ABSTRACT:
The artistic, religious, and literary environment in which our lyricists lived gave them considerable freedom for composing krtis (musical verses) under a variety of moods, many of them considered blasphemous in other parts of the world. The Bhakti Movement initiated by the Alvars and Nayanmars in Southern India during 6th and 12th centuries provided this environment, which later Karnatic music’s composers used brilliantly. The Bhakti Movement brought about fundamental changes in the Indian collective consciousness, opening the floodgates for literary, philosophical, and spiritual outpourings, which helped how India resiliently responded to social and political changes under Islamic invasion and European colonization.
THE VITALITY OF INDIAN MUSIC:
India’s early civilization as revealed in the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa archaeological findings and the recently discovered Saraswati Valley archeological findings started several thousand years before the beginning of the Current Era of time keeping that uses Christ’s birth as a convenient and arbitrary reference point. For any civilization, performing and visual arts are important pointers of its sophistication. Bharata Muni, who is believed to be from the Himalayan foothills, the author of Natya Sastra, often quoted as the basis of the Indian folk and classical dance forms. Natya Sastra, art historians estimate, was written sometime during the first two centuries after Christ. Another literary and historical work well-known in Tamil Nadu, but not familiar to the general public outside, is the Tamil epic Silappadikaram[1] (2nd century AD).
Silappadikaram describes the intricacies of performing arts in great detail. It describes artistes tuning the 14-stringed Makara Yaz (a kind of harp) and skillfully playing drums. It details how artistes should blend rhythm, melody, tempo, speed, footwork, facial expressions, etc. in dance; and the stage set up and illumination for special effects. The terms in Silappadikaram for the different pitches (similar to Sadjam, Rishabham, Gandharam…) are in Tamil (Kural, Tuttam, Taram, Kaikkilai, Padumalai, Ulai…). Such a sophisticated description of music and dance using non-Sanskrit terms indicates that the art form must have evolved indigenously and independently over several centuries before. Art historians[2] believe that Sanskritization of music literature in India did not displace the pre-existing music, but only assimilated it.
Further, from Matanga Muni’s Brhaddesi (6th century AD), Sarngadeva’s Sangita Ratnakara (13th century AD), Narada’s Sangita Makaranda (14th century AD), and other works, musicologists2 [3] [4] [5] have studied the evolution of music in India.
Thus, Indian classical music, which during 16th and 18th centuries blossomed and bifurcated into Karnatic and Hindustani traditions has been evolving over two millennia, contrary to what many of us axiomatically believe as being static.
The culmination of this is Venkatamakhi’s work Chaturdandi Prakasika (1660 AD) giving 72 Melakarta Ragas—also known as Janaka (Parent) ragas—out of which more than 30,000 Janya (progeny) ragas are derivable in the Karnatic tradition.
In early 20th century, the Maharashtrian musicologist Bhatkandé, after long painstaking discussions with the different Gharanas (Hindustani music schools), formalized the Hindustani tradition by retrofitting the Hindustani ragas current in his time into ten basic parent ragas he called Thats. While Karnatic Music integrated many Hindustani ragas into its repertoire decades ago, in recent years Hindustani musicians too have begun to enrich their repertoire with traditional Karnatic ragas.
LYRIC IS THE HEART OF KARNATIC MUSIC:
Despite the mathematical theory, both in ragam (melody) and layam (rhythm), the heart of Karnatic music is the krti (lyric) in one of the South Indian languages or in Sanskrit. In most krtis the dominating mood is bhakti that brings out the devotion of the composer to his/her Ishta Devata (personal deity) under a variety of situations. In these lyrics—Pasurams, Gitams, Kirtanas, Padams, Tillanas, Devaranamas, Slokams, or Va-chanas —the literal/literary meaning, the local context, and the devotional spirit of the composers are as important, if not more, as their purely musical embellishments. The scope of Karnatic music is not limited to the esoteric enjoyment of elitist listeners in terms of ornamentations such as alapana, pallavi, neraval, and swara kalpanas. Using skills acquired over several years of abhyasa (practice), adept musicians touch their audiences in the deepest recesses of their psyche, and show—even to those having no formal exposure to music—the ecstasy of communing with the Divine through music.
