Sunday 22 February 2015

The Wonder That Was Bharatvarsha


The Wonder That Was Bharatvarsha

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 22 February, 2015

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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No, this is not a review of the famous, wrongly-named book by A.L. Basham, in which he used the word India instead of the more correct Bharatvarsha. This is an attempt to educate modern Indians about the glory of their culture by revealing new insights that have resulted from the work of tireless researchers around the globe on the origins of civilization. And all roads of inquiry lead only to one conclusion – that the source of all civilizational greatness in the world is India.

For too long, India has been cast as the land of snake-charmers, tigers, and elephants. For centuries, westerners have mocked India for its backwardness. However, recent SCIENTIFIC discoveries have established that India was more advanced than any other country in the world in antiquity.

Join me as I reveal the story of hitherto unknown (or little known) scientists, who languish in their quiet academic environs because their momentous discoveries have not been given the credit they deserve. This article is a humble attempt to cast light on their collective greatness and the earth-shaking importance of the seminal work they have done.

I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did writing it. Anything that is good in the article should not be ascribed to me – for I am merely a messenger – it should be ascribed to the great scientists who have revealed so much for us to learn and whose work you are going to discover through this article.

So, without further ado, let me begin telling you about the recent momentous discoveries that have established, once and for all, why Bharatvarsha was the greatest civilization ever on the planet.

The IVC and the Aryan Invasion/Migration Controversy

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) is one of the oldest civilizations of mankind. Although there have been older human settlements on the planet than the IVC, the IVC can fairly be said to be the cradle of all civilizations because of the range and depth of the ideas it brought forth (this will be made clear in the following). This is the civilization to which modern India owes its existence. So it is meaningful to look at what this civilization was all about and what it has bequeathed us.

The IVC was first discovered in Harappa, now in Pakistan, with later discoveries in Mohenjo-daro, also in Pakistan, Lothal in Gujarat in India, and various other places. While initially these discoveries were greeted with great excitement, as it gave Indians a view of what seemed to be their antiquity, this fond hope was soon dashed when archaeologists investigated the artifacts in depth.

The reason was that India is largely a country of Hindus, with significant minorities that made their homes in India due to migration and conquest; but essentially, India was the land of the Hindus. The Hindu epics (itihasas) such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana spoke of an ancient civilization that Hindus held to be around 5000 years old. The discovery of the IVC gave Hindus a lot of hope that this was the proof of the ancient civilization they were looking for. Unfortunately, some key archaeological facts went against them – or seemed to at the time.

The Absence of the Horse

One key point of variance  was that the Hindu scriptures, right from the time of the Rig Veda, the most ancient scripture, spoke of “Ashvas” – that were translated as “horses” everywhere in the epics. The IVC carvings and drawings showed no evidence of any horses, though there seemed to be some strange one-horned animals drawn in the reliefs and tablets, in addition to identifiable buffaloes. See figure below for an example.



This seemed to dash the hopes of the Hindus, who were hoping for confirmation that the IVC was part of the ancient civilization mentioned in their epics. Because of the absence of the horse in the evidence from the ruins, an alternative theory sprung up – that the Vedic traditions did not belong to the Harappans, but were brought to India by the Aryans, who invaded India at the end of the Harappan period. The fact that the horse seemed like a well-known animal in Persia helped this explanation.

Recent research, by Hefner et al. (2007) has revealed a rather different picture. According to these researchers, who have published a book on this topic, the image seen in the IVC seals is not a horse at all, but a unicorn. Many mythologies talk about unicorns, but we have never seen any evidence of unicorns – that is, until Harappa. After digging a lot in the IVC and the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex) as well as in Afghanistan and Iran, Hefner et al. found out that during the Harappan period, unicorns were indeed quite common, and they rapidly mutated to the horse that we know today. Hefner et al. (2007) found huge unicorn graveyards in the BMAC, which are thought to be massive “Ashwamedha Yagna” (mistranslated today as horse sacrifice, but in reality unicorn sacrifice) complexes. They have found several well-preserved horns of the unicorns that prove this theory without a doubt.


The cause of the confusion, therefore, has been twofold: believing that "ashva" in the Vedas referred to horses, and believing that unicorns did not exist. With the discovery of unicorn fossils, Hefner et al. have resolved this question.

The Saraswati Civilization

Another point of contention was the mention of the river Saraswati as an important river in the Vedas, whereas there is no known river in that region today. There has been much controversy recently regarding the Saraswati river of the Vedas, which many consider mythical, and many, including Michel Danino, consider a real river connected to the Ghaggar-Hakra basin in Pakistan/India.

However, the clinching evidence for the Saraswati river basin surely must come from the recent work of Ali et al. (2014), who have found what appear to be unquestionably Vedic era bows and arrows. There has been strong speculation that the artifacts retrieved from the Ghaggar basin are, in fact, the bow, quiver, and arrows of the famous Pandava hero, Arjuna. The main artifact at the root of this momentous discovery is a bow about 12 feet long, which matches the description of Arjuna’s bow Gandiva, said to be 8 cubits (12 feet) long. The quiver is surprisingly well-preserved, being made of pure gold and carved exquisitely.

Ancient Hindu Warfare: Astras

One of the controversial aspects of Hindu epics is the frequent mention of “astras” – special weapons that are weaponized by chanting of specific mantras (religious chants) and possess tremendous destructive powers. One of these, the Brahmastra, is said to have so much power that it is said to have the power to completely destroy the whole world.

Naturally, the scientific world has dismissed these claims as religious gobbledygook. The general attitude towards these claims has been that these are highly exaggerated descriptions that can only be attributed to poetic license, and that there is no scientific basis to these claims.

New scientific evidence has revealed that these may no longer be fairy tales. There is reason to believe that the ancient Indians were in possession of highly advanced weapons technology not yet fully understood by modern man. But the beginnings of such understanding are on the horizon.

