Abstract
This inquiry explores the terms yogakshema, sampradaya, and manodharma sangita, as well as theories and practices of improvisation and innovation in music and other fields of Hindu culture. It considers (1) the ways Hindu traditions play out the human contradiction—that life must always combine both old and new; (2) the ways improvising is part of the Hindu frameworks in Vedic chanting, and the performance of ragas and other cultural activities in India. Both set patterns and nuanced interpretations in literary and musical works present processes which suggest models of progress and renewal in various fields of human endeavor. I am unpacking the scholar V. Raghavan’s ideas about how traditions in Indian culture can adapt creatively in time.
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02 June 2020
The title should read Ever New Flights’ of Creativity: Nāda-yoga and Improvisation
Notes
“Imagination or genius is defined by a Sanskrit aesthete as the mind capable of ever new flights—prajna navanavonmesasalini pratibhamata. But this is not everything, there are the more substantial virtues that are necessary to make a piece a thing of enduring beauty and its creator an artist of all time” (Raghavan 1976, pp. 189–200).
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Chidbhavananda (1970, pp. 169, 507). Yogakshema is a dvandva compound. Dvandva compounds are usually translated into English as a pair joined by “and”—for example, “gain and security,” or “progress and consolidation.” One of the meanings of yoga is “gaining.” Kshema means “safekeeping,” hence Yogakshema is translated as “getting and keeping, holding the old and earning the new.” It is found in Manu. VII.1.27; and IX.219. [See also Gautama’s Dharmashastra. XXVIII.46.]
The terms reversed (Kshemayoga) mean “rest and exertion.”
This is from Kallinatha’s commentary on the last chapter of Sangita Ratnakara: “Sampradaya, meaning ‘tradition,’ consists of what has been given to a generation—daya… sam and pra… emphasize excellence and the trueness of this to the genius of the heritage.’” Kallinatha quotes two verses to support his definition. “That is sampradaya which is communicated by one who knows that subject well and says sincerely and as it should be.” “That is sampradaya which has been said or found in any part of the whole body of a branch of learning and has become stabilized by continuity, as in the case of a piece of jewelry” which is an index for a culture, with designs which last for long periods of time.” Kallinatha, the Kalanidhi, cited in Raghavan’s (1976, pp. 189–200) essay.
Tyagaraja’s sangatis, variations on the refrain in his kritis (song form, meaning “created work”), for example, are adaptations from the idea of variations in songs for abhinaya, in which a variety of gestures express similar nuances in a series. Thus, the new is not all new but is partly new; adaptations are incorporated carefully to be in continuity with the old, domesticated, and classicized. Smarta brahmans have worked in this way for a long time, assimilating and updating, yet preserving continuity.
The Sanskrit saying cited above by Raghavan defines imagination as “the mind capable of ever new flights.” In the aesthetic discussion of literary artistry the inventive mind is called pratibha. “Mind, when it becomes capable of understanding all facts without any temporal limit, comes to be called by the name of prajna; and this itself acquires the name of pratibha with an additional qualification, namely invention of newer images... The gift of finding out newer and newer ideas and things is itself pratibha. But what makes for poetry is an aspect of pratibha that that is conducive to the composition of poetry suffused with thrilling emotion and aesthetic beauty.” (Krishnamoorthy 1974, p. 183).
“Tyagaraja was brought up in the highest traditions of sampradaya in sangati. His songs are the most practical homage to purvacharyas (previous masters). It is remarkable, however, he was not content to interpret the past only. His constructive genius anticipated the developments of ages to come and has given us a heroic lead. He united the apparently opposite qualities of conservatism and progress, of reverence for antiquity and impatience of restraint, of the prejudices of the heart and revolt of intellect. He is a classic romanticist and a conservative radical.” (Rao, 1943, pp. 80–85). Such paradoxes become understandable in light of the creative tensions involved in the processes of yogakshema. The wholeness of the two (the base and the trajectory, the organism and its feelers) and their interface are rife with the electricity of vitality. See Jackson (2018), also Jackson (1994, pp. 207–229).
Tyagaraja, Svara raga sudharasayuta. For a full translation see Jackson (1991, pp. 334–335). North Indian saint Dadu wrote: “When words of eloquence flow the intellect is aglow; when melody is in play realization is on display.”
Compare jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie: “All the music is out there in the first place, all of it. From the beginning of time, the music was there. All you have to do is try to get a little piece of it. I don’t care how great you are, you only get a little piece of it.” Cited in Ventura (p. 59). For an extensive discussion of some of the ramifications of this view, which underlies the mindset for practicing the arts and sciences via rules of the shastras in classical India, see Pollock (1985, pp. 499–518). Because the Vedas are considered by many Hindus to be a primordial revelation of order as Truth, in their view authentic being takes place in harmony with that vision. When this is the view, change is seen as reworking the old, rephrasing the already existent anew, rather than creating the new. Interestingly, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who discovered the principles of fractal geometry, speaks of his experience of discovering the formula for depicting the fractal geometry of nature in a similar way, not as innovation but uncovering what is always there.
“Ranayaniya notation... provides direct evidence of the method by which the Samavedic chants are constructed. Because every parvan has a notational syllable that signals a particular mudra sequence (and hence a particular musical phrase), and since the number of syllables is limited to about three hundred, therefore chants are formed” by piecing selected parvans together from this pool of 300 phrases.
“Cento,” (plural “centones”) meaning “a literary work made up of parts from other works” is related to the Sanskrit kantha, a patched garment, according to Webster’s Dictionary.
