Ekavada

Eka + vad + ghain.. That musical instrument which produces sound in harmony (mutually related notes of the scale) is called ekava'da. Among the musical instruments familiar to us, the harmonium and the tamboura fall into this category. Among insects and animals, the cricket, owl, frog and jackal follow to some extent this same system. The donkey, cuckoo and Indian nightingale follow it to a limited degree. The sitar or esraj do not fall into the category of ekava'da. Some people think that ekava'da means ekata'ra' [a one-stringed instrument]. No, the Sanskrit word for ekata'ra' is samava'da, not ekava'da. 

The subject of ekava'da brings back a forgotten memory. At that time myself and Prasenjit used to go to the hills every evening to practise the esraj. The esraj belonged to Prasenjit. I was trying to see if the esraj could be played as an ekava'da or not; and, if it could, how would it effect the surasaptaka [musical octave]? In what measure would it produce consonant and dissonant notes? Things sound very different under ordinary conditions and ekava'da conditions. 

Every evening, after we had been practising for a little while, we seemed to be hearing someone playing an unknown ra'gin'ii on an unknown instrument coming from the distant hills. Both of us would listen for some time. We couldn't see anyone. Sometimes we would think that we were hearing the echoes of our esraj but after a few moments we would realize our mistake because how could the echoes of the esraj last so long? And moreover what we were playing was not the ra'gin'ii we were hearing in the echo. But there was no instrumentalist, no instrument that we could see anywhere. After spending some time in that astonishing environment, we would again come down from the hills. When we would get to the plain at the bottom that music would disappear over the horizon. 

On this particular day it had gotten quite late. Why Prasenjit hadn't come I didn't know. Normally he would come first and I would come later. 

I was sitting there alone when that intoxicating melody, that rapturous sound, came floating over the forest of sha'l and pala'sh trees. I thought to myself as long as Prasenjit is not here, nor his esraj, why don't I go on ahead a bit and look for that unknown, unfamiliar instrumentalist. 

I started climbing. The moon had come out and everything was clearly visible. After my hill there was a huge, uneven plateau filled with pebbles and broken stones and a catechu jungle. A few jackals sitting under a plum tree eating plums fled when they saw me coming. A little further on I saw three or four hyenas (goba'gha', ha'nr'ol, taraks'u) sitting quietly; when they saw me they first tried to guess whether I was their friend or foe. After they saw that I wasn't moving in their direction they continued sitting where they were. A ba'rshiunga deer appeared, running swiftly from north to south; perhaps a tiger had been chasing him. 

I went ahead, on and on and on. The melody came in waves, sometimes clear and sometimes faint, sometimes close and sometimes far, very far. A little farther on I came to a small piya'sha'l (piya'l) jungle; the sha'l flowers were then in blossom, full of intoxicating nectar. 

The music grew even clearer. Everything was glittering in the moonlight. I went ahead. The sound now seemed to be quite near. I came to a pala'sh jungle and started reciting a poem to myself:

Kim'shuk bane a'ji nirjane ke tumi viin'a' ba'ja'o

Dekha' da'o more dekha' da'o. 

Am'shuk-sama ujjval mane ma'dhurii char'iye ja'o

Ca'ona' to tumi kichu kakhano, hayto neiko prayojan kono

Bha'ver atiite vijane nibhrte e kii va'nii shona'o.

Áma'r maner rikta nilaye , dhara' deve ki na'-bale, na'-kaye

Jyotsna'-sna'ta praya'ta prados'e asiimer ga'n ga'o. 

[Who are you, playing the lyre today, alone in the kim'shuk forest?

Show yourself to me, show yourself. 

Scatter the radiant, moon-like sweetness of your mind. 

You never want anything, perhaps you have no need of anything.

What a viin'a' you play, beyond thought, in this lonely, solitary place. 

In this empty abode of my mind, will you let me catch you without speaking?

Sing the song of endlessness in this evening bathed in moonlight.]

The blooming flowers of the pala'sh trees looked as if they were lit with fire. In the middle of the jungle, in a place where the trees were sparser, I saw a young man about my age, nineteen or twenty, seated on a mound. His body was like a motion picture, a play of light and shadow. His face was bright and he was wearing an ornament in his ear and glittering bangles around his wrists. In his hands was a stringed instrument and he was playing according to his inspiration. When I approached he stopped playing and said to me in Sanskrit: "I've been waiting for you -- for ma-a-a-ny days now."