In recent papers, published after 30 years of research by two different groups of workers at opposite sides of the globe, scientists have learned that sound waves emitted at precise frequencies with extremely specific cadences have the ability to highly excite the molecules of air in the local vicinity of these chants, and thereby “hypercompress” air packets – to the point that they can cause minute fusion reactions that can then lead to a chain reaction – a phenomenon described as “lukewarm fusion” (as contrasted with “hot” and “cold” fusion). The resulting fusion reactions, if properly amplified by the right kinds of chants, according to Dagar et al. (2013) (a multifactorial study spanning 3 generations of researchers in one family and published after the death of the researchers) and Carreras et al. (2014) (again the result of a 40 year international collaboration and, again, published after the death of one of the principal investigators) can lead to weapons of different destructive potentials.

It is in this way that astras can be launched by the proper chanting of mantras that give them awesome destructive power. The secrets of these astras are locked away within a few highly-realized rishis, and it is necessary for Hindus to reclaim these before the secrets are lost to humanity.

Ancient Hindu Aviation Technology

Another recent topic of controversy, which garnered much attention when a session was devoted to it at the Indian Science Congress of 2015 in Bangalore, is the possibility of Vedic Hindus possessing advanced aviation technology. It was claimed during this conference that in Vedic India, aircraft existed that could fly forwards as well as backwards with equal facility, and easily move between planets and galaxies. Much of these speculations have rested on two main sources. The first is the ancient epic Ramayana, in which the hero Rama (as well as his enemy Ravana) were said to have used flying machines called “Vimanas.” The second is a text called the Vymanika Shastra that detailed many aspects of these vimanas. In particular, the VS talked about these planes being fueled by vast quantities of cow and elephant urine, among other ingredients. See figure below to see an illustration of one of these vimanas and its fuels.


 

One of the objections raised to the idea of the existence of this ancient technology is the lack of evidence. No one has, to date, discovered the existence of even one of these ancient aircraft in any of the archaeological ruins. It has been argued that if such aircraft existed, and in substantial numbers, there should be at least one indicator of their past presence – either some broken down aircraft, or some airports that housed them, or similar supporting evidence. The complete lack of such evidence – at least until recently – has been a weakness of the theory that ancient India possessed advanced aviation.

However, recent discoveries by a team of biologists and archaeologists have revealed (Herman and Allen, 2012) the existence of specific mosses in Iraq which fossilized years ago. Examination of these fossils, which were covered under mounds of ruins and which came to light because of incessant bombing runs that have completely destroyed the mounds and exposed the underlying fossils, first by American air force operations in the first and second Gulf Wars as well as by violence by insurgents, have revealed that they originate from a specific kind of moss that can only grow if fuelled by copious amounts of cow and elephant urine. This leads to the only possible conclusion – that this archaeological site in Iraq was a forward post for Vedic armies and airforce units, which were using this vast site as a supply depot with adequate fuel for their aircraft. With such large quantities of fuel, some leakage is inevitable, and this leakage had clearly led to the growth of these mosses.

Hindu Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)

Archaeology continues, and will always continue, to be our window into the past. One of the greatest mysteries of history has been the mystery of the giant stones of Costa Rica. These are large, perfectly spherical stones that are found in abundance on the island of Costa Rica. There are about 300 of these stone spheres on the island of Costa Rica, and no one knows where they came from. They are customarily referred to as the Diquis spheres, as a reference to the primitive pre-Columbian peoples known as the Diquis. However, it is highly unlikely that such a primitive civilization would be capable of sculpting such a large number of perfect spheres (see picture below), that too out of stone, especially when no one is able to explain how they might have been carved from the stone without any tools.


 

However, there is another explanation that fits the facts better, and which has recently been confirmed by new archaeological and linguistic evidence.

In the Mahabharata, it is said that after the establishment of their kingdom Indraprastha, the Pandavas conducted a magnificent Rajasuya Yagna to commemorate their supremacy over the entire earth. Before they could perform this sacrifice, however, the Pandavas needed to bring the entire earth under their sway. The four Pandavas, viz., Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva, are said to have conquered all the lands on the east, the north, the west, and the south of Indraprastha respectively. Of course, some lands, such as America, were well beyond the range of land-based forces. For this reason, the mighty Pandavas used weapons of various kinds, along with their aircraft (vimanas), to subjugate those lands that were separated from them by oceans. One such example was the Americas. In those days, the West Indies were attached to the continental United States, and the Pandavas utilized efficient demonstration of force (“shock and awe”) to reduce the Americas to subjugation.

This they did by dispatching intercontinental ballistic missiles – spheres that were discharged as projectiles from the western coast of India to reach the Americas. In an effort to minimize loss of life and obtain a quick surrender, Nakula opened fire with massive batteries of cannons on the western coast of India that rained showers of perfect, spherical boulders on the coasts of America and the modern Caribbean as a “softening” measure.  Because of this, the island of Costa Rica, which is on the eastern end of the North American continent, was bombarded by hundreds of stone spheres.

This might seem like a fanciful fairy tale but for the recent discovery by a team of Sanskrit scholars and explorers based at the University of Miami, who have published the results of their study in a recent paper. In this paper, Jagger et al. (2015) mention that they investigated 95 of these boulders carefully, with high-powered lenses, all over their surfaces, and discovered that many of them were engraved minutely in Sanskrit with inscriptions such as “With Love from Indraprastha,” “Nakula Sends You His Love,” “Bow Before the Pandavas,” and “Resistance is Futile.” Needless to say, when Nakula arrived a few days later in his vimana, the Americans were only too happy to avoid a repeat of the stone shower, and acquiesced immediately to whatever terms he proposed.

This theory is supported by the mythology of the natives of Costa Rica themselves, the Bribri. As has been mentioned,

“In the cosmogony of the Bribri, which is shared by the Cabecares and other American ancestral groups, the stone spheres are “Tara’s cannon balls”. Tara or Tlatchque, the god of thunder, used a giant blowpipe to shoot the balls at the Serkes, gods of winds and hurricanes, in order to drive them out of these lands.”

