Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa, Guha merely offers cooked rice to Rāma and he refuses it on the grounds that he is here to live in the lifestyle of an ascetic forest-wanderer eating fruits and vegetables and whatever else he can find.

What could be the cultural difference in these portrayals? One is the presence and influence of Jainism in the South and the influences and tenets of that religion has permeated the cultural moorings. By the time of Kampan, and even in the Tirukkuraḻ, meat eating or pulāl uṇṇutal was not considered a good trait, let alone a divine trait. The other aspect may be that caste differences may have permeated more in society.

A useful toolkit

2011-09-08T18:53:00.001-04:00

A very useful website. I have used the grantha script tutorial there. I found the Tamizh prosody analyzer avalokitam useful too.

http://virtualvinodh.com/avalokita

On wikipedia and the validity of its pramāṇa-s

2011-08-08T11:04:00.000-04:00

Came across this interesting article in the NY Times on "redefining knowledge" at Wikipedia. Perhaps I am reading too much into this but this line seemed to me straight out of a philosophical debate.

The idea of treating personal testimony as a source for Wikipedia is still controversial.

The permanence of a definition

2011-08-01T16:47:00.001-04:00

When a śāstra is written at a point-in-time, a the writer attempts to provide us with some definitions. One wonders what their criteria is when defining these terms. The definition must first be broad enough but not too broad, narrow but narrow enough and if thought is given to whether such a definition stands the test of time. In some cases it seems they are and in other cases they are not.

For example, the famous broad definition of 'rāga' as "rañjako jana cittānām" is often criticized as being vague.

Yet, the validity and relevance of this definition till date is perhaps because it did not limit the notion based on its contemporaneous understanding - which obviously has changed since the time of Mataṅga. By the same token, one also wonders why does Annambhaṭṭa in the tarka saṅgraha not define 'sneha' as simply संयोग विशेष गुणः स्नेहः? One could even define sneha as the hetu for a samyoga viśeṣa. Instead he defines it as चूर्णादिपिण्डीभावहेतुर्गुणः स्नेहः । जलमात्रवृत्तिः".

Why does one need to bring in an example in a definition when a simple definition could suffice? One wonders
if this is perhaps to justify the बालानां सुखबोधाय in his invocation. An example does simplify a definition but in this case it also seems to limit the definition. I am even more puzzled by the second half of this ie जलमात्र वृत्तिः

Sarvatantra svatantra

2011-07-27T00:17:00.001-04:00

Thanks to a wonderful teacher, last winter I was introduced to śrīstuti and hamsasandeśa of Vedānta Deśika. I am awestruck by the way he has straddled various śāstra-s and wears different hats when dealing with them - whether it is the terse epistemological treatment or when writing simpler stotras or the lilting bits of prose and prākrta that appears in his allegorical play saṃkalpa sūryodaya - (the viśiṣṭādvaita equivalent of kṛṣṇa miśra's prabhodha candrodaya). Then we have elegant and skilful poems rivalling that of līlāśuka in the yadavābhyudaya. It is no wonder that he was known by the epithet sarvatantra svatantra. So much so that someone like Appayya Dīkśita felt impelled to write a vyākhya to his yadavābhyudaya kāvya. And this is the verse that talks about the episode leading to Rukmiṇī pariṇaya.

prasādabhājaḥ pratinirgatāṃ tāṃ 
prasādato vāsavavallabhāyāḥ
samagraśaktissamayopayātaḥ
prāṇeśvarīṃ prāptimiyeṣa śauriḥ

tattat tanatāna tattat tanatāna

2011-07-23T00:10:00.001-04:00

An attempt at a meter similar to the Tiruppukazh "aRRaikkirai tedi athaththilu māsai'

tattat tanatāna tattat ... tanatāna
tattat tanatāna tattat ... tanatānā..

