A Reflection on the Aesthetics of Indian Music, With Special Reference to Hindustani Raga-Sangita

Santosh Kumar Pudaruth

doi:10.1177/2158244016674512

Abstract

Like in any other heteronomous art-forms, the practitioners of Indian music and dance ( Bharatiya Sangita) aim at expressing emotions and creating the aesthetic or the “beautiful.” Indian thinkers and musicologists have gone a step further in declaring that Indian classical music ( Raga-Sangita) is the most appropriate means for attaining aesthetic experience and delight, and the most suitable pathway, if not, downright, short-cut, toward self-realization or realization of the Ultimate Reality or Truth. Thus, aesthetics and spirituality make up the very woof and warp of the Indian arts, in general, and Raga-Sangita, in particular. Raga-Sangita is, thus, considered a spiritual exercise ( nada sadhana) to attain salvation ( moksha) through sound. This conceptual article reflects upon and sheds light on the Theory of Rasa, as propounded in Indian Aesthetics, and attempts to make an assessment of it in relation to Hindustani Raga-Sangita. Through this theory, the author examines and explains the different causes leading to an aesthetic experience, referred to as “out-of-this-world” ( alaukika). In doing so, he also brings to light the possible pitfalls which both the performer and the listener should avoid.

Highlights

According to Oxford Dictionary, music is “vocal or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” Alain Daniélou (2003) defines music as “the more or less pleasing effect that correlated sounds produce on our ears” (p. 49)
All the musical notes of a melody, while acquiring meaning and becoming expressive from their relation to the tonic, make up a “form” worth appreciating. This conceptual article studies the ways and means through which emotions are expressed in Hindustani Raga-Sangita, and how the “beautiful,” or “rasa,” is created and experienced
When the connoisseur listens to such a soul-lifting music, through complete absorption in the art-form and the automatic process of universalization, aesthetic relish takes place, the beautiful is evoked, and delight is experienced

Summary

Introduction

According to Oxford Dictionary, music is “vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” Alain Daniélou (2003) defines music as “the more or less pleasing effect that correlated sounds produce on our ears” (p. 49). Raga-Sangita consists of delineating a raga or melodic matrix through singing, or playing of a musical instrument, while developing and expanding its hidden tonal potentials and characteristic features with a view to evoking emotions in the minds of the listeners, paving the way for the experience of rasa and delight.

Results

Conclusion