Natyasastra (Chapter 28): Ancient Scales of Indian Music, with Sanjivanam Commentary of Acarya Brhaspati.

• Author: Howard, Wayne
• Position: Review

Translated by BHARAT GUPT. New Delhi: BRIHASPATI PUBLICATIONS, 1996. Pp. xxvii + 203. Rs 320.

As its title demonstrates, the Natyasastra (NS) is essentially a work dealing with theater. However, its chapters 28-36 offer one of the earliest sources (perhaps the earliest, depending on where one places the Naradiya-Siksa) of Indian music theory. Chapter 28, to which the book under review is devoted in its entirety, is the most basic of these nine chapters in that it sets forth, among other things, (1) the seven scale degrees, named (in ascending order) sadja, rsabha, gandhara, madhyama, pancama, dhaivata, and nisada; (2) the division of the scale into twenty-two microintervals (sruti), each approximating a fourth of a tone; (3) the formulation of two basic scales (grama), the sadja-grama (with the srutis between the scale degrees arranged, in ascent, 4 3 2 4 4 3 2) and the madhyama-grama (4 3 4 2 4 3 2); (4) the establishment of fourteen derivative scales (murcchana),(1) each starting on a tone of the sadja- or madhyama-grama; and (5) the concept of jati, which sloka 102 defines as having ten characteristics, namely amsa (the tonic tone, also called vadi), graha (for all practical purposes the same as amsa), nyasa (final tone), apanyasa (middle tone), tara (high register), mandra (low register), sadava (hexatonic usage of tones), audava (pentatonic usage of tones), alpatva (sparse use of tones), and bahutva (abundant use of tones).

Bharat Gupt takes each sloka of chapter 28 in turn. First he presents the text in devanagari, a corrected version of the NS text from a critical edition published earlier.(2) This is followed by a transliteration of the sloka. Then he takes each word or phrase of the transliterated text and translates it: thus, in reading the translation, we must skip between the words of the original text - only a minor inconvenience which should not detract from the intrinsic value of his approach. The translation is followed by the commentary of Acarya Brhaspati (d. 1979), Gupt's teacher, who presents an original interpretation of the sloka, although he often makes reference to earlier contributions of the sage Abhinavagupta. Acarya Brhaspati's comments range from the terse four-word statement "the text is clear" (p. 40, for example) to a nine-page exposition of a sloka dealing with svarasadharana (pp. 87-95). Although commentaries on ancient works by modern scholars are not as widespread as one might imagine, they are by no...