‘Modern science should shed off its orientation towards a science of possibilities in the physical nature. It should aim at becoming a science of human possibilities.’ – -Sir Julian Huxley.
What we call loosely as ‘sound’ is seriously and devotedly referred to in the Sanskrit language as nada. The term nada would literally mean ‘to flow’, denoting the ever passing and never-resting nature of sound waves, a quality attributed to every life-processes in and around us. Indeed, a vast spectrum of possibilities are thrown open before us when we hear a sound.
The ancient seers of India visualised the vastness of the sound world and placed it at par with the dimensions of our universe. They had understood the dual nature of sound as it could be local or trans local, focused or dissipated, intense or diluted, particular or general depending upon the mental capacity and attitude of the person who listens to it.
Therapeutic Traditions of Sound Experience
The sound experience is interred with human civilisation. It has been an inseparable mental companion not only to the aboriginals who feared Nature’s fury, but also to the modern man who is in constant threat by his own tribe. Long before acoustics came to be studied in Europe, the ancient civilizations of the Arabs, Greeks and Indians were already aware of the prophylactic and therapeutic role of musical sound and vibrations. While the Greek legends glorify the music that healed diseases, deadly wounds, the Arabian writer ‘Ibn Sina’ had recorded the therapeutic role of music in his various treatises on medicine.
The Indian musician Tan Sen is said to have cured Emperor Akbar’s hypertension with his recipe: the raga Yaman. It was widely known that depending on its nature, a raga could induce or intensify joy or sorrow, anger or peace and capture and communicate a whole range of emotions. All these could be done by manipulating the pace or gait or, by exploiting certain swaras (notes) or ragas through altering, or their methods of rendering them in appropriate musical architecture such as meend or glissando, staccato, iteration, progression etc.
The Chinese civilisation saw a significant harmonic balance between Heaven and Earth, with rites and music as the instruments of this harmony. The appreciation of and reverence for the laws of nature was a normal feature in all ancient societies, where sound was acknowledged as part and parcel of one’s encounter with nature. The correspondence between sounds and colours; forms, planets, vital flows, precious stones, animals and seasons reveals that music not only represents an aesthetic emotional makeup, constructed by its form or melodic beauty, but also an essential significance or ‘ethos’ in life-situations. The cathartic power of music, which is endorsed in recent research in music therapy and ‘its healing qualities inherent educative capacity has thus made, musical experience not only relevant to the ‘non-musical’ or noisy settings of today, but also as a ‘future medicine’ in the coming years to cure humanity of the overactive human mind and its resultant illness.
Shamanic Traditions and Sound Vibrations
Use of sound vibrations in shamanic healing has been in vogue for several millennia as it was widely practiced around the world. For instance, let us take the Bonpo of the Himalayas, an ancient tribe known for its rich history and tradition. This society had learnt a very long time back even before Buddhism was born, as to how to immerse in sacred sound, by adopting certain practices, which are conducive to the mind and the resultant behaviour.
As alchemists, they knew a recipe for making their wonderful instrument, the singing bowl, which was used in a shamanic practice. The bowl was to be made of seven metals (sapta dhatu) thus including gold, silver, copper etc each one representing a day of the week such as Sunday, Monday, Tuesday etc. respectively.
The sound of a singing bowl is essentially a powerful reminder of the inherent fluidity (or the ‘flow’ of nada), within the construct of a tone. For example, the singing bowl offers an experience of peeling harmonics and microtones automatically emanating even long after the bowl is disturbed with a wooden rod.
It is a matter of experience that such intonation that emanates with high quality harmonics accompanying the fundamental tone could provide not only psychological well-being but also the resultant physiological benefits – as mind and body are very much inter-connected both in health as well in diseased conditions.
Though the Himalayan Bonpo used this sound experience repeatedly to elevate their levels of consciousness, towards achieving oneness with the Universal or Divine Consciousness, unconsciously they were paying heed for their physical as well physiological well-being through such practices.
This article was published in Bhavan Journal Oct 31, 2007 – Pages 79 to 81
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, July 13, 2021