So the natives themselves recognize that these are cannon balls, and the god Tara/Tlatchque in their story doubtless refers to Nakula, and the god Serkes to the native ruler of America that he drove out with his aggressive military actions in order to make America subservient to Indraprastha. Given the fact that Nakula came down from the sky in his vimana, and rained stones from the sky on them, it is natural for the primitive Bribri to think of him as a “god of thunder.”

The Caste System as a Method for Better Organizaton of Society

One of the main criticism of Hindu society regards the Caste System, which many modern sociologists consider to be barbaric and cruel. However, many today defend the system as simply a means for organizing labor in Vedic societies. While many have claimed that this is simply a defensive posture adopted by today’s Hindus to defend the indefensible, recent discoveries of old publications dating to the early 20th century show that, before the contamination of western attitudes made them hostile to India, Europe was quite welcoming of Indian ideas on social reorganization.

Two studies bear telling evidence towards this conclusion. The first is a position paper by Todt et al. (1932) who talk in glowing terms of the Hindu order of life and its uplifting ideas in organizing society into more capable and less capable workers, and even talk about its incorporation in Europe as a general way of life (modified, of course, to suit Europe suitably). The second is a paper by Daniel Malan in 1930, in which the author praised the Hindu social organization and interpreted it as a model for life in all countries, specifically South Africa. It should be mentioned that Malan later implemented his modified system to great success in South Africa as Prime Minister in 1948.

Hindu Advances in Medicine – Test Tube Babies

One of the most stunning scientific claims in the Mahabharata is the mention of test tube babies. Significantly, the entire Kaurava brothers, numbering to 100, were said to be born out of a single embryo, which was split after it grew up and the pieces put in pots with ghee (clarified butter) in them, and which then went on to become full-born babies in due course. Similarly, the teacher Drona gets his name because he was born of sperm ejaculated by his father and preserved in a pot (a pot is known in Sanskrit as a Drona, thus giving him his name.)

While these claims have been ridiculed by western doctors and scientists as impossible, recent archaeological evidence appears to confirm these claims. This sensational discovery is the discovery, under 50 feet of overgrowth, of a vast scientific laboratory that appears to have been frozen in time due to a volcano 2500 years ago which since has turned completely dormant. This laboratory, not far from Pune, in the Deccan Traps, was found, similar to the ruins of Pompey, with people frozen in their actions due to their rapid engulfment by volcanic ash.

As Steptoe et al. (2015) describe, the laboratory unearthed shows large rows of clay pots with fetuses in them in what is clearly a process of in-vitro fertilization. Contrary to modern medical practice, however, embryos at various stages, all the way to full term babies, were recovered from within the pots in the ash deposits. The findings are nothing short of revolutionary and hold great promise for modern medical research if the secrets of the ancient Hindus can be deciphered.

Hindu Advances in Medicine – Plastic Surgery

The Indian Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi, recently stated that ancient Hindus were very advanced in plastic surgery. Mr. Modi used the example of the Hindu God Ganesha to illustrate his belief that Indians must have been quite advanced in plastic surgery, as the mythological story of Ganesha involves the transplantation of an elephant’s head onto a human torso.

Religious myths of any civilization always have some anchors in that civilization’s daily experiences. There is reason, therefore, to speculate that the Ganesha story was inspired by technologies that they were already aware of. Recent science has confirmed that this, indeed, was the case with the Hindus.

A recent archaeological find near Ropar in Haryana has revealed the presence of a large number of copper plates that have been dated to 3300 BCE. As Dali et al. (2013) explain, these copper engravings appear to be an ancient “brochure” advertising the skills of the Royal College of Physicians at the court of Hastinapura. The engravings are fascinating, and show various examples of what can only be plastic surgery: dogs with sewn-on human heads and hands, pigs with dog-heads, goats with cow-heads, tigers with the heads of asses, and even rats with cockroach-heads. See figure below for an example of one of these copper plates.


 

Soma: The Enabler of Excellence in Hinduism

By now, it is abundantly clear to most people that ancient Hinduism was responsible for most worthwhile things in the world. A cursory search on the internet reveals that the entire world was Vedic once, and that Christianity and Islam are offshoots of Hinduism. We have also learned from the learned scholars who prowl the internet that the source of most science and technology are the Vedas; that Newton and Leibniz stole the ideas of calculus from Vedic rishis; that most technology that is only being discovered today had already been discovered by the Vedic rishis, be it airplanes, cars, medicine, surgery, nuclear weapons, etc., etc.

The question is: WHY? What made the Hindus of Vedic times such geniuses and so far ahead of their time? And why are they not at the top of the world today, if they were so advanced once upon a time? The answer, in one word, is: SOMA. The wonder elixir that the Vedas talk about – which is offered at every sacrifice to the Devas – was the source of the ancient Hindus’ extraordinary creativity.

Soma, as described in the Rig Veda, is a miracle plant. It is even said to confer immortality. It is said to be the reason the king of the Devas, Indra was able to defeat the Asura Vritra. In those days, the educated Hindus, viz., the Brahmanas, who used to perform sacrifices regularly, often drank soma in connection with religious rites. This gave them tremendous creativity and gave them the ability to conceive of airplanes, cars, calculus and other extraordinary feats of mind when other civilizations were still shivering in the cold because they had not yet discovered fire.

This idea might have been relegated to mere idle speculation, had it not been for the recent publication of a manuscript that is 48 years old this year. This book, written by Morrison et al. (1967) and published this year, purports to have rediscovered the lost Soma plant and talks about its extraordinary properties as evidenced by direct experimentation by the authors. The authors claim to have traveled to Central Asia in 1962 and found the lost plant, whereby they brought it back to the USA and started experimenting with its properties by ingesting its extract.

The results, for those who are aware of the history of blues and rock’n’roll, are nothing short of spectacular: Jim Morrison formed the legendary band “The Doors”; Eric Clapton, nicknamed “Slowhand,” is considered one of the greatest blues guitarists in the history of blues and rock’n’roll; and Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the most skilled electric guitarist ever.