தத்தத் தனதான தத்தத் ...... தனதான
தத்தத் தனதான தத்தத் ...... தனதானா

சொத்தைக் குறியாக வைத்துத் தடுமாறி
வித்தைப் பலதேடி எத்தித் திரி வாரே
பத்திப் பலபாடி நித்தத் தவமாக
முத்தித் தருநாடி சுத்தித் திரி வாரே
எத்தைச் சரி யாக எத்தைப் பிழை யாக
வைத்து கருதாது பித்துப் பிடித் தேனே!

cottaik kuṟiyāka vaittut taṭumāṟi
vittaip palatēṭi ettit tiri vārē
pattip palapāṭi nittat tavamāka
muttit tarunāṭi cuttit tiri vārē
ettaic cari yāka ettaip piḻai yāka
vaittu karutātu pittup piṭit tēṉē!
ettaic cariyāka ettaip pizhai yāka
vaittuk karutāta pittup piḍittene

aRuvakai camayattor

2011-07-15T00:17:00.002-04:00

umāpati's civajñāna cittiyār begins with the maṅgala vāzttu,

அறுவகை சமயத் தோர்க்கும் அவ்வவர் பொருளாய் வேறாம்
குறியது உடைத்தாய், வேதா கமங்களின் குறியி றந்து , அங்கு
அறிவினி லருளால் மன்னி அம்மையோடு அப்பன் ஆகி
செறிவொழி யாது நின்ற சிவனடி சென்னி வைப்பாம்

aṟuvakai camayat tōrkkum avvavar poruḷāy vēṟām
kuṟiyatu uṭaittāy, vētā kamaṅkaḷiṉ kuṟiyi ṟantu , aṅku
aṟiviṉi laruḷāl maṉṉi ammaiyōṭu appaṉ āki
ceṟivoḻi yātu niṉṟa civaṉaṭi ceṉṉi vaippām

In the first line, aṟuvakai camayattorkkum avvavar poruḻāy veṟām, by the term "aṟuvakai camayattor" is not meant the ṣaṇmata-s but the six classifications seen in the śaiva siddhānta within the framevork of akam,akampuṟam, akappuṟam and puṟappuṟam.

So what are these six kinds of sects?

puṟappuṟam(outer outer): lokāyata, the four kinds of bauddha, ārhata( Jainism)
puṟam (outer): tarka, mīmāṃsa, ekātmavāda, sāṅkhya, yoga, pāñcarātra
akappuṟam (inner outer): pāśupata, mahāvrata, kāpāla, vāma, bhairava and aikyavāda śaiva

akam (inner) - pāṣāṇavāda śaivam, bhedavāda śaivam, śivasamavāda śaivam,

śivasankrānta vāda śaiva, īśvara avikāravāda śaivam
and śivāttuvita śaivam

The civajñāna māpātiyam is cited as the source for this list. I wonder if there is a precedence for or existence of such a classificatory system in the Sanskrta tradition and texts elsewhere or if this classificatory scheme is unique to the śaivasiddhānta traditions..

Of definitions and Redefinitions

2011-06-27T00:25:00.005-04:00

In saṅgīta śāstra, the term gīti was used in two different connotations. Bharata uses gīti in the sense of melodic flow in a composition with different types being māgadhi, ardhamāgadhi etc and ṃataṅga was using the same term in a completely different sense in his treatment of grāma rāga-s. This notion of contextual and temporal redefinition of technical terms seems to prevail in śāstra spanning across subject matter, authors, epochs. It appears to be a fundamental assumption of Indian textual authorities that when they write a śāstra they are at liberty to redefine or rather repurpose technical terms to suit their needs. Thus you have "guṇa" in vyākaraṇa used as a technical term, being re-purposed in sānkhya and mīmāṃsa to mean something else. And multiple interpretations of the same term 'advaita' with everyone from vedāntin-s, siddhāntin-s, śivasamavādin-s, tāntrika-s defining their term to fit their epistemological worldview. Now, if one were to imagine such a parallel in modern science or Physics or one of the other exact sciences - Let us say that for a moment that the term 'mass' would be defined by every other scientist
and one has to make assumptions based on the text one is reading, the author one is reading to understand which 'm' is being referred to. One also wonders if this were the main reason behind the whole genre of paribhāṣa literature,kośā-s,nighaṇṭu-s and lexicons to provide some contextual scope in the definitions of these terms. I understand that there is a nāṭaka paribhāṣa which is a part of the rasa ratnākara but I have not seen such a genre of literature in the world of saṅgīta śāstra per se. All of this makes one ask: "But Why?"