Albert B. Lord (1965) writes about formulas and the work of Milman Parry on this topic. It is interesting that soul-singer James Brown sometimes speaks of his inventions in dance as putting together strings of moves and steps in a new combination.
“Spontaneous processing” is the term used by Richard Widdess (1995, p. 96). By that term, he describes how “the musician is always working with memorized materials and established techniques for development...bringing out the essentials of various ragas.” Comparing early alapa, modern alap and deshi alapti, Widdess notes that early alapa was “not fixed melody but a melodic process, capable, like its modern counterpart, of spontaneous recreation in performance—that is, ‘improvisation.’ As in modern alap, it is a systematic, not a random process, or rather a combination of complementary processes: principally the cyclic process of octave development, repeated in successive stages, and the linear process of melodic and rhythmic variation. The latter arises from, or gives rise to, episodic structure, and is directly analogous to processes of increasing rhythmic density and stylistic changes in modern alap.” See also pp. 358–360 for more.
Obviously the raga system of Indian music is unique in other ways as well. There is a very limited number of scales in traditional Western music, while the whole spectrum of possible combinations seems to have been tried in India. The West is restless, with multiple simultaneous lines of music separating and joining in harmony, while the raga explored one contour of melodic line within strict rules and cycles of rhythm patterns.
Sangita Ratnakara III. 190–202. In writing the paragraph following the quoted passage I am indebted to Professor Lewis Rowell (Indiana University) and to Prof. N. Ramanathan (Madras University) for helpful suggestions. See Lewis Rowell (1992).
In Europe “Make haste slowly,” (“Festina lente”) was a renaissance saying; Francis Bacon (1963, p. 65) wrote in “Of Innovations” that nature’s changes are gradual (“by degrees scarce to be perceived”); he said humans need to follow that model of nature.
“Writing in general has never been help in such esteem in India as in Europe: a belief in the sanctity of the spoken word, a desire for secrecy, and the vulnerability of writing materials in the subtropical climate, have made Indian culture dependent to an extraordinary degree on memorization, improvisation and oral transmission.” (Widdess 1995, p. 87).
Basava is cited by Ramanujan (1973, p. 82). Hinduism generally is concerned with shaping the rawness of nature and experience into proper forms. But some, like Basava, and Rabindranath Tagore, speak of trusting their own impulses: “I have composed many songs which have defied the canons of respectable orthodoxy, and good people are disgusted at the impudence of a man who is audacious, because he is untrained. But I persist, and God forgives me because I do not know what I do. Possibly that is the best way of doing things in the sphere of art, for I find that people blame me, but also sing my songs, even if not always correctly.” (Chakravarty 1966, p. 85).
“A ‘model’ phrase may be almost infinitely variable internally, through stretching or compressing of motivic elements, and through prefixing, suffixing or infixing motivic elements from within the same phrase of from other phrases.” (Sadie 1980, p. 107).
The quote continues: “in the Hindustani tradition it is given to singers of the equally demanding genre alap-dhrupad, which combines improvisation and traditional song.” (Embrie, p. 63). In the early twentieth century, there was a clear distinction in performance: For men, the intellectual acrobatics in the ragam-tanam-pallavi genre took up most of a concert. It was the chance for an extensive complex of melodic and rhythmic improvisations spun off from a brief composed musical phrase. In nineteenth century men’s concerts, there was a strong competitive thrust, with challenges back and forth between main artist and sidemen, to expose adversaries’ weaknesses (somewhat like “cutting” duels in which jazz men honed their skills). Listening and response heightened abilities; improvisation meant an opportunity for performers to show virtuosity, to “play” competitively on the spot. Before the twentieth century, no brahman women performed. “Before 1930, very few women performed any of the rhythmically based Karnataka improvisatory forms which lay at the heart of ragam-talam-pallavi.” Women were known for raga alapana a melodic improvisation introducing and developing raga outside raga confines to introduce a composition in that raga (Sankaran and Allen 1997, pp. 383–395).
The singer and the instrumentalists playing vina, flute, or the violin, all improvise. The rigor of following the set piece and the imaginative creativity (manodharma sangita) are both expected—not only of the vina player and singer but also the drummer, who performs a solo improvisational segment. Thus, in one performance, there is a combination of something like a classical score—music as the composer intended it—and also extemporaneous riffing on the theme. Manodharma sangita is not a scriptural term or one found in the oldest treatises on music.
This is a statement attributed to Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. I have not located the citation. It is like Sathya Sai Baba’s saying: “Wisdom flashes like lightning amid the clouds of the inner sky; one has to foster the flash, and preserve the light.”
Henry David Thoreau, A Writer’s Journal, New York: Dover, 2011. Jan. 26, 1852, p. 82. Ocean Vuong made his statement in an interview in The Paris Review, June 5, 2019. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/06/05/survival-as-a-creative-force-an-interview-with-ocean-vuong/
Tyagaraja sang “To discern the homes of the seven notes in the midst of the chaotic uproar is liberation,” in his kriti, Svara raga sudharasa. We could say that Vedanta philosophy (and nada yoga—the yoga of sound and music as a way to reach spiritual realization in the midst of maya) “reflect a spirit so entangled in the great world mother that it must resort to disciplined exercises to find liberation.”
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Jackson, W.J. “Ever New Flights” of Creativity: Improvisation in South Indian Music. DHARM 3, 17–28 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00060-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00060-z