mārga core_concept

^٠ VIMARŚA ³⁰⁵ central part of present Madhya Pradesh. The special preference for Mālavā requires further investigation. 29. The word gamaka is used here in the sense of vocal embellishments including shakes; it is not restricted to shake. ³⁰. See note ²². 31. Each grāmarāga is said to be born of one or more jātis. 32. Pūrvaranga has been described in NS IV and V; it embodies instrumental rendering, song, dance, dialogue etc. presented as a preliminary to drama. It has both ritualistic and psychological value as it ensures the success of drama by propitiating the gods and prepares the audience for being receptive to drama. 33. Kākalī and antara are always prescribed to be sparse, but here only the sparseness of gandhara is prescribed, although both antara and kakali are present. It could be construed that gandhara stands for the original gāndhāra and not antara. See note 91. ^• 34,35. The prescription of a specific varņa and alaṅkāra in a rāga is not easy to comprehend. It could only be surmised that the peculiar form of a raga in some cases becomes manifest in ascent, in other cases in descent and similarly a specific alaṅkāra could be assigned to a rāga on account of having a special role in establishing the same. 36. Mārga literally means path; it stands for the span of a tāla. NŠ describes three mārgas of each tāla, citra being the shortest, vārtika or vṛtti being its double and dakṣiṇa again being its double. Our text describes two additional mārgas viz. dhruva being half of the length of citra and śūnya being half of dhruva. (See Vol.I. Anu.113) 37. Kalā has many meanings; the main ones are-firstly, the time-unit that is equal to a guru i.e. two mātrās of tāla, secondly, the 'action' (kriyā) in tāla, sounded or unsounded and thirdly, the unsounded action. Here the first meaning is relevant because the length of kalā depends on the mārga in use at a given time. 38. Caccatpuța is the first among the five tālas described in NŠ XXXI. This is the only caturasra (lit. square) tala, being composed of four kalas or eight mātrās. 39. Garbha-sandhi is the third among the five sandhis or junctures in drama described in NŚ XIX; the first two being mukha and pratimukha and the last two being vimarsa and nirvahana. Garbha literally means 'womb', the inside or interior of something. In drama garbha-sandhi stands for that juncture where the 'sprouting' of the 'seed' has taken place, but the fruit is still enshrouded in the 'garbha'. 40. Our text does not uphold the relationship of any raga to both the grāmas; the decision always rests with the interval of pañcama, if it is composed of four śrutis, then relationship with ṣadjagrāma is confirmed and

¹ Ė ¹⁵¹ VIMARŚA ì 2. Gita (lit. song or the act of singing) stands for the melodic aspect of music which is rendered through the voice or stringed and wind instruments. BṛD does not mention vādya along with gīta here, nor in verse 14 where desī music is defined as 'that which is sung.' Since voice sets the model followed by stringed and wind instruments, gita is the word for the melodic aspect of music and the content of the above instruments is included in it. This extension of the meaning of gita gets established when the word vādya is juxtaposed with it, because in that case vādya gets restricted to drums. But here, in absence of that juxtaposition, gita would acquire a further extension by way of also including vādya in its orbit. Hence gīta stands here for the totality of music. It is notable that gita is followed by svara in this verse. This looks like a repetition because svara is the main constituent of gita. This could be construed as an emphasis on 'svara' through an independent reference to it. 3. Nrtta generally stands for pure dance where the delineation of artha (meaning) of kāvya (poetry, literature) is not intended (vide NŠ IV, 263). Nṛtta is dependent on nāda, because it has to be accompanied on instruments, specially drums. 4. The statement that the world is made up of nāda seems to be somewhat out of place here, because the context is that of nada being the essence of music and dance. But if one recalls the exposition of the order of manifestation or formation of gandharva beginning from bindu and moving forward through nāda - mātṛkā - varṇa - pada - vākya - mahāvākya - to Veda ( alongwith its auxiliary disciplines), it would become clear that 'gīta' (representing gāndharva) incorporates all the stages upto gandharva and hence the fundamental nature of nāda as established in gīta could be logically extended to the 'world' because the world or phenomenon itself is a manifestation of nāda through the above stages. SR expresses the same idea in the following manner - "Nāda manifests the letters ( of alphabet ), letters constitute the word and words make a sentence; so, the entire business of life is carried on through language and therefore, the whole phenomenon (i.e. the world) is based on nāda". (SR1, ².2) Just as SR has related the business of life with nāda through verbal communication that is based on the same, BrD has used gita in an extended meaning, including in it all the manifestations of nada and has expounded nada to be the essence of the whole world. It would be interesting to note here that S R also speaks of nāda being the essence of gita, vādya and nṛtta but the 'world' is not connected with nāda in that context. "Nāda is the very essence of vocal music, instrumental music is enjoyable as it manifests nāda. Nṛtta (dance) follows both (i.e. vocal and instrumental music); therefore, all the three together depend on nāda". (SRI, 2.1) 5,6,7,8. Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara (Śiva) form one group as Trideva (three gods), representing three aspects of the manifestation of the Ultimate Reality into the phenomenon of the universe, viz. creation, preservation and destruction. Although the three of them occur in Vedic literature, yet the idea