Why did an ancient author feel the need to redefine and reuse a 
technical term rather than define a new term. If as a treatise

writer your objective is to bring clarity amidst conflicting views
as rāmāmātya states why not create brand new terms and begin with 
a clean slate?

a One  reason I could think of is that a term is already 
well-established in the minds of the intended audience and makes 
it easy to establish your new theory by just expanding their 
definition and saying, "What was meant by "A" is not just "A"

it also means something more".

b.Yet another outcome of the previous case would be that your term
then gets sastraic sanction - the nod of the pūrvācārya-s - the 
authorities and sages that lived before you.

c.Another reason is that in some cases there is a logical 
continuity in concepts. For example terms such as tāna and 
mūrccana across texts from different periods were not really that 
different concepts but evolution of terms in accordance to

contemporaneous understanding of the term.

d.And there is yet another possibility where the term may be 
prevailing in one region and the author is only bringing it over 
or the author merely records the term in śāstra from its 
interpretation and popular use in prayoga.

If I were a treatise writer I would choose to define a new term

rather than re-purpose a term except in Case b. What would you do
and in which case?

Search engines and their assumptions

2011-06-25T11:45:00.001-04:00

I was looking for a page on kroḍapatra-s that I had bookmarked. And entered 'krodapatra' in the search box and this is when the search engine decided on my behalf that I am actually searching for the name of a wizard in a game. And then helpfully asked me if I did indeed mean what I typed...

On theoritical mīmāmsaka-s

2011-06-22T00:44:00.001-04:00

Flipping through the pages of the mīmāṃsa paribhāṣa prompted me to revisit this question on a

darśana about which my current understanding is very little.

Is it possible for any scholar, philosopher, student even a casual one such as myself ie those outside of traditional learning environments to get a sound and comprehensive understanding of the school of pūrva mīmāṃsa? This is especially relevant in a system where all of the contexts and analogies it employs involves rituals, their modes and performance methods? And even if one argues that they are concerned only with the epistemological bases and the conceptual undertsanding of these examples and terminology, not being able to understand this huge centrality of sacrifices, rituals, prescriptions and injunctions that the system revolves around seems to leave a large hole in the exploration of this subject.
Even as late as the eighties, I have (over)heard/seen some scholars who perform these rituals, are aware of what the text says and then interpret them. In my mind it makes sense to actually understand and know the "steps in Sacrifice A or understand the specifics on say agniṣṭoma when an explanation of the term uses this as an example. That does not however mean that they actually perform the ritual but understand the steps involved in its performance. For example: Can someone who has not seen the 'samit' understand an example about say the tying of the samit?
I am not talking about vague terms such as faith and belief or adhikāra or even requiring a mīmāmsa expert to be able to perform sacrifices but I am talking about whether the procedures of these rituals are recorded, observed and understood so that the study of a system is comprehensive and does not stop with disconnected textual learning and how these are taught, studied and researched in academia.
Of course it could be argued that the same principle applies to āgamas but I do believe there is a better understanding, documentation in the form of notebooks, recordings of rituals that are conducted today in temples and these when read together with the paddhatis atleast fit to gether like a puzzle even if some pieces are missing. Can we say the same thing about Pūrva Mīmāṃsa?

vādi samvādi patriarchy!

2011-06-21T00:37:00.002-04:00

Vādi and Samvādi form the two main pillars of a building. In a family the wife and children of the master of a house though inferior in rank to the master are superior to the servants so also samvādi svaram is superior to anuvādi.

Source: 1913 conference report read out by M.R.Ry. P.V.Krishnaswamy Iyer Avergal, Vakil Tanjore, The Tanjore Sangeetha Vidhya Mahajana Sangam, 4th Quarterly Report, Held on Saturday, the 9th August , 1913

Pt Gopinath Kaviraj - ATribute

2011-06-11T10:28:00.005-04:00

35 years ago today, the world incurred a huge loss in learning, scholarship and wisdom. The remarkable fact about this loss was that this erudition existed within the mind of one individual - Pandit Gopinath Kaviraj
(7 September 1887 - 12 June 1976). Today, June 12th 1976 marks the 35th death anniversary of Pandit Gopinath Kaviraj one of the foremost thinkers, mystics and tāntrika/śaiva/śākta philosophers and upāsaka-s India has ever produced.

