Though the therapeutic value of ragas is historically recognized in India, very little work has been done for a scientific evaluation of the raga system, especially their role in affecting the mental and emotional states and in producing multiple physiological changes in the body. It is high time that universities and research organizations take up this work more earnestly so as to dig out the treasures hidden in them for the welfare of humanity.
Raga, no doubt, can lead a person to a state of harmony. As every illness is the result of a disharmony, raga can help in initiating a healing process and infusing harmony – physical, emotional and mental.
Raga exhibits its power to access our deeply residing emotions and frustration. As holistic healing is concerned with bringing the body mind complex into a natural state of balance, a blend of selected swaras and layas can lead to such a balance more easily through synchronization. The ultimate aim of course, is to restore, maintain, and improve emotional, physical, physiological and spiritual health and well-being.
Recently Sri Aurobindo Society, through the Sri Aurobindo International Institute for Integral Health and Research (SAIIIHR) has undertaken a research project on music therapy based on ragas. The aim of this research is stated to be as follows:
- To evaluate the role of ragas in alleviating certain human ailments.
- To assess their efficacy in serving as a therapeutic aid in various categories of patients, and their role in supplementing/ complementing various systems of medicine.
- To correlate the findings in ancient literature on raga therapy, and their association with recent works carried out in various places in India.
- To evaluate the role of raga in prevention of early onset hypertension, diabetes etc., in patients with positive family history.
- To assess the role of raga in alleviating post-operative pain, ICU psychosis etc.
- To complete the results of music therapy carried out in other places in the world with the results obtained through administration of ragas rendered via instrumental music.
- To bring about a synthesis of spiritual and scientific approaches in the various systems of music therapy in the East and in the West.
While the aim is laudable, it has to be appreciated that it is not an easy task to achieve these goals. The reason is ‘Music therapy’ involves inter disciplinary understanding. As a trained musician concentrates only on performance to the satisfaction of his audience, he has little to do with the therapeutic role of his music. The physician – or even for that matter an alternative healer has very little understanding about music. For, music itself is a highly complex subject, often compared to an ocean recognizing its vastness and depth.
Secondly, music is not so amenable to one’s reason – the primary foundation on which modern science and medicine coolly rests upon! The emotional aspects in music cannot be fathomed by simple arithmetic involved in note arrangements alone! Emotion, we all know, is beyond reasons and so are the intuitive aspects in music that make us laugh or cry.
Like the mind, music is complex. It is further complicated by the nexus which exists between the two, making it too different for a rational explanation without which no science can exist or develop. This could be a reason why music therapy is still rated as an alternative approach to healing. Like all other forms of alternative medicine (e.g., yoga, reiki, homeopathy etc.) music therapy can prove to be a complementary medicine, filling up the void in modern medicine, which tends to treat its client as a non-human object, devoid of feelings and emotions.
This article was published in ‘AYURVEDA AND ALL’ DECEMBER 2006 – Pages 40, 41
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, May 13, 2021