 

In this manuscript, discovered only last year in unpublished form in Eric Clapton’s archives at his home in the UK, the three authors discuss the miraculous increases in creativity they experienced after the consumption of soma juice. According to the authors, they found the rare plant with the help of an old, experienced tribal man who showed them one of the few places in which the original Soma plant still grew. The three managed to get as much as they could bring on the journey back.

Hendrix mentions that some of his greatest performances, particularly the famous “Star-Spangled Banner” live version that he performed at the Woodstock festival, owed their phenomenal creativity to the effect of Soma, which he had ingested just a couple of hours before the performance. Similarly, Clapton credits his incredible performances with “Cream” to the potent effects of Soma, particularly the single “Spoonful.” Morrison discusses how he shared Soma with guitarist Robby Krieger just a day before they collaborated on their legendary song “Light my Fire,” which became the title of Morrison, Clapton, and Hendrix’s manuscript.

In an interview conducted by the author just before this article was written, Clapton mentioned that “I knew how powerful Soma was, and I used to caution Jimi and Jim about it. But they were too carried away by its power and how creative it made them feel. I still feel guilty that if I could have only stopped them from taking so much of it, I could have saved them.” 

What Clapton is referring to is the apparent drug-overdose-related deaths of both Jimi Hendrix (1970) and Jim Morrison (1971). It should be mentioned that the cause of neither death has been conclusively established, probably because there was no test in western medicine that could detect a Soma overdose. But with Clapton’s account, we can now clear the mystery behind the unexplained (and unnecessary) deaths of these two musical geniuses. After all, one has to exercise a little caution when consuming the drink of the gods.

On being asked if he could find out where more of the authentic Soma could be found today, Clapton said, “Well, yeah, I tried to get more. Our stocks lasted only a small while, and while I used mine more carefully and sparingly than Jim or Jimi, by 1978 I was out of all of it. It did leave a permanent impact, though. I tried to go back to that place to get more, but it had been covered by a residential complex and the field was gone. The old tribals were nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if any Soma can be found today.” When asked if they did not try to grow the plant in the west, Clapton replied, “We tried. But it looks like the plant won’t grow in the western climate. The plant died very fast.”

Conclusions

From the preceding, it should be obvious that the world owes all its significant achievements to the civilization of the ancient Hindus. Unfortunately, much of this knowledge has been lost and is only now being rediscovered. The question remains: how can India regain her lost glory? How can we reach the heights attained by our ancient Hindu ancestors?

The answer doubtless lies in Soma. The Modi government must make the rediscovery of Soma its prime agenda for the next 10 years. The quest for the true Soma must commence immediately and PM Modi must use all his goodwill with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, and the Central Asian republics to send teams of Vedic scholars and biologists to locate and bring back to India the original soma plant.

Once it is obtained, Soma must be grown in a large-scale way so that every family of four in India gets at least 2 litres of Soma every day. This will ensure that Indians today become as intelligent and creative as they were in Vedic days, and with these enhanced nutritional supplements we will soon surpass the Westerners and the Chinese in development. (Of course it will mean that some farmland will have to be diverted from growing crops like rice and wheat to Soma, but a little hunger is a small price to pay for national greatness.) At that point it will be easy to reconstruct the lost secrets of the Vymanika Shastra and other scientific classics of Hindu rishis. The Soma juice might even make us so spiritually aware that telepathic conferences with great Rishis can be carried out on a routine basis so that we can update our knowledge with the knowledge of the eternals.

Once we are on this path, nothing can stop Bharatvarsha.

Jai Shri Ram!

REFERENCES

Ali, M., Frazier, J., Liston, S., and Foreman, G., “Gandiva of Haraxvati: The Right Hook That Deals the Knockout Punch to the Aryan Invasion and Migration Theories,” Pingu Books, 2014.

Carreras, J., Domingo, P., and Paruppurotti, L. “Effect of Sound Vibrations on Molecule Hypercompression Leading to Lukewarm Fusion,” Musings of the Royal Italian Gelato Society, 2014 (17), pp. 233-304.

Dagar, M.N., Dagar, A.N., Dagar, Z.N., and Dagar, F.N., “Effect of Musical Chanting on Localized Air Pressurization and Hypercompression Due to ‘Udhak Gamaks’ in Dhrupad Singing,” International Journal of Dhrupad Physics, 2013 (3), pp. 1473-1553.

Dali, S.D.F.J., Duchamp, H.R.M., Tanguy, R.G.Y., Magritte, R.F.G., and Radnitzky, E., “Heads, Torsos, Hands and Legs: The Infinite Juxtapositions of Biology as Seen in the Copper Plates of the Royal College of Physicians in Hastinapura in 3300 BCE,” Journal of Near-Impossible Archaeology, 2014 (9), 1323-1692.

Todt, F., Frank, H., Frank, W., Heydrich, R., Mengele, J., and Himmler, H., “Learning from the Ancient Aryans – Master and Slave Races,” Annalen Sociopathophysik, 1932 (1), pp. 1-473. (in German)

Hefner, H., Guccione, R., and Flynt, L., “Single Horniness: The Mystery of the Indian Unicorn of Harappa Revealed,” Sharper Collins, 2007.

Herman, P-W, and Allen, W., “Following the Pee Trail – Archaeological Evidence for the Use of Cow’s and Elephant’s Urine as Fuel for Ancient Indian Aircraft,” Biology, Oleo and Paleobiology, 2014 (2), pp. 223-309.

Jagger, M.P., Richards, K., Wood, R.D., Perks, W.G., Watts, C.R., and Zimmerman, R.A., “Like a Falling Stone: The Conquest of America by the Pandavas Using Ballistic Missiles,” Archaeo-Linguistic Ruminations, 2015 (1), 22-251.

Malan, D.F., “Understanding the Genius of the Hindu Organization of Society and Its Possible Application to South Africa,” Journal of Race Relations in the African Continent, 1930 (3), pp. 32-97.