He was born in Bangladesh in 1887 and completed his BA at Jaipur. He arrived in Vāraṇāśi the place which was to be his home for a long time to come in 1910 and completed his MA at the University of Allahabad. He began his career as a librarian under the guidance of Dr.Arthur Venis at the Sarasvati Bhavan Library and then taught at the Post-Vedic studies department. He served the Saraswati Bhavan as Librarian for six years (1914-1920) and then was appointed Principal of the Government College of Sanskrit which later on came to be known as the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University. After a stint of 17 years, he voluntarily retired in 1937 to pursue research. Many are the texts he has edited as the chief editor of the Sarasvati Bhavana. He was awarded the title of 'ṃahamahopādhyāya' and soon other honors like the Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and the Sahitya Academy Award in Sanskrit followed.

His comprehensive vision straddled the various darśanas and schools of philosophy and thus his writings spanned a huge range of subjects including but not limited to ṣākta, tantra, śaiva, nyāya-vaiśeṣika, pāśupata, nāthasiddhānta, vaiyākaraṇa.A brief survey of his life and work and his approach to various philosophical systems and subsystems fills us with the same kind of awe we experience when we encounter the mind of ācārya Abhinavagupta. His work has guided many a scholar. Many scholars like Jaideva Singh owe their interest in Kashmiri Saivism through Pandit Gopinath Kaviraj. Musicologist and Scholar Dr.Prem Lata Sharma acknowledges his role in enabling her understanding and interpretation of some words and concepts that occurs in musicological texts such as the Bṛhaddeśi. One of his students, Prof.Debabrata Sen Sharma, in "ṃahamahopādhyāya Dr. Gopinath Kaviraj, My Teacher: As I Saw Him", calls him a "seeker of truth" and says that Kavirajji would describe himself as "merely an explorer of the realms of consciousness". He is further described as "a rare and unique person who combined in himself a wonderful scholarship with a deep spiritual realisation, and, for this reason, he was regarded people as a "living Viśvanātha" in the holy town of Vāraṇāśī".

Several of his writings and articles appeared in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute and were later compiled and edited in the form of books. He edited several diverse works in the Sarasvati Bhavana series including the bhedaratna, sapiṇḍyakalpalatika, ānandakanda champu, siddhāntaratna, nyāyakaustubha, tattvasāra, vratakośa, upanidānasūtra to name a few. The one aspect that distinguishes him from the regular academician was that he was a seeker and an upāsaka too. For him, philosophy and religion and these ideas were a way of life and not something that had to be analyzed purely by letter for he learnt the scriptures under the likes of inspired personages like śivarāmakinkara yogatrayānanda and was initated in yoga by Svāmi Viśuddhānanda paramahamsa.

His introduction to the philosophy of the Tripura Tantra for example explains the value systems he holds with regard to the philosophical subsystems and the motivations for continuous research and study..

It is a truism that every system of theocratic culture in India has behind it a consistently evolved system of philosophic thought. It is difficult, in the present state of our knowledge, to give a definite idea of the number of such systems in ancient and mediaeval times and even of the extent of literature comprised under each. Continued progress in researches in this field is likely to yield fresh materials favourable to the better understanding of the true history and philosophic value of these systems. The work known under the name of "Tripurā rahasya (jñāna khāṇḍa)" forms indeed a highly important document in the history of Indian Philosophy, so far as the system of a section of the śākta Tantra is concerned, and should be appreciated from that point of view.

Some of his other insightul pieces include his writing on the yogini hrdaya, the writings of the gorakṣanātha and needless to say his extraordinary understanding of some of the terms of tantra, śaiva, trika as well. In his collection of essays on "Aspects of Indian thought", the essay on the doctrine of "pratibha" includes an overview and analysis of how the word along with prajña has been used in various schools of philosophy and how while the Buddhist texts have the word prajña both these terms are conspicuously absent in Jaina works. And while talking about what the vyākaraṇa school says, he writes the following,

The world of phenomena, when analysed, exhibits a perpetual flux,which may be said in some sense to be cyclic. Motion begins from the unmanifest and ends in the unmanifest - and the two moments of appearance and disappearance of a phenomonent represent only the two opposite directions, anuloma and pratiloma, of the same wheel of movement (pariṇāma)

Obscure philosophical terms such as 'nirmāṇakāya' sprang to life through his writings illuminating the minds of generations of students. One of my favorite essays of his include, "Kaivalya and its place in dualistic tāntric culture".

