The {\it Sa\.ng\=\i topani\d sats\=aroddh\=ara\/}: A fourteenth-century text on music from western India
Abstract
The Sangitopanisatsaroddhara (SUS) is a manual on music written in 1350 by the Jain scholar Sudhakalasa who belonged to a lineage centered in western India, primarily Gujarat. It was composed one hundred years subsequent to the great compendium of medieval musicology, the Sangitaratnakara, and fifty-two years after the permanent establishment of Muslim rule in Gujarat. The SUS treats many of the main topics of medieval musicological discourse, but has been noted for the introduction of several new ideas which were carried into the later musical and musicological practices of north India. The changes that it represents in comparison to the Sangitaratnakara and its position at a pivotal and relatively unexplored time in the history of north Indian music make this a uniquely valuable document. The literature, architectural constructs and paintings which emerged in surprising abundance, especially from the Jain community at this time in Gujarat, make the time and region especially rich in sources for a study of cultural history. As literature reflected new vernacular and populist choices, and painting adapted techniques and motifs from Persian court traditions, the SUS documents a breakdown of many of the musicological categories of earlier periods, and suggests that the thinking on and the practices of music were undergoing a parallel process of dissolution and vernacularization.^ This study has two main parts. The first sections summarize aspects of the cultural history of twelfth to fourteenth-century Gujarat, examine the contexts of musical performance practice and the tradition of sangitasastra, and summarize the positions that the SUS takes on each of its main topics of discussion. The second part consists of the text in Devanagari followed by an annotated translation. ^
Subject Area
Literature, Asian|Music
Recommended Citation
Allyn Miner,
"The {\it Sa\.ng\=\i topani\d sats\=aroddh\=ara\/}: A fourteenth-century text on music from western India"
(January 1, 1994).
Dissertations available from ProQuest.
Paper AAI9521085.
http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9521085