Contributions of Saints and Seers to the Music of India (In 2 Volumes)

It is a work undertaken to establish that music and especially formalised music of India initiated, developed and progressed through the devotional hymns of devotees of god. Whether they were the Aryan Rishi-poets cum singers, Buddhist or Jain monks or Alwar and Nayanmar saints of south or Sufi saints or saint singers like Kabir, Sur, Meera, Nanak of the north or devotees of Vitthal of Maharashtra or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chandidas and others from Bengal or Shankar Dev and Madhav Dev of Assam all of them sang their devotional hymns as a part of formalised music of India. Sam-gayan" of Vedic-reshis is supposed to be the first stage of formalised music of our country and the author has tried to establish that this music developed into a system of scale and Murchchanas as the "Sam-gayan" also developed and progressed. Thus, in the present work, it has been stressed that the trend of rendering devotional hymns, as a part of formalised music was set centuries ago because the rishi-singers believed that "Swaras" of Indian music were not merely a collection of notes but they were founded on microtones known as "Shrutis" which could bring the human-mind to meditation leading to the attainment of god-consciousness. Hence, the main theme of the book is that the different mile-stones in the development of the formalised or classicalised music of India-viz. introduction of "Gandharva" and "Desi" systems of music, replacement of "Jati-Gayan" by "Raga-Gayan" as well as evolution of the kinds of "Gitis" i.e. from "Richas" to "Gathas" to "Mangal-Gitis", "Charya" and "Vajra Gitis", "Nathgitis", "Prabandhas", "Shabads", "Padas" to "Vishnu-Padas" are due to the contribution of Rishi-Muni singers of India. Besides this, the author has tried to establish that during the dark ages in the history of Indian music it was preserved and kept alive by the saint-singers of our nation, e.g. there is no evidence of any kind where our music was after Amir-Khusro and before Sultan Hussein Sharki of Jaunpur who hailed in the later part of the 15th century.