Indian Classical Music And Sikh Kirtan by Gobind Singh Mansukhani (M.A., LL.B, Ph.D.) © 1982 Classical Period (A. D. 100-1200) |
| Classical Period (A. D. 100-1200) The first authentic book on musicology was written in the second century A.D. by Bharata. His work entitled Natya Shastra deals not only with dance and music but also dramaturgy. He mentions three types of grama (scale), Shajda grama, madhyama grama and gandharva grama. The gandharva includes three categories-sacred music for temples and religious ceremonies, royal music for princely courts, and theatrical music for dramatic performances. He has mentioned the 22 shruties (microtones), svaras (notes), moorchana (scales ) and 18 kinds of jatis (ancient melodic schemes). The period of the Gupta Kings (320-495) was conducive to the development of music. Emperor Samudra Gupta was himself a musician and a parton of arts. His son Chandra Gupta Vikramaditya ( 375-413), patronised group of poet and musicians at his court. Kalidasa, his poet laureate and playwright, made significant contributions to criticism on music, musical instruments and dance in his plays. His masterpiece, Shakuntalam, contains one song in sarang (madhyamadi) [4]. Matanga, a talented musicologist of the sixth century, wrote a comprehensive book on music entitled Brihadeshi. He explained the raga system which was in vogue and was quite developed. He made a distinction between marga and deshi/desi raga. While marga music is the classical type used for worship and devotion, and deshi music is the secular kind intended to delight the common man. He also furnished the characteristics of many ragas. Not much progress was made during the regime of the Rajput rulers of India. The greatest poet and musician of the twelfth century was Jayadeva whose Geet Govinda is well known. He had his disciples danced to his music in their ecstatic devotion to Lord Krishna. |