One of the earliest struggles a philosophical newbie encounters when reading some of the Sanskrit and Tamil works in śaiva was to understand the position of various schools with respect to the term Kaivalya and how it is treated differently from the idea of 'mukti'. Subsequent to those struggles, a few years later, I read this essay and was struck by the fact that Kaviraj's introduction captures that difficulty right at the beginning of his essay,

A close student of Indian philosophy cannot fail to be struck with the apparently anomalous attitude of certain schools of thought towards what is usually considered to be the highest object of spiritual pursuit of man, viz. kaivalya. The vaiśṇavas, the śaivas, the śāktas - in fact, most of the philosophical systems connected with some form of āgamic culture - refer to it, as it was conceived in sāṅkhya and allied systems, as it were a thing not worthy of our higher quest.

He then begins with the sāṅkhya thought and goes onto explain the idea of how kaivalya and mukti differ in the theology of the vaiśṇavas and the pāśupatas and then states the siddhāntin's position of how the removal of mala is effected through kriyā alone through the instrument of dīkṣa.

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes - In many ways we are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Though we may not have an enduring vision to see as far as they could and learn as much as they did, it behoves us as a generation to atleast get a glimpse of this wisdom and knowledge that a galaxy of scholars before us fathomed us with ease.

Some day, when I retire from the mad rush of deliveries, deadlines and the rush of adrenaline that my day job offers me, I have made myself a promise to go to Vāraṇāśi and visit these libraries that have seen the imprints in time of these glorious minds.

muhanāprāsāntyaprāsa vyavastha

2011-05-24T23:09:00.003-04:00

muhanāprāsāntyaprāsa vyavastha is the work of svāti tirunāḻ on prosody as it

applies to musical compositions. It is a short work in prose and thanks to 
Dr.P.P.Narayanaswami and Prof.R.Tirunarayanan the Sanskrit and the English

translation are available.

Visualizing eka nemim trivrutam

2011-05-18T00:41:00.000-04:00

तमेकनेमिं त्रिवृतं षोडशान्तं शतार्धारं विंशतिप्रत्यराभिः

अष्टकैः षड्भर्विश्वरुपैकपाशं त्रिमार्गभेदं द्विनिमित्तैकमोहं

While reading the Śvetāśvatara upaniṣad, I wanted to make an attempt at structurally visualizing this description. It would have been easier to write some code that generates such a wheel but decided a drawig would do for now. I ran into difficulties trying to represent this in the wheel once I labelled the hub and the three divisions of the three gunas. The three mārgas, the eka nemi, the trivrta are simple enough. Even if we assume 50 spokes, how does one represent the counter-spokes and other numbers here I wonder.

May be this needs some three-dimensional modelling?

Speechless in song

2011-05-14T22:10:00.004-04:00

A beautiful rendering of the Ahiri navavaranam of Muttusvami Dikshitar by Pattamadai Sundaram Iyer. "ka" is commonly used as the word for Brahma. But this is the first place where I have seen "kA" being used to mean Sarasvati. One never tires of hearing the magical way he sings the Charanam.

श्रीमात्रे नमस्ते चिन्मात्रे सेवितरमाहरिकाविधात्रे
वामादि शक्ति पूजित परदेवतायाः सकलं जातं
कामादि द्वादशभिरुपासित कादिहादिसादिमन्त्ररुपिण्याः
प्रेमास्पद शिवगुरुगुहजनन्यां
प्रीतियुक्त मच्चित्तं विलयतु
ब्रह्ममय प्रकाशिनि नामरूप विमर्शिनि
कामकला प्रदर्शिनि सामरस्य निदर्शिनि

Tribute

2011-04-25T13:08:00.002-04:00

Writing this tribute article helped me understand how much her music meant to me. One of those rare 'na bhUto na bhavishyati" type of people!

http://solvanam.com/?p=14406

अनुत्तराष्टिका

2011-04-20T19:53:00.000-04:00

A couple of favorite verses from Abhinavagupta's अनुत्तराष्टिका. What a lovely and complex word
अनुत्तरा is - Beyond which there is nothing. The unsurpassable, the absolute and the ultimate.

