Exploring the Transformative Nature of Music in the Context of Hindustani Music Tradition
Durgesh K. Upadhyay
This paper aims to explore the transformative nature of music at both personal as well as interpersonal level particularly in the context of Hindustani musical ethos. Moreover, the focus is on, in what ways and how do such transformations take place and what are the contributing factors. By the analysis of meaning and origin of the words “Music” and “Transformation,” I will simultaneously discuss the shared meanings of the musicians (belonging to Hindustani music tradition) of their lives from musical experience (Dillon, 2007) in the light of traditional beliefs and practices of Hindustani music and related works done in this area.
Music: Meaning and Origin
The word “Music” comes from the ancient Greek ‘mousike’ meaning ‘like the muses’ – the goddesses through whose blessing humans could be inspired (Lourdes, 2009). Hazrat Pir-o Murshid Inayat Khan describes in his book The Mysticism of Sound Music and Word (Vol. 2):
“What we call music in our everyday language is only the miniature, which our intelligence has grasped from that music or harmony of the whole universe which is working behind everything, and which is the source and origin of the nature.”
He further puts his view at all the different religions unite is that all creation has come from vibrations, which the Hindus have called Nād; and in the Bible we can find it as the ‘Word,’ which came first of all.
Cosmically, the union of purusa (subtle dimension of manifestation) and prakriti (gross manifestation) is the cause of all manifestation; nād, causal sound, arises from the union of prāna (breath) (Na) and dāh (burn) (Da); tāl itself is the union of tāndava (movement) (Ta) and laya (rhythm) (La). Nād – the eternal sound, one of the five elements (earth, water, fire, ether, and air) of the natural phenomenon, gave birth to the music of the orient and the oxidant (Bandyopadyaya, 1977). Etymologically, 'Nā' means breath and 'Dā' means fire or energy. Nād is thus a combination of breath and energy. It implies that the sound produced by living beings emanates from the lungs and comes out from the mouth.
There are two kinds of nād: Āhat and Anāhat/Anāhad. Āhat nād is a sound produced by the collision of two things or by physical manipulation, as for example cymbals and human voice respectively. In both cases, vibrations produce the sound which dies away as the vibration comes to an end. This is the sound with which we are concerned in music. Anāhad nād is a self-producing sound, or what is called "unstruck sound", as for example the music of the spheres due to the vibrations of ether in the upper regions. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in his connection; "The life-breath of Thy music runs from sky to sky." Nād, it is also called subtle or Suksham nād. This is the sound which the yogis or highly spiritual personal hear within themselves when they get into a state of higher consciousness.
Nād is related to Dhvani (a kind of sound). Music is concerned with sweet and pleasant dhvani. Manju Sundaram, a classical vocalist and senior disciple of Girja Devi, shared: ‘music is the exact miniature of the cosmic laws. It contains harmony, rhythm, and order.’ She further said that music is like liquid and has the capacity to enter deep into the soul. Dillon (2007) in his book Music, meaning, and transformation rightly observed:
Music making has a powerful influence on emotions and can contribute to our identity and its formation. Musical experiences can help us know ourselves, communicate with others in wordless ways and contribute to our understanding of our place in our own distinctive culture. These experiences in these locations have the capacity to be meaningful and lead to transformation of self.
What we mean by the term “Transformation”
Literally, ‘transformation’ means a marked or qualitative change. Change may be in terms of character or behavior or attitude, usually for the better at various levels. Here, concern is only for personal and interpersonal transformations. Prof. Ritwik Sanyal, disciple of Dagar brothers, shared that in Indian mythology in general and particularly in Hindustani music ‘transformation’ has conceptualized as a pathway of spirituality which leads you towards perfection, liberation or freeing, and salvation at the same time where there is something which is constant (śāśvat). The Advaita Vedanta aims at freeing (mukti) a person from an inner bondage (bandha) that ties a person to the chain of the consequences of his or her own past thought and action, and it tries to reach this goal through the conscious acceptance of certain truths about the nature of the Self (Paranjpe, 2002, p. 131).
Indians, particularly the Hindus, belief that salvation can even be obtained through the practice of music, that is why, it is said that to be a good musician, a man must live retired from the world like an ascetic (Bandyopadhyaya, 1977).