Morrison, J.D., Clapton, E.P., and Hendrix, J.M., “Lighting My Fire: The Effect of the Ancient Indian Plant Soma on Musical Creativity,” Eastern Spirit Books, 2015.

Steptoe, P., Edwards, R., and Mukhopadhyay, S., “In-Vitro Fertilization in Ancient India: The Archaeological Discovery of the Largest and Most Complex In-Vitro Fertilization Laboratory in the World,” Journal of Fanciful Archaeology, 2015 (1), 1900-1947.







Tuesday 11 November 2014

My Sampler of Indian Classical Music Pieces for Non-Indians


My Sampler of Indian Classical Music Pieces for Non-Indians

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 11 November, 2014

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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Some time back, one of my cousins, an American, who was planning an Indian-themed function in California for a mostly non-Indian guest list, wanted me to suggest a list of Indian classical tracks that she could play for an hour during the function as an introduction to Indian classical music, and which she could then gift to all the guests as a CD when they left. She also requested me to give some introductions for the pieces to be read out before the pieces were played, so that the audience knew something about what they were hearing. The idea was to include the introductions along with the CD as liner notes. One stipulation was that all the tracks should be available on iTunes.


I thought this was an interesting endeavor, and once I finished the recommendations and the write-ups on the different pieces and sent it off to my cousin, thought they were worth sharing with a larger audience. Today, I finally found time to convert that list into an article. I hope you will enjoy reading this list and listening to these pieces, if you haven’t already done so. Keep in mind that the numbering only denotes the play order, reflecting my preference as to how to gradually expose the audience to different pieces, and does not imply that any of these recordings (or artists) is superior to any other in the list. The introductions also ended up being a bit long to read before the recordings were played, so I suggested that an abbreviated version be used in the announcement and that this full version be included in the liner notes.


Keep in mind, as you read this list, that these are not always the “best” possible selections that I could give for all the artists, if I were free to choose the source. I was constrained by what iTunes had in its collection. For example, if I had to give an absolute recommendation for Vilayat Khan, I would always go with his 1960 recording with Samta Prasad of raga Yaman; however, unfortunately, iTunes does not have this recording.

 
Notes: 

Hindustani = North Indian classical music
Carnatic = South Indian classical music
 
Format of the List:

 
Play Order (Number)
Artist: Genre
Raga
Track
Album
Track duration
Description
Youtube link

 
Note 1: I have tried to match the track and album names exactly with how iTunes lists them, even though the latter are sometimes slightly wrong.


Note 2: The youtube links are a later addition. After I posted this article, some friends said they would find it useful if I also gave them youtube links in addition to iTunes references. This proved to be much more difficult than it would seem, because whatever is available on iTunes is not necessarily available on youtube, and vice versa. In fact, if I had been told at the start to give youtube links, I would probably come up with a different list, simply because you can only make a list of what is available. So, in some cases, the iTunes track was simply not available on youtube, and so I gave a different song by the same artist as a replacement on youtube.



 
1.
M S Subbulakshmi: Carnatic, vocal
Raga: Hamir

 
Track: Baso more man mein nandlal 
Album: Meera
4.49

 
MS Subbulakshmi was one of the legends of Carnatic music, and no representative sampler of Indian music is complete without her. Born in 1916 into a musical family in the south Indian temple town of Madurai, MS (as she was popularly known) was a child prodigy, giving her first concert at the Mecca of Carnatic music, Madras, in the most esteemed music society, the Music Academy, at the age of 13. But MS shot to national fame when she sang the songs in the musical on the life of the 16th century saint, Meera, the princess who was a devotee of the god Krishna and spent her life composing songs in praise of Krishna and singing them. MS also acted as Meera in the movie. The movie was made both in Tamil and Hindi, with the Tamil songs being set to Carnatic music ragas and the Hindi songs being set to Hindustani music ragas. MSS delivered brilliantly on the songs in both movies, which became superhits because of her songs. 

 
As a result of the popularity of Meera, MS became a nationally-renowned figure. She was also a great follower of Gandhi, and she and her husband devoted their lives to social causes. Despite being the most sought-after Carnatic musician all her life, MS lived a very simple life and donated a large portion of her earnings to charitable causes. She was Gandhi's favorite singer. Once, Gandhi expressed a desire to hear his favorite devotional song, "Vaishnava jana to tene kahiye" (liberal translation: "who can be called a person of God" – a composition by the saint Narsinh Mehta) sung by MS at a function. To this, MS telegrammed back that her throat was not in perfect shape and so maybe Gandhiji should perhaps ask someone else to sing the song. Gandhi's reply: "I would prefer to hear it spoken by Subbulakshmi rather than sung by someone else."

 
MS is most famous for her rendition of devotional songs, even though she could sing Carnatic and Hindustani songs of any sub-genre impressively and with elan. She was the first woman to be awarded the Music Academy's highest title, the "Sangeetha Kalanidhi," and the first musician to receive India's highest civilian honor, the "Bharat Ratna." Most temples all over South India, including the famous temple at Tirupati, even today, play her devotional "suprabhatams" (morning wake-up hymns to the gods) on their PA systems every day.

 
I have chosen this selection from the movie Meera because

  1. It is an exquisite rendition which showcases both the technical brilliance of MS (as witnessed in how she sings the phrase "nandalaala") as well her ability to convey emotion, and
  2. It showcases how MS, although coming from a Carnatic background, is able to sing this Hindustani raga, Hamir, in which this song is set, as well as or better than the best of the Hindustani musicians. This is my first reference when I want to explain raga Hameer to anyone, even before such classic renditions as DV Paluskar's. This is why great contemporary Hindustani musicians like Pandit Jasraj bow their heads in reverence when talking about MS even today.
Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3t2Qwp1cF0

2.
Bhimsen Joshi: Hindustani, vocal
Raga: Puriya Kalyan
 
Track: Raga Puriya Kalyan Dhrut Khyal in Teentaal Bahut Dina Beete 
Album: Tapasya
4.45
 
Bhimsen Joshi was one of the giants of Hindustani music. He ran away from home at the age of nine to pursue a career in music after hearing an extended play record of the great Abdul Karim Khan, founder of the Kirana school of singing in Hindustani music.

