Essay name: Musical Instruments in Sanskrit Literature
Author:
S. Karthick Raj KMoundinya
Affiliation: University of Madras / Department of Sanskrit
The essay studies the Musical Instruments in Sanskrit Literature and its relationship with the South Indian musical tradition. The study emphasizes the universal appeal of music and documents how it pervades various aspects of life, art, literature, painting, and sculpture.
Chapter 2 - Origin and evolution of Music and Musical instruments
65 (of 99)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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80
Among the Tamil works on this subject, Sage Tiruvalluvar praise
the sweetness of the flute-kuzhal-inidu.' The flute is, in common
parlance, spoken of as 'Pullankuzhal'. The term 'Pul' literally means not
only the grass, but also a reed.
In Sangam literature, this has been used to denote all tubular
woods. Aintinai (50) and kalittogai (129) say,
"Ooranpin ayan vandoodum seersal kuzhalolsai."
'Tiruttondar Pur膩峁嘺m' of Sekkizhar, extols the greatness of Anaya
Nayanar, who used to play the 'Pa帽cas膩ra', musically on the flute. The
Sangam literature 'kuruntogai' (157) and Natrinai (341) mention this:
"Vanga Varipparai".
In ancient Tamil classics, we come across the words, 'konrai
tinkuzhal', 'mullaitinkuzhal' and Ambalamtinkuzhal'.
Kamba R膩m膩ya峁嘺 also says, 'Konrai veinkuzhal kovalar'. Three
important r膩ga-scales were in the ancient Tamil music. They are: konrai
y膩zh, mullai y膩zh and ambal y膩zh. 'Y膩zh' here does not mean the lute,
but only the musical scale. Though it is common to accord the second
place to the Ve峁噓 (flute) in the order V墨峁嚹� - Ve峁噓 M峁沝anga, the Yazh,
had to be tuned only on the basis of the Ve峁噓.
The Sangam classic, kalittogai makes this clear: The flute is not an
instrument, manually tuned, unlike the Yazh and Vi峁嚹�. Hence the flute
'weighed' the pitch of the strings. So, the first place is to be given only to
the Ve峁噓. The lute followed the flute, particularly in tuning.
