From very ancient times, civilizations all over the world in general and in India, in particular, have recognized the significance of sound in human life. What is popularly referred to as Nada. Yoga forms a body of intuitive concepts and esoteric practices exploiting sound, the ‘struck’ or material sound referred to as ahata and the ‘unstruct’ or non-material sound anahata.
Recent experiments in neurology and brain research, with the help of neuro-imaging and other sophisticated electronic devices and equipment, have thrown open a new branch of science, neuromusicology, which seems to offer a scientific explanation for the outlandish concepts and obscure practice of Nada Yoga prevalent in India over centuries or millennia. Sound known for its usefulness for mankind recognized and celebrated for long in all ‘primitive’ societies has thus come to occupy the center stage of medical research and has come to be referred to as ‘future medicine’ by some enthusiasts as well.
Rediscovering the prophylactic and therapeutic role of music within scientific parameters have of course, posed several problems and invited the criticisms of conventional scientific world.
However, the growing role as the non-invasive holistic medicine indicates its importance as a dependable complementary medicine system with workable solutions for alleviating the physical and psychological problems faced by the mankind. Recent developments in man’s history such as migration, urbanization, globalization, competition delinking brain activities and supersonic jet setting habits have all contributed towards a pace of lifestyle which goes far ahead of the normal bio rhythmic velocity set in human organism ever since it’s appearance on earth. These changes have already started showing their impact in human societies: de-alienation from fellow species, breakup of joint and even nuclear families, tendency towards isolation or segregation, loss of Identity, loneliness, depression and whatnot. Man has become marginalized in his own world and has become a robot in a mechanized jungle, for his very survival. Loss of emotional bondage or coherence has thus exposed him for greater levels of stress and stress related disorders which his ancestors used to encounter, say a few decades back. It is here that the music seems to come to his rescue as a potential medium to overcome stress, wiping out depression, rage, social harmony etc. That brew in the complex mental horizons leading to ‘poisoning’ of individuals as well as their societies.
It has been, of late, recognized by scientists and philosophers that all musical systems around the world, whether folk or classical, Western or Eastern, secular or religious, have made significant contributions in the past towards the maintenance of behavior ethics and social norms in all human societies- ‘primitive’ or ‘modern’. With the increase displacement of the working population and rapid human migrations, the original regional flavours in sound usage have come to be greatly affected giving way to new genres of musical sensibilities and expressions cut away from the harmonious setting of old and gold days. In this the ‘milieu’, it is all the more necessary that we understand the nuances in music often hidden or mystified in a scientific manner so that music is evolved as per individual as well as social needs.
This article was published in Indian Customs and Excise 2004 – Pages 52
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, Mar 4, 2021