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The Double-Reed Aerophone in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

B. C. Deva
B. C. Deva*
Affiliation:
Sangeet Natak Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi-11001, India
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Extract

A recent article by Jairazbhoy in Ethnomusicology is perhaps the first cogent account of the oboe in India. Here I wish to offer a few comments on his paper and give some supplementary material and ideas.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council , Volume 7 , 1975 , pp. 77 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 By the International Folk Music Council 

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References

Notes

1. Jairazbhoy, Nazir A., “A Preliminary Survey of the Oboe in India,” Ethnomusicology, 14 (1970), 375-88.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., p. 375.Google Scholar

3. Lyons, I. and Ingholt, H., Gandharan Art in Pakistan (New York: Pantheon, 1957), pp. 30, 60, fig. 41. Ingholt, however, refers to the “oboe” player as a flutist, which he is not. (I am grateful to Dr. Jairazbhoy for suggesting Gandharan art as source material.)Google Scholar

4. Jairazbhoy, “Preliminary Survey,” p. 380.Google Scholar

5. This was discussed with Dr. Jairazbhoy recently.Google Scholar

6. Deva, B.C., Psychoacoustics of Music and Speech (Madras: Music Academy, 1967), p. 81.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., pp. 185 ff. See also B. C. Deva, “Cultural Bases of Indian Music,” Basis of Indian Culture (Calcutta: Ramakrshna Vedanta Math, 1971), p. 501.Google Scholar

8. Somanatha, Palkuriki, Panditaradhya Charitra (Telugu) (Madras: Andhra Patrika Press, 1939), p. 444.Google Scholar

9. Chikkabhpala, Mummadi, Abhinava Bharata Sarasamgraha (Sanskrit), ed. with English commentary by R. Satyanarayana (Mysore: Varalakshmi Academy of Fine Arts, 1960), pp. xxxvi, 3.Google Scholar

10. Ramaraju, B., Telugu Janapada Geya Sahityamu (Telugu) (Hyderabad: Andhra Rachayitala Sangham, 1958), p. 741.Google Scholar

11. Raghavan, V., “Nagasvara,” Journal of Madras Music Academy, 20 (1949). The chapter on musical instruments in Ahobala's Sangeeta Parijata is not included in the usually available printed versions of the work. But a reference is given by Chunilal ‘Sesh’ (see note 25 below.)Google Scholar

12. Satyanarayana, Abhinava, p. xxxix. See also B. C. Deva, Introduction to Indian Music (New Delhi: Pul. Divn. Govt. of India, 1973), pp. 57ff., and B. C. Deva, Indian Music (New Delhi: Ind. Counc. for Cult. Relations, 1974), p. 125.Google Scholar

13. There is no evidence of these words in the extant versions of Matanga's Brhaddesi; they are given by Chikkabhpala as “after Matanga.”Google Scholar

14. Kavi, Ramakrishna, Bharata Kosha (Sanskrit) (Tirupati: T. T. Devasthanam, 1951), p. 461; see also notes 9 and 12 above.Google Scholar

15. Satyanarayana, Abhinava, p. 2.Google Scholar

16. Dasa, Purandara, Mahatmya Jnana, song 129 (1964); Krishna Leela (Kannada), songs 18, 55, 107, and 108 (1965). In the second work, the commentators give the meaning as bajantri and sunadi, both oboes (p. 138); song 18 gives mouri and the others mourya. Both edited by B. Krishna Sarma and B. Huchharaya (Sri Purandara dasa's 400th Anniversary Committee, Dharwar). The saint himself did not write any titled anthologies; the editors have collected his songs and published them under various heads.Google Scholar

Suladi was a composition or song in which each section had a different tala. It is not now in vogue, but was widely popular from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, particularly with the dasa composers of the Karnataka area.Google Scholar

17. Gordon, P. R. T., The Khasis (London: Macmillan, 1914), p. 38.Google Scholar

18. Bars, E., Khasi-English Dictionary (Shillong: Don Bosco, 1973), p. 625.Google Scholar

19. The information on the Kota and the Irula was collected by Dr. J. Kuckertz (Musikwissenschaftliches Institut der Universität Bonn) and myself in 1970-71. I am thankful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn, for financing this study. The drawings, by Sri A. Devsy, New Delhi, are based on the photographs taken then by Dr. Kuckertz. I am grateful to him for permitting their reproduction here.Google Scholar

20. C. von Fürer-Haimendorf, The Rajgonds of Adilabad, Book 1 (London: Macmillan, 1948), p. 50.Google Scholar

21. Chauhan, I. E. N., “Ethnomusicology in Kinnaur,” Sangeet Natak (New Delhi), 27 (1973), 37. See also L. G. Jerstad, Mani-Rimdu, Sherpa dance-drama (Calcutta: Oxford & IBH, 1969), p. 89; Jerstad, however, calls it a trumpet.Google Scholar

22. Das, Sarat Chandra, Tibetan-English Dictionary (Calcutta: West Bengal Government Press, 1960), pp. 304–5.Google Scholar

23. Askari, S. H., “Music in Early Indo-Persian Literature,” Malik Ram Felicitation Volume, ed. S. A. J. Zaidi (Delhi, 1972), pp. 102, 115.Google Scholar

24. Ramaraju, Telugu Janapada Geya Sahityamu, pp. 205, 744.Google Scholar

25. Chunilal ‘Sesh', Asthacchap ke Vadyayantra (Hindi) (Mathura: A. B. B. Braj Sahitya Mandal, 1956), p. 26.Google Scholar

26. Mysore Archeological Survey Report (Government of Mysore, 1942), p. 68.Google Scholar

27. Rawlinson, P., Tantra (Delhi: Vikas, 1973), fig. 31. Reis Flora, of the United States, who was working with me on this subject, showed me photographs of two central Indian sculptures dating from the Middle Ages. The instruments were definitely of the oboe class.Google Scholar

28. Deva, B. C., Psychoacoustics, p. 185.Google Scholar

29. Aurobindo, Sri, The Secret of the Vedas (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971), p. 48.Google Scholar