Music and Transformation
Dr. Manju shared that music (whether singing, practicing, listening or performing) enhances acceptance and brings down resistance and resentment. And hereby, it gradually transforms our whole being. The Advaita Vedantic texts provide a complex model of the same. It assigns the tasks of perception, cognition, recollection, and others to an entity conceived as the “inner instrument” (antahkarana). The inner instrument includes the mind (manas) manifesting attentivity, the intellect (buddhi) meaning the capacity for determination and ascertainment, and citta, a storehouse of past impressions and memories. The inner instrument is a crucial aspect of the embodied person that coordinates the functions of the senses and the body while in constant interaction with events within the body and its surroundings. The inner instrument is said to “reach out” to objects in the environment through the senses, and to become transformed into their shapes, so to speak. The inner instrument is constantly undergoing modifications, depending on the objects it reaches out to, and it tries to “know” them by itself being transformed into their shapes. (Paranjpe, 2002, p. 217)
Such transformational mechanism takes place not only at personal level but also at interpersonal levels. Dr. Manju found its evidence and shared. Once she was performing in a concert organized after the concluding session in an International Convention by the Theosophical Society in Madras, one lady came to Dr. Manju and requested for her leader (a Russian delegate) who wanted to meet with Dr. Manju. The leader conveyed via his interpreter that ‘although he could not understand and follow a single word or a single syllable of what you chanted, but it has transformed his whole being.’ This discourse proves the transformative nature of music beyond the personal and cultural barriers. Dr. Manju further argued that it was the power of eternity and universality of the nād (music) that came out and got communicated.
In Tom Kenyon’s (Director of Research and Development Acoustic Brain Research, U.S.) work with groups and individuals he found that the use of mantras or chants can seemingly transport one to other dimensions of consciousness. He has also found that these vibratory keys work even if they are not inherent in the culture of the participants. He concludes that touching the depth of one's nature through sound seems to have a universally transformative effect.
Along with it, Paranjpe (2002) observed the commonalities in Indian communities of artists and aesthetes to consider art, especially classical music, as a form of “meditation,” although several others see the performing or listening to music as no more than entertainment. Be that as it may, two medieval scholars, Jiva Gosvami and Rupa Gosvami used the rasa theory in the understanding of religious devotion as a means to self-transformation (p. 275). On psychological and aesthetic level, the term “rasa” connotes a direct apprehension of a quality or a state of being (Siegell, 1988, p. 58). Rasa refers to an immediate interior perception of a moment or a particular state of existence provoked by the functioning of the methods of artistic expression. It is neither an object nor an emotion, nor a concept; it is an immediate experience, a gustation of life, a pure joy, which relishes its own essence as it communes with the ‘other’ (Daumal, 1982, p. 41).
Further, in translation of the Natyasastra (1982, p. 41) he stresses that bhāv is the experienced outcome of a fundamental rasa, which will:
…express all the emotions and incidental psychic states which vary and give nuances to the fundamental savor (rasa)…(and which) express the dominating emotion when it becomes potent enough to subject man to physiological actions, which…supply indubitable signs (expressions) of the…interior state.
Rasa deals with emotional behavior and also works within individuals as “an awareness of the totality of the emotional situation.” (Deva, 1981, p. 73)
What Music does?
Such awareness of the emotional situations, as Prof. Sharda Valenkar, Head of the Department of Music, BHU shared, provides control over our emotions in various supportive as well as in adverse situations. She further told that this control of emotions enhances acceptance and in turn gradually transforms our whole personality. Dr. Ritwik further elaborated:
…it is a natural, gradual and a continuous process of growing. Music, certainly changes our attitude, our life, and you constantly grow and evolve.
Prof. Premchand Humbal, a Bharat Nāťyam dancer, expressed:
…as we grow with music, it increases our emotional sensitivity. Now when I look at my earlier compositions and compare them with latest composition, I find that its creativity and maturity has been increased. My energy has centered.
