From: mani@mayhem.Berkeley.EDU (Mani Varadarajan)
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.classical
Subject: Re: A perspective on devotion in Carnatic music
Date: 13 Aug 92 21:31:38 GMT
Reply-To: mani@sprite.Berkeley.EDU
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In-reply-to: rjn@cbnewsi.cb.att.com's message of Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:47:58 GMT


In article <1992Aug12.134758.17416@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> rjn@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (rekha.joish) writes:

   The time at which Carnatic music originated may also
   explain the devotional emphasis. This period was at
   the heels of the 'bhakti' era in Indian history. 
   North India saw several saints at this time - Tulsidas, Surdas,
   Kabir, Meerabai etc. South India saw Ramanuja, Madhwachar,
   Raghavendraswamy and  of course the 'trinity'. 

In addition to these stalwarts of India's religious heritage,
there were many individuals and movements preceding them which
both fed off of and added fuel to the bhakti movement.
According to an old Sanskrit verse, which I think occurs in the
Bhagavata Purana, ``bhakti was born in the Tamil country, grew
up in the Kannada and Mahrati lands, and then lived in the
north.''  This allegory probably is a reference to the Alvars
and Nayanar saints of the south, whose devotional poems were
set to music, and the fact that through time their emotional
fervor indirectly gave birth to the Haridasa tradition of the
Kannada Land, the songs of Tukaram and Narsinh Mehta, and
finally Mirabai, Surdas, and Chaitanya.

   The absence of a large empire in the south (like
   the Mughal empire in the north) also meant that
   no king was rich or stable enough to patronize
   this music. In any case 'court' patronage generally
   involved sringar ras (the literature and harems 
   are witness to the tastes of kings). So the
   next available platform for mass-scale patronage
   would be the temple, wherein devotion is the main theme.

   Subsequently the music was patronized by orthodox
   brahmins (could be temple influence) for whom shringar
   ras would be taboo. It is only in recent times that
   composers are experimenting with folk and non-devotional themes.

This isn't really true.  While there has always been great
tension between the puritanical tradition and the sringara rasa
aspect of devotion, it was the British and later the Justice
Party politicians of Tamilnadu who discouraged the sringara
rasa, by their complete abolition of much of the tradition
associated with the temple.  There is an interesting paper by
Friedhelm Hardy on this subject [``Ideology and Cultural
Contexts of the Srivaisnava Temple'', in South_Indian_Temples,
ed. by Burton Stein.]

There were many orthodox Brahmins in the 1800s who objected to
the abolishing of a lot of the temple tradition in the
interests of puritanism and rationalism, some of which was an
exposition of the sringara rasa.  The proponents of this reform
then were the British and western-oriented Indians.

A simple glance at the poetry of Nammalvar of Manikkavasagar
will show that the nayika-nayaki bhava can and was expressed
without official court patronage.  Chaitanya's life is another
demonstration of this.

As for non-devotional themes, there is a strong feeling in
India that the best music is that which is devoted to God.
Other music is secondary and in fact is shunned by the devout.

Mani
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.classical