INDIAN RELIGIOUS HYMNS ARE UNIQUE:
In the monotheistic religious literature from many parts of the world, we commonly see poets personifying God as a punishing master, a stern father, a shepherd, or a guiding spirit, while they portray themselves as errant slaves, somewhat disobedient sons, a flock of sheep, or stranded travelers seeking help. In the devotional religious literature of India, including the krtis in Karnatic music, our lyricists, being Free Spirits, go beyond these imageries. They freely personify their Ishta Deivam not only as their friend, but also as their naughty son or adoring daughter, while portraying themselves as the loving, disciplining, and sometimes even chiding parents—imageries uncommon anywhere else. Examples: Kanakadasa’s Krishna nee begane baro, Uttukkadu Venkatasubba Iyer’s Taye Yasoda undan Ayar-kulattuditta mayan…
A Tamil literary work less known is Minakshi Pillaittamizh in which Kumara Guruparar describes goddess Minakshi of Madurai as a baby, a toddler, a child, a girl, and a young beautiful woman, who finally marries Sri Sundareswara of Madurai.
Another common literary convention is personifying God as a male lover, while the poets portray themselves as the beloved craving for her lover’s attention—the well-known Nayaka-Nayika bhavam. Manikkavasagar’s Tiru-vembavai, Jayadeva’s Ashtapadi and Gita Govindam, and Mira Bhajans are examples. The 20th century’s Subramanya Bharati in his ecstasy did what is unthinkable: He portrayed himself as the male lover or master, while personifying his personal deity as his beloved (as in Kannamma En Kadali), and as servant (as in Kannan En Sevakan).
Thus, in Karnatic music, all Vag-geya-kartas (Poet-composers) have kept bhakti as the dominant mood in their krtis. “O Mind! Don’t you know that the knowledge of music without Bhakti,” Tyagaraja reminds himself, “will not lead you to salvation?” (Sangita gnanamu bhakti vina sanmargamu galade, O Manasa!)
THE ORIGIN OF BHAKTI IN LITERATURE:
These Karnatic music geniuses did not create the mood of bhakti themselves. But they used bhakti that was already available fully developed as canvass for creating their musical masterpieces.
How was Bhakti developed as an evocative mood for creating intimate relationships with the Divine? More to the point, who developed bhakti to such an intense level of personal interactions with the Supreme Being? For an answer, we have to scan the pre-Purandara Dasa literary horizon of India. We should go to a time considerably earlier to know about an epoch unique to Indian history, the Bhakti Movement, which blossomed in the Tamil country nearly a millennium before Purandara Dasa.
Let us begin with Adi Sankara (8th century AD), the founder of Advaita Vedanta. Sankara wrote penetrating commentaries on Badarayana’s Brahma Sutram, the Bhagavad Gita, and ten Upanishads. He also authored Vivekachudamani, a work appealing purely to our intellect.
Sankara’s thesis is that for getting Moksham (liberation) from Bandham (bondage) we have to use Viveka (discernment) remove the veil of Maya (illusion) born out of our Avidya (ignorance). Viveka enables us to differentiate between appearance and reality, and helps us to see things as they really are.
Even the intellectually incisive Sankara finally realized that there was an equally effective, but considerably simpler and sweeter route for liberation. That route was Bhakti. His Sivananda Lahari, Mohamuddgaram, Kanakadharastavam, and others are testimonies to this fact. Later, Ramanuja (12th century AD), Madhva (14th century)—both products of the Bhakti Movement—were more emphatic. They said bhakti and prapatti (surrender) are the only routes to reach the Godhead.
Historically, the Bhakti Movement started first in Southern India a few centuries earlier to even Sankara. According to Basham[6], “The Bhakti Movement developed first in the Tamil country, at least as early as 6th century AD … and found its full expression in the hymns of early Tamil devotees—Nayanmars, Alvars and others—which are among India’s greatest contributions to the world’s religious literature… … The new form of worship [espoused by bhakti] received formal shape and was harmonized with the Upanishads… by a series of theologians starting from Sankara.”
BHAKTI LITERATURE AND MUSIC:
In the Vaishnava tradition, there are 4000 Pasurams (verses) of the twelve Alvars. Pasuram is a compound word. Pa is short form for Pattu (Tamil), meaning lyric. And Suram is the modification of Swaram (melody). Pasuram literally means lyrics set to music. Similar are the hymns of Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Appar, Sundarar, Sambhandar called Thevaram; and of Manikka-vasakar, called Tiruvachakam. These are sung to traditional tunes even today in temples in South India. The number hymns in the traditional 12 Saiva Tiru-Marais (Canons) exceeds 10,000 verses.