 
Bhimsen learned from Abdul Karim Khan's most prominent student, Sawai Gandharva, and after his training quickly shot to fame as the greatest Hindustani singer of his time. The name "Bhimsen" comes from Hindu mythology, from a hero in the epic Mahabharata, who was supposed to have "the strength of ten thousand elephants." While the name Bhimsen might have a poor choice for this short and small-built musician in a physical sense, it was certainly highly appropriate for his voice, which is probably the most powerful yet expressive voice ever seen in the world of Hindustani music.

 
The school of music from which Bhimsen graduated was famous for its treatment of the major, "great," ragas of Hindustani music such as Lalit, Todi, Bhairav, Yaman, and so on. The sheer emotional content and note-perfection that Bhimsen brought to his music, accompanied by his inimitable power of voice production and his brilliant technique, was what made him a perennial crowd favorite. Bhimsen organized an annual three-day music festival in Pune in memory of his guru, Sawai Gandharva, in which he would perform as the last musician - the Sawai Gandharva music festival. In 2010, he was too ill to perform, and died shortly after. But I do recall an incident from that year's festival, which I attended, which testifies to his immense popularity. On the last day of the function, between some music performances, there was a dance performance scheduled, and the organizers needed some time to set the stage. To keep the audience entertained, they played a RECORDING of a performance of Bhimsen at the festival from 30 years back for about 15 minutes. That 30-year old recording got more applause than any musician had gotten for the past three days!!

 
The selection I have recommended is another "great" raga, Puriya Kalyan, and this is Bhimsen at his very best.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWN0ikMbnYE&feature=player_detailpage#t=2710 (different performance of same raga)

 
3.
Ravi Shankar: Hindustani, sitar
Raga: Bairagi Todi
 
Track: Raga Bairag Todi: jod, jhala
Album: Spirit of India
4.09
 
Ravi Shankar is probably the best-known Indian musician in the world. It is probably no exaggeration to say that if people in the west know about Indian classical music, it is largely because of Ravi Shankar.


Born in a family of talented people - his elder brother Uday Shankar was a world-renowned dancer - Ravi Shankar picked up the basics of music touring with his brother's music and dance troupe. But what made him one of the greatest Hindustani sitarists was his seven-year tutelage under Allauddin Khan, probably the most influential instrumental Hindustani musician of the 20th century.

 
Because of his experience touring all over the world with his brother, Ravi Shankar understood the west better than any other musician in India and, after establishing himself as a sitar player of repute in India, set his sights on conquering the west, which he proceeded to do remarkably well, because of his ability to connect with his audience. Not only did he give a lot of concerts in the west, he also took the trouble to conduct innumerable lecture-demonstrations in which he explained the basis of the Indian musical system to his audience. He also took on westerners as his students and started teaching them how to play the sitar. But probably what made him a superstar in the west was the fact that the Beatles were enamoured of him and one of them, George Harrison, actually became his disciple. And then there was no turning back.

 
Ravi Shankar also started the trend of giving importance to the accompanying tabla player. Before Shankar, the only role of the tabla player was to stay in the background and keep time. Shankar started the tradition of a "sawal-jawab" (question-answer) as a routine feature in instrumental concert, in which the main instrumentalist would play a phrase and the accompanist would try to imitate it on the tabla. Shankar also, probably inspired by the Carnatic tradition, gave the tabla player an occasion to play the tabla by himself during his performance, without having to accompany the main instrumentalist, so that he, too, had a chance to showcase his virtuousity.

 
This selection showcases what was special about Shankar's music. The raga chosen, Bairagi Todi, is a very austere and serious raga, and Shankar brings this mood alive with his "dhrupad-like" treatment of the raga (more on this later in the discussion on the Dagar brothers). The bass notes of the sitar are highlighted in this treatment, which is deep and meditative in spite of the fact that the tempo increases.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-DFv3gWex4&feature=player_detailpage#t=480

 
4.
TR Mahalingam: Carnatic, flute
Raga: Kathanakuthoohalam
 
Track: Raga: Kathanakuthoohalam in Adi Raghuvamsa Sudhambudhi
Album: TR Mahalingam
6.22
 
TR Mahalingam (popularly known as Mali) was the greatest player ever of the South Indian bamboo flute, and probably the most creative Carnatic musician ever. He was also a child prodigy who gave his first concert at the age of 7 and stunned the musical world with his absolute command of the flute at that tender age. Not only was it remarkable that he could play the flute so well at that age, but also that a young child like him was capable of opening up new vistas with the instrument. Before Mali arrived on the scene, the flute was not considered capable of rendering the melodic richness of Carnatic music. Specifically, characteristic "bends" known as "gamakas" were considered impossible of production with the flute. Mali changed all that by innovating, untutored, a new style, in which the flute was capable of rendering all the nuances of Carnatic vocal music.
 
Mali also managed to give concerts which delighted a hugely diverse cross-section of listeners. He was capable of extraordinary technical feats, such as maintaining his control of rhythm in exceedingly complex patterns and in very slow tempo; and, at the same time, he would always include crowd favorites in his concerts, which both the lay listener and the connoisseur could appreciate.
 
The selection I have included here is one such example of a crowd favorite. "Raghuvamsa sudhambudhi" is a very popular composition that is often rendered in high speed; yet Mali plays this in a slow tempo, thus bringing out the beauty of the raga. One of the highlights of Mali's music was his originality; he rarely played the same phrase twice in different performances of the same composition.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvEj00ShMA4
 
5.
Vilayat Khan: Hindustani, sitar
Zakir Hussain: Hindustani, Tabla
Raga: Bhairav Bahar
 
Track: Raga Bhairav Bahar: Gat in fast teen tal (excerpt)
Album: Dawn to dusk: Aftaab-e-Sitar Vilayat Khan
9.58
 
Vilayat Khan was born to a family of hereditary musicians. His father and grandfather were both musicians at royal courts, and were both recognized masters of the sitar as well as innovators.
 