संक्रामोत्र न भावना न च कथायुक्तिर्न चर्चा न च
ध्यानं वा न च धारणा न च जपाभ्यासप्रयासो न च
तात्किं नाम सुनिश्चितं वद परं सत्यं च तच्छ्रूयतां
न त्यागी न परिग्रही भज सुखं सर्वं यथावस्थितः

पूजापूजकपूज्यभेदसरणिः केयं कथानुत्तरे
संक्रामः किल कस्य केन विदधे को वा प्रवेशक्रमः
मायेयं न चिदद्वयात परतया भिन्नाप्यहो वर्तते
सर्वं स्वानुभवस्वभावविमलं चिन्तां वृथा मा कृथाः

artham?

2011-03-26T01:15:00.002-04:00

मध्यमस्वरमुशन्ति यद्वशान्नाद षट्कमुदितं श्रुतिक्रमात्
सोsपी यद्विलसितं कालात्मकं तं नमामि शिशिरांशु मण्डनं

किम् एतत् स्यात्? अभिनवगुप्ताचार्य एव जानाति...

I have been told that there are probably only two people in all of India who can actually explain the musicological and the philosophical purport of this verse in the Abhinavabharati.

The categorization gorilla

2011-03-17T22:48:00.000-04:00

It is a truism about Indic Texts and their authors that they loved to classify. The mind of these text writers seem to have revelled in the 'm' types of this and the 'n' sub-types of that. In the realm of Indian Music, various authors have taken to classifications of melodic entities in the form of rāga classifications. The early classifiers based theirs on grāma rāgas, jātis etc while later classifiers adopted other approaches. It is interesting to note that Northern texts and the Southern texts have taken rather different approaches to these classifications. The rāga-rāgini systems and the various definitions of rāga-families and iconography formed the bulk of the Northern texts in addition to the temporal and seasonal classification of rāgas which ended up being merely empirical classifications. And then there were the classifications based on scale-types, mela-based groupings and so on by writers such as Paṇḍarika Viṭṭhala and Somanātha. Rāmāmātya looked at the set of rāgas available before him , perhaps based on popularity and availability of extant compositions classified them somewhat whimsically as uttama, madhyama and adhama rāgas.

And then someone in the Tanjāvur region during the period of Shahāji decided to examine ragas in yet another scheme ie the melodic property of svaras in rāgas and classified them into ghana and naya(rakti). So this compiler looked at the existing base of rāgas, that were then current in the Tanjāvur area. Those ragas that limited and well-definied mobility around their svarasthānas became ghana rāgas. And those rāgas that had a wide variation primarily because their origins were based on well-known and well-established ingrained tunes became known as rakti rāgas.They found some that were"imports from other regions" and in various stages of adaptation and evolution. So anything that arrived from elsewhere (ie North of the Deccan region) ended up being labelled desya. Since these did not have a grammar defined anywhere, they had to use the melody as the basis to understand the grammar. Interestingly this classification seems to be absent in the North. The North Indian classifiers seem to have focused on the familial relationship, thāṭ-groupings, and iconographic representation rather than this kind of melodic grouping. I believe that this is perhaps because the "borrowals" and influences were not confined to a smaller contained subset as in the South that they had no way of making this kind of grouping.

So, in general, it can be said that a compiler /classifier / theorist in Indian musicology in general takes the following approach.They take stock of the existing melodic base, examine what was there before them, and also look at the intercultural/regional borrowals. They then attempt to build theoretical classificatory frameworks around these. They may also add a few opinions of their own, the truth of which may or may not get (in)validated by their successors (kalyāni is unfit for composition, xx is an adhama rāga.).They also define and re-define technical terms to suit and meet the needs of their own times and at other times repeat verses from earlier texts.

So the question now is, today if we were to put yourself in the shoes of such a treatise writer (and learning from their mistakes and exercises) how would you or I classify the extant ragas?? assuming of course we want to claim our rightful place as "categorizers" in the path of these writers. Would we have two classifications for the North and the South? My scheme (or the lack of it) in the next post.

Pani-gyrics..

2011-03-03T00:20:00.000-05:00

Various encounters of the word, pāṇi this time from tevāram hymns. Recorded for reference.