Even though many Western and Indian historians axiomatically and erroneously, say that the Bhakti Movement was the influence of Islam on India, the flower garden of Bhakti native to India was already there centuries before the arrival of Islam. Here, it is appropriate and necessary to quote Jordens[7] (1975) in some detail:
“Earlier theories that the [Bhakti Movement] originated … under the impact of Islam are negated by the simple fact that the earliest genuine devotional Bhakti poetry in Tamil [in the 6th century AD] precedes the coming of Islam. Islamic, and particularly Sufi, influences may have been felt later… … At the beginning of the seventh century we witness the eruption of the new type of passionate bhakti in Tamil. From the seventh to the tenth centuries, an extensive hymnal literature came to light… How did this new Bhakti spread from the south to Maharashtra, Bengal, and the northern plains? It happened through the Sanskrtization of the new spirit. Ramanuja (d 1137), founded the Sri Vaishnava sect, Madhya (d 1276), a Kanarese Brahmin, founded the Dwaita sect, and the Telugu brahmin Nimbarka (13th century) settled near Mathura singing the praise of Radha and Krishna. Vallabhacharya (d 1531) a Telugu born at Varanasi had tremendous influence through his sect in Gujarat and Rajputana. … Among the Saivites, the sect of Lingayats [who accept the 63 Saiva Nayanmars as their spiritual forbears] was one whose influence reached several north India saints… …”
Thus, the early indigenous banyan tree of the Bhakti Movement grew further later both as a response to, and under the influence of, Islam in India. So, starting from Purandara Dasa in the 15th century onward all Karnatic music Vag-geyakartas, while themselves not creating the mood of bhakti, used it brilliantly in their literary/devo-tional work for conveying complex ideas in philosophy, psychology, and spirituality in their native languages understandable by everyone. Bhakti as a mood for experiencing the Infinite and harnessing the divinity latent within everyone was already available to them fully developed, having evolved over several centuries before, starting from the Alvars and Nayanmars in Southern India.
SOCIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES:
Before the Bhakti Movement, most of our religious and philosophical ideas were in Sanskrit, confined to those from the scholarly and priestly class (mostly brahmins). It was the Bhakti Movement that made Godhead within the grasp of all, whether meditating in the Himalayas, or tilling the soil in the Sindhu-Ganga-Yamuna plain or along the banks of Narmada, Krishna, Godavari, Tungabhadra, or Kaveri.
Also, while the Vedantins were mostly from the priestly class, among the Alwars and Nayanmars we see savants from every segment of the Hindu society: Periyalvar was a brahmin. Kulasekhara Alvar and Tirumangai Alvar were kings; Tirup-panalvar an untouchable; and Andal, a woman. Similarly, among the 63 Nayanmars, the forebears for the Virasaivas, Tirunavukkarasar was a vellala (landed gentry), Gnanasambhandar, a brahmin; Tirunalaip-povar, an untouchable; Tirunilakantar, a hunter; and Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a woman.
The Bhakti Movement opened the floodgates for philosophical, social, and spiritual literary works in all Indian languages that immensely enriched Karnatic and Hindustani music’s repertoire. As the movement spread all over India, it became indigenous to all its places adaptation. This is not unusual. Contrary to what many of us believe, our ancestors in India were far more open-minded in synthesizing, adapting and adopting trends from other regions within India. An example: The Harikatha tradition, originally from Western India (in today’s Maharashtra) [8], became indigenous to Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Karnataka when the Nayaks and the Marathas in 15th century bought along with them during their reign in the South between 15th and 18th centuries. Today, Harikatha is popular in South India, while its hold in urban Maharashtra has become tenuous.
A few well-known names of the Bhakti poets:
• Namadev (13th century), Jnaneshwar (13th century), and Tukaram (16th century) in Western India;
• Sur Das (15th century), Mira (16th century), Tulasidas (16th century), and Kabir Das (15th century) in the Northern Plains;
• Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (16th century) and Jayadeva (13th century) in Eastern India;
• Purandara Dasa (15th century), Kanakadasa (16th century), Basavanna (12th century), Akkamahadevi (13th century), Annamacharya (16th century), Bhadrachalam Ramadas (17th century), Narayana Bhattadri and Poondanam (17th century), Ramalingaswamy (19th century), Arunagirinadiar (15th century), and Tayumanavar in Southern India.
According to Satchidananda Murty[9] the theology [of the Bhakti Movement] contained many novel doctrines for that time:
“The Supreme One loves man naturally and boundlessly and is ready to help all who surrender to him. God’s grace is spontaneous and uncaused … … Those who have surrendered to the Supreme One need not follow the Varnasrama system and need not perform any ritual. They are Avidhigocaras (not within the ken of obligations) … All bhaktas (devotees) are equal, and irrespective of caste, race, education and social status, a bhakta is superior to everyone else. God in the form of Archarupam is to be worshipped with joy and love. Sincerity, compassion and affection for the suffering humanity, and the feeling that all are one’s own kin are the traits of a genuine bhakta.”
