Kalyāṇ – A Voyage through Dēśa and Kāla

Abstract

This article explores the rāga system in Indian music, in the specific context of a prominent family of rāgas known as Kalyāṇ. It explores their structure, with attention to its historical evolution and geographical variation. The notes of these rāgas broadly correspond to the Lydian mode of Western classical music (like the Major scale or Ionian mode but with an augmented fourth). This has been identified as the Kalyāṇ scale since the middle of the 17th century. 16th-century or early 17th-century texts describe rāgas with the name Kalyāṇ that are rather different from the later versions, but the presence of the augmented fourth and major seventh in these early Kalyāṇ-s suggests that these might have evolved into the later Kalyāṇ. This work deals primarily with two forms of Kalyāṇ from the Hindustani (north Indian) system of music – Yaman (also called Yaman Kalyāṇ) and Śuddha Kalyāṇ – and their Carnatic (south Indian) counterparts, Kalyāṇī and Mōhana-Kalyāṇī. I also discuss a rare rāga called Chandrakānt. The later part of the discussion is dominated by Yaman, owing to its versatility and presence in several Indian musical genres. I trace the evolution of these rāgas beginning in the 16th century and ending in the present day. My sources are musical treatises from different parts of the Indian region, and in various languages. The 16th and 17th-century texts are mostly in Sanskrit, and in later times one finds works in Braj Bhasha, Telugu, Hindi, Marathi and Tamizh too. In some cases, I have had to rely on translations into English or Hindi as I did not have access to the original texts. Audio recordings of these rāgas by various musicians are as vital to this work as textual sources are, since music is a “śravaṇa vidyā”, an aural discipline. While these sources are by no means exhaustive, they provide a fascinating insight into rāga evolution.