The ancient raga system of India is well-known for — centuries for its emotional content and impact. The ragas have been selectively used along with appropriate rhythms and beats to address the turbulent minds and to balance the emotional upheavals during unbearable losses, trauma and a lot more.
‘Raga Chikitsa’ is one of the ancient texts which deals with the therapeutic role of ragas. It appears that these therapeutic concepts were well-developed and practiced in India by the 12th-13th century, but were lost thereafter. Improvising music to inculcate pleasant feelings have been dealt with in `Sangita Sudha’, a 17th Century work, authored by Nayaka King Raghunatha Nayak and his minister Govinda Dikshitar.
Ancient Indian musicologists were not only concerned with the aesthetic role in experiencing raga, but had emphasised on their therapeutic impact on emotional situations. In this context the Sanskrit term ‘bhaava’ which denotes the emotional bed that infuses life to the scale of a raga was regarded as the ‘soul’ of music. Thus, while laying down aesthetic norms, classical musicologists were researching the ability to fill a raga-scale with `bhaava’.
In fact this has made Indian ragas, an ideal tool for emotional healing which includes addressing various conditions of mental imbalances such as anxiety, stress, trauma etc. Various ancient musicological writings on the aspect of Raga as therapy, as collected by King Sahaji (1684-1711) were fortunately preserved in the Thanjavur Saraswathi Mahal Library in the form of several palm leaf manuscripts.
| The ancient raga system of India is well-known for centuries for its emotional content and impact. The ragas have been selectively used along with appropriate rhythms and beats to address the turbulent minds and to balance the emotional upheavals during unbearable losses, trauma and a lot more. |
After independence, these were studied by music scholars and published as a series of books by this library. From them we are able to understand how our ancient musicologists manipulated the raga structure to derive maximum benefits out of the raga system.
The process of expanding a raga structure is referred to as `alap’ or ‘raga alapana’. This involves a right combination of imagination, aimed at a determined intention. To achieve a consistent’ bhaava’, musicologists had, in the past, worked on various ‘catches’ (`pidi’ in Tamil), which inculcate pleasant feelings in the listener.
‘Pidis’ are note-clusters, which form the building blocks for a raga. Thus, for example, Sa, Sa Ri Sa Ri Ga, Sa Ri Ga Ma, Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa are the five `pidis’, which can be found within the body of a typical Indian raga. Based on years, decades and even centuries of experimentations with such clusters, keenly observing their impact on the minds of listeners, certain conclusions and generalisations have been drawn which will benefit music therapists in arriving at the appropriate raga structures to address various mental ailments.
Based on the understanding that a `pidi’ that satisfies the mind alone can be therapeutic, they devised ways and means to execute through imagination the right kind of `pidis’ that could satisfy the listeners instantly. Out of the five `pidis’, as illustrated above, it was observed that it is either Sa Ri Ga Ma or Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa which give maximum satisfaction to the listeners with a sense of completion. Whereas the remaining three `pidis’namely Sa, Sa Ri and Sa Ri Ga are just capable of creating a sense of expectation in the minds of the listeners and never a sense of completion which alone renders satisfaction.
In these “incomplete” examples, only suspense is created in the minds as there is no sense of completion. While listening to these `pidis’, the listeners are bound to feel a certain inadequacy, and at the same time certain curiosity to reach a conclusion or completion. The swaras Sa and Ma are considered `samvadi swaras’, the same way Sa and Pa are heard. Samvadi swaras are the friendly notes which are close to each other.
This article is published in Bhavan’s Journal, November 2013 – Pages 96, 97
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, Nov. 14, 2021