It may be worth noting here that early Hinduism recognizes Acharyas and Gurus (Teachers), Rshis (Sages), Gnanis (wisemen), Siddhas (Accomplished ones), Buddhas (Enlightened ones), Jainas (Those who have conquered [their senses]), Mahatmas, Yogis, Dasas, Sannyasis and Swamis.
However, the concept of sainthood was unknown. Why? All creations being sacred, we are all intrinsically divine and saintly. According to our beliefs, the root cause for our problems is not our sin —original or otherwise—but our original ignorance (avidya) of mistaking appearance for reality. Therefore, conferring sainthood on our sages is alien and irrelevant to Hinduism.
PRESERVING INDIA’S SPIRITUAL HERITAGE:
Throughout history mass conversion into other religions was bloody and pervasive. Europe completely converted to Christianity after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD; the Americas after Columbus; and parts of Africa after the 18th century’s Industrial Revolution. Northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia completely converted to Islam within a short time after Prophet Mohammed (6th century). Percolating the Indian subcontinent without subsuming it, Islam went further eastward, converting Malaysia and Indonesia completely. Spain violently oscillated between Catholicism, Islam, and back to Catholicism.
But in India, thanks to the Bhakti Movement, partially in any case, neither Islam (during the 9th and 15th centuries) nor Christianity much later, succeeded in completely converting the entire populations even over a period of several centuries. The reasons are not hard to find. With the Bhakti Movement, the following ideas gained ground within every Hindu mind:
• God is personal (Ishta Devata, Kula Deivam), immanent and transcendent, loving and compassionate.
• God realization and liberation from bondage is within the grasp of everyone across the rigid caste barriers.
• All worships are effective in helping us to become progressively better, eventually to become sublime.
• While the destination is but One (that is, to become liberated), paths available are many. “Truth is but One, but sages call It by various names,” (Ekam sat Viprah bahudah vadanti) is an Upanishadic aphorism.
With these beliefs, claims that one’s god is superior to all others, or worse still, that one’s god is the only God, appeared unsophisticated to our ancestors, and were alien to their ethos.
And it is no exaggeration that but for the Bhakti Movement, India’s cultural and artistic heritage—and music is a part of this heritage—would not have survived invasions by the Turks and Mongols between the 10th and 14th centuries. Also it would not have survived the Europeans’ economic onslaught and their colonization between eighteenth and twentieth centuries, and their later enslavement of the educated populace in Independent India.
If you doubt, compare the cultural and religious history of India with that of Central American civilizations (the Mayas and the Incas), the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Hawaiian islands, and parts of Africa and West Asia.
In short, but for the Bhakti Movement, we may not be having this forum to publish the article in a Hindu Temple function in Washington D.C. ten time zones away from India.
Acknowledgments: The author acknowledges his friends and an associate for critically reviewing this manuscript. They prefer to remain anonymous.
[1] Ilango Adigal, Shilappadikaram, English Translation by Alain Danielou, Arangetru Kaadai pp. 9-15, Publishers: A New Direction Book, New York, NY (1965).
2 R. Ranga Ramanuja Ayyangar, History of Indian (Carnatic) music from Vedic Times to the Present, Publisher. R. Ranga Ramanuja Ayyangar, Madras, (1972).
[3] Mrinalini Sarabhai, Understanding Bharata Natyam , Music for Bharata Natyam,Chapter 12, pp. 107-112, Publishers: Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, (1972)
[4] H. S. Powers, A Historical and Comparative Approach to the Classification of Ragas, University of California, Los Angeles, Institute of Ethnomusicology, Selected Reports, vol. 1(3), Los Angeles, (1970).
[5] B. C. Wade, Music of India: The Classical Traditions, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, (1979).
[6] A. L. Basham, in The Wonder that Was India, first published in 1954, 16th impression, Chapter viii Section iv, pp. 332-334, Publishers: Rupa and Co. Calcutta.
[7] J. T. F. Jordens, “Medieval Hindu Devotionalism,” Chapter XVIII, pp. 267-280, in Cultural History of India, Edited by A. L. Basham, Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, London, 1975.
[8] Kalyanapuram Aravamudachariar’s website http://amudanharikatha.com/en/history.html
[9] K. Satchidanda Murty, in Philosophy in India—Traditions, Teachings, and Research, Chapter 3, “History of Philosophical Thinking—II” pp. 55-60, Publishers: Motilal Banarsidass and Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, 1985.