"Yes, I've often heard you play," I replied. "What is that instrument you have?"

"It's an ancient viin'a', viin' in the spoken language. Seven or seven and a half thousand years ago this was the only musical instrument in the world. When Shiva first started his musical sa'dhana' then he had to do it with this viin'a'. Can you tell me how long ago that was?"

"That was 7500 years ago," I replied. 

"Yes, I also guess it to be the same. I've been playing this viin'a' for the last 7500 years. For a long time I've had the desire to play once for you. This viin'a' is a quite simple stringed instrument. You must have heard its harmonies."

"Certainly, "I replied. 

"Over time," he continued, "this viin'a' changed into different kinds of viin'a's and viin's, the sitar, esraj, tamboura, violin and so many others. Some of them had frets and others not. Just think of it! Shiva had to make practically superhuman efforts with this primitive viin'a'. He had to invent the scale. He had to string his instrument very carefully to get the proper sound. It was Shiva who made the ra'gas and ra'gin'iis. He introduced soul-stirring modulation into them. He felt the need for musical metre -- without metre and tempo there could be no song. To maintain the rhythm he invented the horn and the tabor [a kind of small drum]. In the post-Shiva, Vedic era this tabor and horn took the form of the mrdaunga. That was during the end of the Yajurvedic era and the beginning of the Atharvavedic era. From the original mrdaunga developed in later times the Benares mrdaunga and the Bengal mrdaunga or khola (the Vaeshnavas also sometimes call it shriikhola). The mrdaunga and khola, however, are not identical, so their sound is also not the same. 

"Our tabla is a metamorphosed form of this mrdaunga. Some people believe that the tabla came from Persia but this is not the case; the tabla originated in this country. From Persia we have gotten the sitar and the gazal. Although the viin' originated in this country and has been here since the time of Shiva, we have gotten its descendant, the violin, from Italy. This viin' that I am holding fell out of use nearly six thousand years ago. I was thinking that I should play it for you, so I've been sitting here, day after day, night after night, playing it. I haven't slept but neither my body nor my mind have become tired. I am a sound wave, the musical modulation in the minds of human beings."

"I wasn't able to hear the entire melody of the piece you were playing," I said. "If it's okay with you would you play once more?"

"Why just once? I'll play a hundred times! The only reason I came to this sha'l-pala'sh forest was to play for you."

He started to play. His fingers were remarkable, the way they danced over the strings. After he stopped I asked: "Was that the very ancient sindhubhaeravii that has disappeared?"

"You are quite correct. That was sindhubhaeravii."

"Now I must go."

"Okay. I'll accompany you to the edge of the mountains."

I started heading back with that extraordinary genius by my side. After a little way I stopped and asked: "Those luminous bodies* who used to cultivate music were called gandharva. Those who used to cultivate various things in subtler spheres were called vidya'dhara and those who were skilled in dressing or enamoured of beauty were called kinnara. Which of the three are you?"

* Videhaliina -- entities which do not have a physical body made of the five fundamental factors, but rather a structure comprised of three factors only, .luminous, aerial and ethereal, in which the mind functions.

He kept quiet. The luminous face of his luminous body glittered even brighter as he smiled and remained silent. 

I kept on walking with him alongside me, that original viin' still in his hands. 

"Do you know?" he said. "The world of music today is like a person without a proper guru or proper training. People want to show they can play without having paid their dues. They are selling themselves for gold without realizing that the real value of music is being lost thereby. Gold is becoming even cheaper than glass. Whenever a ra'gin'ii is a little difficult they only show that they can play the notes without going deep into the music. There is no way of doing this with sindhubhaeravii, the same with mu'lta'nii vasanta (not vasantaba'ha'r), so you no longer hear either one of them."

"You are right," I replied. "I don't hear anyone play sindhubhaeravii, nor mu'lta'ni vasanta any longer. I have heard one or two pieces going by the name of sindhubhaeravii. One or two songs also. But judging by the scale I could see that they were not sindhubhaeravii. They were different local styles of darvarii."

"Right you are, quite right. That's just what I wanted to say. You must have noticed that in sindhubhaeravii one must pay special attention to ascending and descending in the scale. Since such profound attention makes it difficult to articulate the notes, singers nowadays don't want to take the risk."

