Some comments on the SaDja discussion

[Srinivasan Pichumani]

        Krishna wrote:

        As far as I can tell,"ShaDja-first note" here is the
        prevalent way in which music is taught now( and possibly
        then), but what is this "fourth note" thing? In this case,
        I think "panCama" would be the base note...i.e. panCama-1,
        dhaivata-2,niShAda-3,ShaDja-4...was there a time/reason when
        panCama was the base note?

ShaDja as the fourth note has to do with the NAradIyas'ikShA's
identification of the notes of the (sAma) vaidika scale and the
laukika (secular) scale.  The vaidika scale is usually thought
of as a descending scale... the NAradIyas'ikShA first equates
the prathama of sAmagAna with madhyama... descending down the
scale, you get ShaDja of the laukika scale as the caturtha or
4th note of sAmagAna.

        Krishna again:

        IT is also supposed to resemble( according to Apte) the note
        of peacocks i.e. nArada is quoted here as saying: "ShaDjam
        rauti mayUrastu" ...not sure if this means that this was
        derived from the note of the peacock....

        I have a question for the music gurus here : Is there a unified
        theory of the derivation of all the notes- some seem to take their
        name from an animal with a similar calling note i.e. riShabha
        from v.rShabha(bull) and others seem to take it from their position
        in the ascending order i.e. panCamam...can somebody please post all
        the correct derivations of the notes?

To translate literally from Tamil idiom, you can pluck your head
(i.e. hair) off looking for correct derivations, unified theories,
and what not.  Suffice to say that a lot of fancy - at least from
where we stand - is at work here.

On the other hand, Bharata, Dattila are more to the point when
they just list the seven svaras and get on with it.  Bharata's
identification of rasas with individual svaras __may__ stand up
to better scrutiny since he deals with melodies, libretto, and
performing ensembles in the context of drama.
___________

        K.V.Ramaprasad wrote:

        These assignments have been probably quoted from
        Bharata's nATya shAstra.

The association of svaras with animal cries, colors, social
classes, bodily regions, sages, etc are from the NAradIyas'ikShA.
________

        Palaniappan asks:

        When is the earliest evidence for the concept of 'saptaka' in
        Sanskrit?

Among musicological works, afaik, Bharata's nATyas'Astra is the
first extant work that talks of the saptaka and the constituent
svaras.  It is interesting that the saptaka is the musical concept
at work in these treatises rather than the octave or the aShTaka.
Given this, madhyama as the central svara makes more sense.

        Explanation (c) also does not make sense. For instance, if SaDja
        is produced from the above-mentioned six places, in how many places
        are the other notes produced (less or more than six places)?

All these s'lokas that give 6 places of origin for SaDja notwithstanding,
the NAradIyas'ikShA gives the bodily origin of ShADja simply as the throat.

        I think 'being born of , prepared from, made of' are all
        semantically very close. So the basic logic could work. But,
        my understanding is that the theory of musical scales with
        the concepts of the relationship between 'SaDja' and 'pancama'
        etc., and the octave were derived with the help of instruments.

This may be an aside... but the use of instruments doesn't negate
in any way the fundamental conception in the Sanskritic treatises
that musical sound is first and foremost vocal sound.  See the
opening remarks in Lewis Rowell's Music and Musical Thought in
Early India.  Instruments are used only in the context of
demonstrating the theoretical/abstract 22 s'ruti interval concept.

Melodic concepts such as svaras, their consonance, dissonance, and
groupings of svaras into scales, jAtis etc are more tangible concepts
that don't really need derivation based on instruments.

-Srini.