கண்டுகொள் ளரியானைக் கனிவித்துப்
பண்டுநான் செய்த பாழிமை கேட்டிரேல்
கொண்டபாணி கொடுகொட்டி தாளங்கைக்
கொண்டதொண்டரைத் துன்னிலுஞ் சூழலே

பட்டம் பால்நிற மதியம் படர்சடைச் சுடர்விடு பாணி
நட்டம் நள்ளிரு ளாடும் நாதன் நவின்றுறை கோயில்
புட்டன் பேடையொ டாடும் பூம்புக லூர்த்தொண்டர் போற்றி
வட்டஞ் சூழ்ந்தடி பரவும் வர்த்தமா னீச்சரத் தாரே.

கூடிக் கூடித் தொண்டர் தங்கள்
கொண்ட பாணி குறைப டாமே
ஆடிப் பாடி அழுது நெக்கங்
கன்பு டையவர்க் கின்பம் ஓரீர்
தேடித் தேடித் திரிந்தெய்த் தாலும்
சித்தம் என்பால் வைக்க மாட்டீர்
ஓடிப் போகீர் பற்றுந் தாரீர்
ஓண காந்தன் தளியு ளீரே.

பாணி நட்டங்க ளாடும் பரமனார்
ஆணிப் பொன்னினண் ணாமலை கைதொழப்
பேணி நின்ற பெருவினை போகுமே.

அங்கமொ ராறுடை வேள்வி யான அருமறை நான்கும்
பங்கமில் பாடலோ டாடல் பாணி பயின்ற படிறர்
சங்கம தார்குற மாதர் தங்கையின் மைந்தர்கள் தாவிக்
கங்குலின் மாமதி பற்றுங் கற்குடி மாமலை யாரே.

கொடுவினையார் என்றும் குறுகா அடி
 குறைந்தடைந்தார் ஆழாமைக் காக்கும் அடி
படு முழவம் பாணி பயிற்றும் அடி
 பதைத்தெழுந்த வெங்கூற்றைப் பாய்ந்த அடி


கடு முரண் ஏறூர்ந்தான் கழற் சேவடி
 கடல் வையம் காப்பான் கருதும் அடி
நெடுமதியங் கண்ணி அணிந்தான் அடி
 நிறைகெடில வீரட்டம் நீங்கா அடி.

Murchana-sen

2011-03-01T00:55:00.003-05:00

Scene A: (Around 1:30 of this clip)

Sapta suran teen gram unancas koti taan
guNi sab kart gaan
naad brahm jaake

and..

Then 'tannu' is ordered to proceed ahead to "Raag varNan" and begins Bhairav which is shant ras pradhan raga. The animated drummer seems to enact something of a cross between vira and hasya.

Scene B: (The scene starts around 4:40)

sapt suran teen grAm gAvo sab guNI jan
ikkIs murchchana taan baan ko milaavo
auDav sankIran svara sampUraN rAga bhed
alankaar bhUshan kar
rAga ko sajaavo

Conclusion: Lyric Writer of Scene B(Madhok?) knew his treatises atleast in terms of sequence of terms!

sāṅkhya kārika - 2

2011-02-25T00:05:00.000-05:00

मूलप्रकृतिरविकृतिर्महदाद्याः प्रकृतिविकृतयः सप्त |

षोडशकस्तु विकारो न प्रकृतिर्न विकृतिः पुरुषः || 3 ||

The primordial prakṛti is changeless. Those beginning with mahat are of the nature of prakṛti and vikṛti.

The 16 are subject to change. Puruṣa is neither prakṛti nor vikṛti.

Those beginning with mahat: (7)

mahat
buddhi
ahaṅkāra
manas or antaḥkaraṇa
panca jñānendriya-s
pancakarmendriya-s
pancamahābhūta-s

The sixteen:

jñānendriya-s (5)
karmendriya (5)
manas (1)
pancabhūtas (5)

द्रष्टमनुमानमाप्तवचनं च सर्वप्रमाणसिद्धत्वात् |

त्रिविधं प्रमाणमिष्टं प्रमेयसिद्धिः प्रमाणाद्धि|| 4 ||

That which is perceived (Pratyakṣa), anumāna and āptavacana(śabda) are the three pramāṇa-s. The other

pramāṇa-s are contained in this and hence prameya or proofis obtained through the pramāṇa-s.