The Indian Drum of the King-God and the Pakhāvaj of Nathdwara PDF Download

Author: Paolo Pacciolla
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000060012
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The book studies the evolution of the ancient drum mṛdaṅga into the pakhāvaj, crossing more than 2,000 years of history. While focusing on the Nathdwara school of pakhāvaj, the author joins ethnographic, historical, religious and iconographic perspectives to argue a multifaceted interpretation of the role and function of the pakhāvaj in royal courts, temples and contemporary stages. Furthermore, he offers the first analysis of the visual and narrative contents of its repertoire.

Author: Andrew Alter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351946390
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In the Central Himalayan region of Garhwal, the gods (devtas) enjoy dancing. Musicians - whether ritual specialists or musical specialists - are therefore an indispensable part of most entertainment and religious events. In shamanistic ceremonies, their incantations, songs and drumming 'make' the gods possess their mediums. In other contexts, such as dramatic theatrical renditions of stories of specific deities, actors 'dance' the role of their character having become possessed by the spirit of their character. Through the powerful sounds of their drumming, musicians cause the gods to dance. Music, and more particularly musical sound, is perceived in Garhwal as a powerful force. Andrew Alter examines music and musical practice in Garhwal from an analytical perspective that explores the nexus between musical sounds and performance events. He provides insight into performance practice, vocal techniques, notions of repertoire classification, instruments, ensembles, performance venues, and dance practice. However, music is not viewed simply as a system of organized sounds such as drum strokes, pitch iterations or repertoire items. Rather, in Garhwal, the music is viewed as a system of knowledge and as a system of beliefs in which meaning and spirituality become articulated through potent sound iterations. Alter makes a significant contribution to the discipline of ethnomusicology through a detailed documentation of musical practice in the context of ritual events. The book offers a traditionally thorough historical-ethnographic study of a region with the aim of integrating the local field-based case studies of musical practices within the broader Garhwali context. The work contains invaluable oral data, which has been carefully transliterated as well as translated. Alter blends a carefully detailed analysis of drumming in conjunction with the complex ritual and social contexts of this sophisticated and semantically rich musical practice.

Author: Mary M. Cameron
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Drawing on data from work, family, and religious domains, addresses the relationship between gender and Hindu caste hierarchy in western Nepal.

Author: Sangharakshita
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
ISBN: 191534204X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
The first part of this volume consists of Sangharakshita’s writings about Anagarika Dharmapala, a Sri Lankan Buddhist who made it his life’s mission to restore the sacred site of Bodh Gaya, and whom Sangharakshita came to revere as one of the great Buddhists of the twentieth century. The second part is made up of articles Sangharakshita wrote for the Maha Bodhi journal, first as a regular contributor and then as the editor. They include poetic and philosophical reflections on the Dharma, as well as trenchant observations on the Buddhist world and calls to action on the issues of the day. The third part is a collection of book reviews published in the Maha Bodhi journal and other magazines over the course of nearly fifty years, from the days when the appearance of any new translation or commentary was a significant event, to more recent times, when readers could choose between hundreds of new titles.

Author: James Kippen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351564722
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The 1903 Mrdang aur Tabla Vadanpaddhati is a revelatory text that has never been translated or analysed. It is a manual for playing the two most important drums of North Indian (Hindustani) music, the pakhavaj (mrdang) and the tabla. Owing to its relative obscurity, it is a source that has never been discussed in the literature on Hindustani music. Its author, Gurudev Patwardhan, was Vice Principal of V.D. Paluskar's first music school in Lahore from its inception in 1901 to 1908. Professor James Kippen provides the first translation of this immensely important text and examines its startling implications for rhythmic and metric theory. It is the earliest work on Indian drumming to contain a notation sufficiently precise to allow definitive reconstruction. The compositions are of considerable musical interest, for they can be readily realized on the tabla or pakhavaj. Kippen sets the work and objectives of the original author in the context of a rich historical, social and political background. By also discussing radical differences in the second edition of 1938, published by Gurudev's nephew, the vocalist Vinayakrao Patwardhan, Kippen illuminates the process by which 'tabla theory' was being created in the early 20th century. Both Patwardhans were enthusiastic supporters of Paluskar's nationalist imperatives, and active participants in his drive to institutionalize music, codify and publish notations of it, and promote a modern, Hindu vision of India wherein its identity could once again be linked to a glorious golden age in distant antiquity.

Author: Richard K. Wolf
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096509
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Based on extensive field research in India and Pakistan, this new study examines the ways drumming and voices interconnect over vast areas of South Asia and considers what it means for instruments to be voice-like and carry textual messages in particular contexts. Richard K. Wolf employs a hybrid, novelistic form of presentation, in which a fictional protagonist interacts with Wolf's field consultants, to communicate ethnographic and historical realities that transcend the local details of any one person's life. The narrative explores how the themes of South Asian Muslims and their neighbors coming together, moving apart, and relating to God and spiritual intermediaries resonate across ritual and expressive forms such as drumming and dancing. Wolf weaves in the story of a family led by Ahmed Ali Khan, a North Indian ruler who revels in the glories of 19th century life, when many religious communities joined together harmoniously in grand processions. His journalist son Muharram Ali obsessively scours the subcontinent in pursuit of a music he naively hopes will dissolve religious and political barriers. The story charts the breakdown of this naiveté. A daring narrative of music, religion and politics in late twentieth century South Asia, The Voice in the Drum delves into the social and religious principles around which Muslims, Hindus, and others bond, create distinctions, reflect upon one another, or decline to acknowledge differences.

Author: Zoe C. Sherinian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197566235
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
This book offers an inclusive lens through which to study the music and dance of South Asia, its diasporas, and the people who produce and use these cultural expressions. Each chapter's central argument ties into a participatory exercise that provides active ways to understand and engage with cultural meaning.

Author: Isabelle Clark-Decès
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520938348
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
At South Indian village funerals, women cry and lament, men drink and laugh, and untouchables sing and joke to the beat of their drums. No One Cries for the Dead offers an original interpretation of these behaviors, which seem almost unrelated to the dead and to the funeral event. Isabelle Clark-Decès demonstrates that rather than mourn the dead, these Tamil funeral songs first and foremost give meaning to the caste, gender, and personal experiences of the performers.

Author: Richard Cooler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004644938
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The persistence of ritualized hopes and beliefs expressed visually on Karen bronze drums is presented through an extended analysis of the motifs on the tympani of 370 drums. Numerical, configurational, and cultural arguments are supported by copious tables and illustrations.

Author: Heidrun Brückner
Publisher: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag
ISBN: 9783447059169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The book consists of a collection of essays on aspects of Tulu oral literature and its cultural and religious context. Taking sung poetic ritual texts from the west coast of South India (coastal Karnataka) as her starting point, the author addresses the relationship between text structure and the social and geographical distribution of particular local and subregional cults; questions of gender and genre, of the correlation between narrative and ritual dramatization especially with respect to death, and of success and failure of rituals in the local perception. One essay studies features of South Indian popular cults in a wider perspective. Two of the nine essays discuss historical material relating to Basel Mission activities in the area and compare texts collected in the 19th century with versions collected by the author in the 1980s. The last paper provides a short synopsis of the author's 1995 German monograph on the topic.