A Concept of Time in a Music of Southeast Asia (A Preliminary Account)

Abstract

Aconcept of in China as this was manifest in Chinese science was the object of discussion in lecture delivered by Professor Joseph Needham and published as Time and Eastern Man (1965). According to Needham, the Chinese viewed historical and biological as succession of events, cumulative, linear and algebraic, rather than geometric, system where causes bring like effects, as it was then so it is now, and so will it be forever (ibid.: 16). Contrary to Christian West where the world outlook is a unique present with an open future which would be affected by the action of the individual, the Greco-Roman world recognized cyclic view of where time would return yet again to its beginning and all things will be restored to their original state (ibid.: 46). In effect, although both China and the West lived linear concept of time, both were also influenced by cyclic view. In this matter, Needham concluded, the whole China was culture more of the Irano-Judeo-Christian type than the Indo-Hellenic (ibid.: 52). In contrast to China, the region of India and Southeast Asia was absorbed in another concept of the world, another measure of time, not linear, cause and effect entity of logic and matter, but metaphysical world with profound respect for nature and the divine for whom temples, stone monuments and stupas were constructed, life replete with rituals and ceremonies, in constant communication with spirits and deities with whom man corresponded to maintain an equilibrium with nature. In this part of the world, was recorded less in writing events and more in the erection of stone symbols, shrines, the recounting of oral literature and practice of old beliefs and traditions. A very old custom of using bamboo tubes as receptacle for cooking rice in the fire may be paralleled by corresponding use of bamboo as musical instrument, with both usages still alive today. Cultivation of rice since past millenia has not changed much and secondary burial practiced in the region since thousands of years continues on today (Fox 1970).