Prof. Shashi Kumar, a vocalist, explained the effect of music as mental healing. He suspected whether music could transform the blood character and the character acquired in our childhood through upbringings and socialization. Moreover, Dr. Sanjay Verma, a classical guitarist, discarded completely such effects. He shared that for him, it is not the music but certain spiritual practices like meditation, and etc. has transformed his behavior.
Contributing Factors
Talking about the factors that also affect and in turn conducive for the transformation of the musician’s behavior, attitude and life, Prof. Shashi and Prof Sharda has the same view that our inborn nature and characters acquired through upbringings and socialization during earlier ages certainly ascertain the intensity and depth of transformation towards spirituality. Prof. Praveen Uddhav, a table player, shared that music does not direct everybody to spirituality. It depends on one’s sanskāras (innate dispositions).
Apart from that, Prof. Humbal and Dr. Manju focused on the role of knowledge, experience (musical and otherwise), and the surroundings. Manju showed her gratitude by saying:
…I am so grateful to life that has so kind to keep on giving me the right atmosphere, the right environment, the right milieu, the right surroundings, the right people, so that I could live my life on my conditions.
In terms of interpersonal transformation, when music gets communicated, Dr. Manju found that it’s a matter of receptivity which determines the intensity and depth of transformation. The more intense the receptivity will be, the deeper it will enter into the soul. Dillon’s explanation of the term ‘transformation’ seems meaningful to quote:
I have become aware of that the way I think “musically” has affected the way that I do things and solve problems, beyond the process of making music, in fact my music making experiences have had generic consequences…. Through the process of making and thinking about music, I have also been “made” by it. (p. 4)
Concluding Comments
After the discussion about the transformative nature of music both at personal as well as interpersonal level in the context of Hindustani music and Indian ethos, I found that music and individual are mutually inclusive. They both, in many ways, transform each other. In the words of the artist Jorge Oteiza (In Patxi del Campo’s Creative Psyche and Music Therapy):
“Art does not transform anything, it does not change the world, it does not change reality. What really transforms man in his evolution and completes his languages is he himself. And it is this man, transformed by art, who can try to transform reality through life”.
There is no doubt that music has transformative effects but what kind of music making has this effect and where is the change in self-located and to what end? The notion of measurement and evaluation of music’s impact on human nature, health and so on, is not within the bounds of this chapter but it is perhaps the next most important step in this enquiry and needs to be pursued rigorously and accountably. For now, I am taking a position that music is and has transformative effects on people of all cultures (Hallam, 2001; Simpson, Bodlovich, Harvey & Owens 2003). There are researches particularly dealing with the different type of sounds and their physiological, hormonal and neurological effects. There is an intense need to measure and identify the neural changes, altered brain activity, actual physical and micro processes (such as genetic and neurotransmitter alterations) while transformation is taking place.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank my all the participants for their kind support. I evince my gratitude to my teacher Prof. Ajit K. Dalal and to also my seniors Dr. Sunil Verma, Shail Shankar, Namita Chandra and the environment of my department that is helpful in grooming me as a researcher.
References
Bandyopadhyaya, S. (1977). The origin of rāga. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd.
Daumal, Rene (1982). The origin of the theatre bharata. In Rasa (Trans.) Louise Landes Levi. New York: New Directions.
del Campo, P. (2002). Creative Psyche and Music therapy, Music Therapy Today (online), June, available at http://musictherapyworld.net
Deva, B. C. (1981). An introduction to Indian Music. New Delhi: Publication Division.
Dillon, S. C. (2007). Music, meaning and transformation. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Hallam, S. (2001). The power of music: The strength of music's influence on our lives. London: Performing Rights Society.
Kan, H. I. (1988). The mysticism of music, sound and word. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
Lourdes, L. (2009). Lifesong: Transformation…, Spring – Rapport.
Paranjpe, A. C. (2002). Self and identity in modern psychology and Indian thought. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Siegell, M. M. (1988). Finding it as oneself: A psychological enquiry into the classical music tradition of north India. Unpublished PhD thesis, Union Graduate School, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Simpson, A., P. Bodlovich, I. Harvey, and J. Owens. (2003). The power and the passion (or It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll). Melbourne, VIC: The Australian Contemporary Music Working Group.
Bio
Durgesh Kumar Upadhyay, is a research fellow in the Advanced Centre for Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.
