Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

II. History of classical music

1. Introduction.

2. To the mid-16th century.

3. Music and theory after the 16th century.

4. Oral traditions after the 16th century.

5. Classical music, the state and the middle class.

6. Indian music and the West.

India, Subcontinent of, §II: History of classical music

1. Introduction.

For South Asian classical music the primary historical sources are the same as the legitimizing agents: authoritative traditions (sampradāya) of existing musical practice (prayoga) and canonical theory (śāstra; see §I, 2(ii)(a) above). Because the two ‘classical’ performing traditions were until modern times transmitted entirely orally, evidence documenting musical details of actual past practices is sparse. Doctrine, however, has been transmitted through manuscripts for centuries.

Divisions in South Asian music history, therefore, are primarily determined by the nature of the sources, which are then correlated as much as possible with more general political and cultural history. Considered in this light, there are three major epochs in music history: up to the mid-13th century; from the mid-13th century to the mid-16th; and from the mid-16th century onwards. They may be termed ancient, medieval and modern respectively.

No existing sampradāya of classical music has any direct connection with the ancient period, whose sources for music history are only textual and iconographic. Textual sources are technical discussions in Sanskrit treatises and passing references in literature, mainly in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tamil. Iconographic sources consist of numerous sculptures of musicians and their instruments. Both types of source suggest regional diversity as well as historical change, but the absence of immediately apprehendable evidence of incompatible musical practices and the use of Sanskrit as the language of discourse have encouraged a monolithic view of ancient music. This attitude is furthered by the monumental Sangīta-ratnākara, a treatise on music composed between 1210 and 1247 in Devagiri (modern Daulatabad), in the north-west of the Deccan, by Śārngadeva, a Brahman of Kashmiri descent. This work is a watershed in South Asian music history. It contains a vast amount of older doctrine and lore, organized in seven coherent sections. The substance of ancient śāstra was transmitted to later writers through the Sangīta-ratnākara, whose form determined the categories of South Asian music theory from then on.

Between the clearly marked end of the ancient period in the 13th century and the earliest documentation of prototypes of modern classical practices in the 16th century lies what is here called the medieval period. During these centuries the attempted southern expansion of the Delhi sultanate took place, followed by its fragmentation after Timur’s invasion of 1398 and ultimately the reconquest of the fragments by Akbar. The Deccan Muslim courts and the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar in peninsular India were also established during this period. Although direct connections from these centuries to the present traditions of music cannot be firmly proved, the outlines of the modern period are unmistakable. Historical sources (although from a much later period) abound in anecdotes about historical personages and music, and some of the musical traditions reported may well be sources for those we know directly. From this period it is already possible to infer a distinction between northern and southern musical regions, a distinction that is historical and ultimately geographical in its origins. Anecdotes show that musicians moved back and forth with the shifting fortunes of the various Muslim and Rājpūt courts in the Indo-Gangetic plain and similarly between the closely neighbouring Muslim and Vijayanagar courts in the peninsula. Musical exchanges across the Vindhyas, on the other hand, are reported only as a consequence of major military excursions. The familiar equation of Hindustani–Karnatak with Muslim–Hindu, thence hybrid–pure, and ultimately foreign–native, is a result of the fact that the radial centres of the latest phases of the two styles were Muslim Delhi and Hindu Thanjavur. However, before the shift of the centre of gravity of Karnatak music from Vijayanagar in the Deccan to the Kaveri delta in the far south in the late 16th century, the Hindu and Muslim courts in the peninsula had been as close as the Hindu and Muslim courts of the Rājpūts and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, and for almost as long.

Devotional theism had its most phenomenal development during the period from 1300 to 1600. The deep connection of not only its content but also its form with the underlying bases of the modern classical musical practices has been outlined above. Where both practices and historical anecdotes of the medieval period appear to look forward to the modern period, Sanskrit theoretical writings on music contain only fragmentary (though very interesting) foreshadowings of practices and ideas that take on a familiar look in both theory and practice only in the late 16th century.

The third period of music history is dominated by the history of sampradāya as embodied in the canonical traditions of Hindustani and Karnatak music. Both traditions can establish a claim to 16th-century roots, of which something demonstrably still survives. Dhrupad compositions of Akbar’s court musician Tānsen are known, and many existing musical lineages are traced to Tānsen’s family and immediate successors at the Mughal court. In the south the elementary teaching system for Karnatak music is attributed to Purandaradāsa (c1484–1564), although the padam compositions of Ksētrayya (fl 1635–59) constitute the oldest repertory whose actual performance tradition is reasonably certain to be continuous. From succeeding centuries evidence for the continuity of northern and southern traditions becomes more plentiful and more consistently dependable, and by the mid-19th century, names are known and practices confirmed that belong wholly to the modern era. In addition, some regional traditions of religious, devotional or dramatic music have been formalized with theoretical and procedural terminologies. In Bengal there are well-developed traditions of kīrtan performance, and attempts have been made to secure for Orissan music a canonical status analogous to Hindustani and Karnatak music.

The beginning of the modern period is even more clearly marked by the abrupt appearance of new theoretical work. Between 1550 and 1800 many technical treatises were written that are recognizably connected with practices musically ancestral to the present performance traditions. These treatises, by their attempts to incorporate or refute the doctrines of the Sangīta-ratnākara, often show that their understanding of the written remnants from the ancient period was no better than ours. During the 19th century, however, little theoretical work was produced, and almost none in Sanskrit; important new theory appeared only in the 20th century.

Before 1250, South Asian musical historiography is concerned with icons, literature and especially treatises. So little can be inferred of actual musical practices that it is practicable, even desirable, to consider the subcontinent as a whole. After 1250, and particularly after 1550, treatises continue to play a major role in musical historiography until the 19th century, but they now have to be considered from several angles. The history of sangīta-śāstra (‘musical doctrines’) can still be studied in its own right, but treatises should also be examined carefully for the considerable light they shed on ever more recognizable features of modern canonical performance traditions. Furthermore, the sources after 1550 generally have clear affinities to either northern or southern musics, affinities that must be established and discriminated as closely as possible. Nijenhuis (1977) made a survey of the Sanskrit works then printed, and several treasties have been published since then.

India, Subcontinent of, §II: History of classical music