"Exactly," I said. "Quite right."

"It would be great if you would compose a song in pure sindhubhaeravii."

"If I have sufficient time and capacity then I will try but I cannot give my word on it; I love music, you see, but I am not well-versed in it. Now, you didn't tell me whether you were a ghandarva, vidya'dhara or kinnara, but I can tell that you are one of them because you have a light-body."

He smiled even more and said: "I am none of these three."

"Where do you live? Do you live in this pala'sh forest?"

"I don't live in the forest, I live in the mind. I've been living in your mind for these past seven thousand years."

We reached the end of the mountains. I looked at him and suddenly saw his body slowly begin to dissolve into the moonlight; as it did I heard the sound of music floating over the top of the pala'sh forest. This time it wasn't sindhubhaeravii; it was meghamalla'ra. From the northeast I noticed a wisp of cloud in the sky.* 

The next evening I went back to the hill and heard again the same sound wave floating to my ears. Prasenjit hadn't shown up the day before; who knows why, but again today he hadn't come. The reason for it I couldn't fathom. He was not like that. Whenever he couldn't come for some reason he would inform me the day before. 

Suddenly I saw Prasenjit rapidly approaching, esraj in hand. I said in a half-laughing, half-annoyed tone of voice: "What's the matter? Yesterday you didn't come and today also you are late. This isn't like you."

"You really upset me yesterday," he replied. "I thought perhaps that you might drop by our house today knowing how much you upset me, so I waited for you for some time before starting off. That's why I'm late today."

"What did I do to upset you yesterday? Can you give me the details?"

I smiled a little. 

"Is it a laughing matter to cause pain to another person?" he replied. 

"Then I'll say it in all seriousness. What did I do to upset you?"

"First you showed up just when I was leaving with the esraj to come here. Why couldn't you have come a little earlier? Why couldn't you have informed me earlier that you were coming? What objection did you have to taking a snack at my house?"

I was astonished. I kept quiet. 

"Why aren't you saying anything?" he asked. 

"Say what you have to say," I replied. "List your complaints."

"You came into my house," he went on, "but you wouldn't sit down anywhere, neither on the cot, nor on a chair, nor even on a mat. Is that proper, I ask you, to remain standing like that when you visit someone's home."

I kept quiet. 

"So you still have nothing to say? No answer at all. What's going on with you?"

Again, I held fast to my silence. 

"You picked up the esraj and started playing a strange ra'gin'ii. I asked you its name many times but you wouldn't answer. If you had told me while you were playing perhaps I could have picked it up. But you told me much later, after I could no longer remember what I had heard."

"Do you remember what name I told you," I asked. 

"Certainly I remember," he replied. "You told me its name was sindhubhaeravii, and that it was a 7000 year old ra'gin'ii which has been lost nowadays. There were also some Sanskrit songs composed at one time in this ra'gin'ii but these songs have also been lost. You said that one must pay special attention to ascending and descending in the scale in sindhubhaeravii and that most singers are not prepared to take such a risk; for that reason the real sindhubhaeravii has disappeared. It has mixed with the moonlight and fled into the unknown."

"And what else made you get upset?"

"The way you left so suddenly; it seemed to me as if you too had gotten lost in the moonlight. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find you. I could only hear a vague melody floating in the air. It seemed to be meghamalla'r. And then a steady rain started falling."

"Didn't you get wet while you were walking home," he asked. 

"No, I didn't get wet," I replied. 

I started listening attentively and Prasenjit as well, but that day we didn't hear any ra'ga or ra'gin'ii floating in from the sha'l-pala'sh forest. 

I had listened to what Prasenjit had to say and it left me dumbfounded. I had no answer to give. 

Where had that unknown player gone? Had he gotten himself lost in his own sha'l-pala'sh forest? Perhaps he really had gotten lost and with him the grandeur of so many unknown, unplayed, unsung melodies. Or perhaps he hadn't gotten lost. Perhaps he was just waiting for the right persons capable of bringing to life again the world of melody, infusing it with the vital energy of the ra'gas and ra'gin'iis. 

Prasenjit and I climbed down from the hills. As we did an indistinct music seemed to start up, floating towards us from hidden recesses of the sha'l-pala'sh forest. I listened closely; it seemed as if someone was playing mu'lta'ni vasanta.