“The purpose of music is to draw towards a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate.” – Lannis Xenakis
Long before acoustics came to be understood in Europe as a subject of study, the ancient Arab, Greek and Indian civilizations were already familiar with the therapeutic role of sounds and vibrations and the latter day concepts pertaining to them. While music was and is well recognized for its entertainment value, the Indian civilization had taken a step forward to attribute the curative aspect to music.
Indian music is both emotional and intellectual. The unique merger of swaras and their partials and a mathematically precise laya and tala system, lend the music its intuitive as well as intellectual flavour respectively.
It is a well-known fact that the Indian classical music attaches great importance to serenity and a thoughtful state of mind as its primary goal. As such it helps in balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which are assigned the functions of analysis and intuition respectively by the neurologists.
Drone and its Psychic Importance
In the Indian systems of music – both Hindustani and Carnatic drone is an essential requirement. The drone that emanates from tanpuras can be compared to the state-of-equilibrium as it fully represents the essence of the musical scale on which ragas can be conceived. Drone offers the basic framework akin to a balanced mind, which has its inherent capacity to fall prey to emotional upheavals, ascendance or decadence, the same way a raga could meander.
Nada Yoga
The ancient system of Nada Yoga, which dates back to the time of tantras, has fully acknowledged the impact of music on body and mind and put into practice the vibrations emanating from sounds to uplift one’s level of consciousness. It is the Indian genius that recognized that ragas are not just mere commodities of entertainment but the vibrations in their resonance could synchronize with one’s mood and health. By stimulating the moods and controlling the brain wave patterns, ragas could work as a complementary medicine.
The Concept of Nada
The Sanskrit word ‘nada’ often ends up loosely referred to music in a casual way. Actually nada refers to a much broader concept in music which includes not only sound and its vibration but also one consciousness and various levels of perception.
Sound ways for a physicist involve a series of compressions and rarefactions, causing alternative pressure disturbance that travel through the medium (eg. air) particle interaction. In addition to such material ‘physical’ ‘outer’ or ‘struct’ (ahata) sounds, nada also encompasses those sounds which are sui generis, often referred to as ‘mystic’, ‘inner’ or ‘unstruck’ (anahata) in its ambit. Thus the physical limitations and dimensions that restrict a sound in terms of audibility, amplitude, physical qualities such as timbre, texture are known as anahata nada.
While music refers to an organised sound which is pleasing to ears, nada refers to certain flavour attached to it.
Believed to have originated from two mystic syllables (bijaksharas) na and da, derived from breath (prana) and fire (agni) respectively.
In other words human perception of sound whose range is pegged anywhere between 20 – 20,000 Hz alone does not come under the purview of nada. Nada is much wider and more expansive going into the depths of our existence.
It is rather a concept that goes to the very roots of sound and its experience where oscillations or vibration make a sound what it is and the way with which the human consciousness gets synchronized with them in subtler levels of our existence.
In this context, overtones, the sounds hovering above a lower sound, which is the fundamental assumed significance. While the fundamental remains the same, it is the overtones, which change in a sort of melodic pattern; repeating themselves in a regular fashion. For instance, when `sa’ in the upper octave is held steadily, the overtones (tara sthayi antara 47e ‘ga’ and `pa’) could be heard by the connoisseurs as shifting echoes. Becoming aware of them is one of the many practices in the ancient system of nada yoga.
We commit grave injustice, if we call nada as music, swara as note, tala as rhythm, without appreciating the background of the cultural criteria that go with them hand in hand.
Nada: Categorization
Matanga, an ancient sage, categorized nada into 5 types, based on their origin from the body: navel (ati sukshma), heart (Sushma), throat (pushta), head (apushta) and lips (kritrima). There are other musicologists who have identified the following eight places as the location for nada : head, heart, lips, nose, palate, root of tongue, teeth and throat.
Sangita Ratnakara, an ancient text on music, authored by Saranga Deva, who came from a family of physicians has observed the subtle association between the three body humour (doshas) and the voice quality.
| Body Humour | Voice Quality |
| Phlegmatic (kapha) | Delicate, Sweet, Humid and Warm |
| Windy (vata) | High-pitched |
| Bilious (pitta) | Rich and Majestic |
How Nada Differs from Music
We have seen nada, unlike music, could even be interpreted as consisting of vibrations sui generis,. It need not be mentally sculpted or determined, nor is it differentiated from any sound-matrix. It is holistic and absolute. While it is sensory, it can be uplifted along with one’s awareness to reach into new terrains of consciousness. Nada yoga considers nada as a primordial energy source in the Universe, which forms the substratum for all manifestations around us and in us.
Known to the physicists as resonance, nada – refers to an emanation of life principle with a big-bang origin which the western science seems to be reluctantly acknowledging.
Nada and Consciousness
Nada Yoga makes an attempt to synchronize the intonation with one’s own consciousness. As the system is built on vibration, mirroring one consciousness, it is an unique way of altering the consciousness to enjoy the state of bliss.
This article was published in Sadguru’s blessings – Jan 2005 – Pages 37, 38
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, April 15, 2021