Along with Ravi Shankar, the other man who also dominated the world of Hindustani sitar for the second half of the twentieth century was undoubtedly Vilayat Khan. The two were considered rivals. Playing in a style totally different from that of Shankar, Vilayat Khan dazzled listeners with his matchless technical mastery of the sitar. This mastery manifested itself in two ways: an ability to play breathtakingly fast passages without the slightest flaw; and an ability to coax so much melody and beauty from the strings of the sitar that it sounded like a human voice's inflections. In fact, one of the things that Vilayat Khan routinely did in concerts was to sing a phrase (he could sing very well, too) and then reproduce the same phrase on the sitar perfectly, upon which the audience would burst into applause. For this reason, his style is often referred to as the "gayaki" ang - "gayaki" means "like singing."
 
Zakir Hussain, who accompanies Vilayat Khan here on the tabla, is India's most famous tabla player, and is usually capable of astonishing pyrotechnic displays, but usually plays in a more subtle and understated way when accompanying Vilayat Khan. This is actually one of Hussain's strengths as an accompanist: to change his playing style to suit the main artist.
 
This selection showcases a fast piece which allows us to understand why Vilayat Khan was considered such a phenomenon for his control of his instrument and his skill in extracting such nuances from it.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TACzDvw50o
 
6.
MS Gopalakrishnan: Carnatic, violin
Raga: Nata
 
Track: Raga Nata: Mahaganapathim manasa smarami
Album: Masterworks from the NCPA archives: MS Gopalakrishnan (remastered)
8.54
 
One of the most interesting cross-cultural observations in Indian music is how the violin, an instrument totally alien to India before the arrival of western influence, has become an integral part of Carnatic music. Among the many extraordinary practitioners of Carnatic music on the violin, if one must limit oneself to discussing one person, as I am forced to by time constraints, then that person has to be undoubtedly MS Gopalakrishnan, popularly referred to as MSG, in the usual fashion of referring to Carnatic artists by their initials.
 
MSG learned Carnatic music from his father before going on to learn Hindustani music from the famous Hindustani vocalist Omkarnath Thakur at Benares and then going on to improve upon his father's style with innovations of his own to create a new style of violin-playing now often referred to as the "Parur" style, Parur being the name of his ancestral town. This style is characterized by a very light touch on the violin; extraordinary control and fidelity of playing; astounding displays of skill and speed; and a generous use of staccato.
 
This selection is a popular introductory composition played often at the beginning of a concert, and has considerable scope for the violinist to play purely improvised note-passages (known as "swara-prasthara"). The full range of the MSG repertoire is in abundant display here.
 
Owing to his training in both styles of Indian classical music, MSG has recorded several albums in Hindustani music as well. This is extremely rare - for a musician to be in the top echelon in both Carnatic and Hindustani music.

Youtube:


I could not find this Nata recording on youtube. A different recording of the same piece was too short to appreciate the beauty and skill of MSG's violin-playing. So I found a different piece – quite a rarity, in fact – in another raga. This is a recording of raga Nalinakanti, the piece being the famous “Manaviyalakincharadatay” of Tyagaraja, and what makes it so rare is that it is a recording of MSG playing with his father, Parur Sundaram Iyer).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823uFFoaLGc&list=PL9Pv-NfsEItkt5n6_No0Z9QLSHLVe2WnV&index=20
 
7.
Hariprasad Chaurasia: Hindustani, flute
Shivkumar Sharma: Hindustani, santoor
Brijbhushan Kabra: Hindustani, Hawaiian guitar
Raga: Nat Bhairav
 
Track: Raga Nat Bhairav - Call of the Valley
Album: Kohinoor single
6.20
 
Hariprasad Chaurasia is one of the most popular Indian musicians today. His skill in playing the north Indian bamboo flute, the Bansuri, is legendary. He was a student of Annapurna Devi, daughter and disciple of Allauddin Khan, Ravi Shankar's guru.
 
In India, the bansuri is associated with the mythology of the god Krishna, who is said to have charmed all the cowgirls of Vrindavan by the sound of his bansuri. If anyone can bring that story to life, it surely is Hariprasad Chaurasia. Someone closing his eyes and listening to Chaurasia could be forgiven for thinking that he had died and gone to heaven to hear the god Krishna play.
 
The person who was responsible for taking this cowherd's toy and making this a concert instrument was Pannalal Ghosh, who made several innovations and improvements to this instrument. Ghosh modeled his playing on vocal styles. But Chaurasia changed the way the bansuri was perceived. He started performing on the bansuri the way one would perform on a sitar, a sarode, or a rudra veena: with an alap-jod-jhala structure, a solo extemporization that involves a slow, rhythmless improvisation (alap), a rhythmic improvisation without table in medium speed (jod), and a fast rhythmic improvisation without tabla (jhala). In stringed instruments, the jhala is achieved by fast repeated strumming of the strings. Chaurasia achieved the same effect on the flute by using an innovative combination of fast staccato blowing and flutter-tonguing.
 
Accompanying Chaurasia on this recording are Shivkumar Sharma on the santoor and Brijbhushan Kabra on Hawaiian guitar. Shivkumar Sharma was singlehandedly responsible for elevating the santoor, a hammered folk instrument of Kashmir, to the status of a classical instrument. This was no mean feat because the santoor is inherently a discontinuous instrument, and so to coax the bends that are an indispensable part of Indian classical music out of the instrument required Sharma to develop innovative techniques such as fine trilling using minute hammering on the strings to approximate the bends (gamakas). In this endeavor he has mightily succeeded, as his immense popularity as a Hindustani instrumentalist has proved.
 
The album from which this track has been taken, "Call of the Valley," was a landmark album when it was released in 1967. The hallmark of this album is that even though it is based on traditional Hindustani ragas, the melodies presented and their pleasing treatment by Chaurasia, Sharma, and Kabra made this album one of the most accesible to the layperson. "Call of the Valley" has been described as the one Indian classical-based album that a person should listen to if he or she could listen to only one.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIxAZ-VISQI
 
8.
Sheik Chinna Moula: Carnatic, nadhaswaram
Raga: Kapi Narayani
 
Track: Sarasa sama dana 
Album: Paddhati: live in concert 1973
4.44
 
Sheik Chinna Moulana was one of the most eminent performers of the nadhaswaram, an instrument traditionally associated with the temple. Nadhaswaram performances were normally held with no amplification because the nadaswaram is a very loud instrument. This made it ideal for use in street performances with no amplification. For this reason as well, it is not accompanied by the usual drum of Carnatic music, the mridangam, but by a much louder drum, the thavil.
 
Sheik Chinna Moulana was probably the most skilled nadhaswaram artist of his time. The nadhaswaram is an exceedingly difficult instrument to play flawlessly. Small imperfections in note production are almost inevitable even in the performance of legendary nadhaswaram artists. But I have never personally heard Sheik Chinna Moulana play a false note in any recording of his, regardless of the tempo of the piece being played, which is a staggering achievement. You can hear his astounding technical skill in this recording. This is in addition to his ability to convey the soul of every raga he played with unerring precision.
 
It is also an interesting social comment to note that this instrument, which is so closely connected with the temple and with Hindu religious practices (no South Indian Hindu wedding is complete without one, for instance), has been embraced so fervently and has been played with such perfection by a Muslim musician.

Youtube:


(Note: I could not get this particular piece on youtube while searching for it. So I have chosen another excellent recording by Sheik sahib, of the great gem in raga Abheri by Tyagaraja, “Nagumomu.” I have given the link from the start of the krithi, but you are of course welcome to hear from the beginning of the alapana. This song showcases Sheik-sahab’s incredible skill – note the passages near “khagaraju.”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ch6XtrT7E&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLgdbLnfoyI7_8Upl2viQECzyHdQp4Xr1r#t=791
 
9.
Dagar Brothers: Hindustani, vocal, dhrupad style
Raga: Bhatiyar
 
Track: Dhrupad in Chautala, raga Bhatyar
Album: Shiva Mahadeva
6.21
 
Hindustani vocal music has two major sub-traditions: khyal, which is the predominant tradition, and which is sung by the majority of vocalists today, (including the late Bhimsen Joshi, mentioned above), and which is characterized by a jazz-like free-form improvisation structure within the framework of a rhtyhmic cycle; and dhrupad, a tradition that is more structured than khyal and does not permit as much creative freedom, but compensates for this by perfection and beauty in melody. Dhrupad was the predominant tradition 400 years ago in the golden days of Hindustani music in the Mughal courts. In the last century and half, dhrupad has gradually given way to khyal in popularity.
 
There are very few surviving practitioners of dhrupad, and the most prominent practitioners of dhrupad in the last century have been the Dagar family of hereditary musicians, who have preserved an unbroken tradition for 20 generations. The Dagars are the custodians of one of the four major schools ("vani"-s) of Dhrupad singing, known eponymously by their family name, Dagarvani. The other three traditions are the Gauharvani, the Nauharvani, and the Khandarvani. 
 
This recording is sung by Nasir Zahiruddin Dagar and Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar, also known as the "junior Dagar brothers," as a contrast to their two elder brothers, Nasir Moinuddin Dagar and Nasir Aminuddin Dagar, who also performed as a pair, and who were known as the "senior Dagar brothers." The four Dagar brothers were the most famous dhrupad singers of the second half of the twentieth century.
 
This particular piece is sung in the highly austere raga Bhatiyar, and is a hymn in praise of the god Shiva (known also as Shankar). The perfection of melody that is seen in any Dagar presentation of any raga is evident when they sing the base note (sa) of the higher octave - the phrase "kailasi" in this song which goes higher than the sa and ends on the sa note at the end of this phrase. 
 
A dhrupad performance in any raga is generally considered to be the definitive interpretation of the raga, and this recording is no exception. One cannot find a better example of raga Bhatiyar than this - so beautifully have Nasir Zahiruddin Dagar and Nasir Faiyyazuddin Dagar rendered this raga in this piece.

Youtube:


As in other cases, I could not find this exact piece on youtube. So I have a chosen an alternative – raga Malkauns, “poojana chali Mahadeva.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMJcP7oUCrY
 
10.
Bismillah Khan: Hindustani, shehnai
V.G. Jog: Hindustani, violin
Raga: Mishra Khamaj
 
Track: Raga Mishra Khamaj in Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye
Album: Gandhi: speeches, bhajans, and inspirations
7.08
 
Bismillah Khan was one of the iconic figures of Hindustani music. He was responsible for single-handedly elevating the status of the shehnai, a reed instrument that was only used as an accompaniment to marriages, to a classical concert instrument. 
 
He did this by applying the techniques of vocal music to the shehnai and by his sheer technical brilliance, which helped him to play the shehnai with the full expression of a sitar, a sarode or the human voice.
 
Bismillah Khan also took popular "dhuns" (folk songs) and often played them with elaborate improvisations, something that delighted both commoner and connoisseur alike.
 
In another salute to India's syncretic traditions and to the tremendous respect that all Indians had for Bismillah Khan, he was a regular performer at the Kashi Vishwanath temple in the city of Benares, one of the most sacred temples of Hinduism and a highlight of the city of Benares, where Bismillah Khan lived all his life, even though he was a Muslim. Khan has said on record that the two reasons he would never leave Benares (and indeed, he died there) were the river Ganga and the Kashi Vishwanath temple, which to him was a second home.
 
VG Jog was one of the most important and distinguished violinists of Hindustani music in the last century, having learned music from Allauddin Khan, who taught many other greats including, as mentioned earlier, Ravi Shankar.
 
The composition they play here is the same "Vaishnava jana to" alluded to earlier that was so beloved by Gandhi.

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii0Xt0bgKA4