Sonic Liturgy

Guy L. Beck

Description

Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition builds on the foundation of Guy L. Beck's earlier work, which described the theoretical role of sound in Hindu thought. Sonic Liturgy continues the discussion of sound into the realm of Hindu ritual and musical traditions of worship.

Beginning with the chanting of the Sama-Veda alongside the fire sacrifices of the ancient Indo-Aryans and with the classical Gandharva music as outlined in the musicological texts of Bharata and Dattila, Beck establishes a historical foundation for an in-depth understanding of the role of music in the early Puja rituals and Indian theater in the vernacular poetry of the Bhakti movements in medieval temple worship of Siva and Vishnu in southern India, and later in the worship of Krishna in the northern Braj region. By surveying a multitude of worship traditions, Beck reveals a continuous template of interwoven ritual and music in Hindu tradition that he terms "sonic liturgy," a structure of religious worship and experience that incorporates sound and music on many levels.

In developing the concept and methods for understanding the phenomenon of sonic liturgy, Beck draws from liturgical studies and ritual studies, broadening the dimensions of each, as well as from recent work in the fields of Indian religion and music. As he maps the evolution of sonic liturgy in Hindu culture, Beck shows how, parallel to the development of religious ritual from ancient times to the present, there is a less understood progression of musical form, beginning with Vedic chants of two to three notes to complicated genres of devotional temple music employing ragas with up to a dozen notes. Sonic liturgy in its maturity is manifest as a complex interactive worship experience of the Vaishnava sects, presented here in Beck's final chapters.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Rituals
• Philosophie et théologie
• Yajna
• MUSIC
• Katha (storytelling format)
• Hymnology
• Multiple signal classification
• Liturgical drama
• Liturgical music
• Sampradaya
• Stotra
• Consecration
• Yagya
• Lingayatism
• Liturgy
• Hymn
• Hinduism
• Religion
• Practice
• Kirtan
• Atri
• International
• Smriti
• Rishi
• Gatha
• Avesta
• Chant
• Sanskrit
• Rite

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 12 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611171082
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION Frederick M. Denny, Series Editor
SONIC liturgy
Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition
GUY L. BECK

The University of South Carolina Press
© 2012 University of South Carolina
Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2012 Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2013
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:
Beck, Guy L., 1948–   Sonic liturgy : ritual and music in Hindu tradition / Guy L. Beck.       p. cm. — (Studies in comparative religion)   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-1-61117-037-5 (cloth : alk. paper)   1. Music — Religious aspects—Hinduism. 2. Sound—Religious aspects—Hinduism. 3. Hinduism—Rituals. 4. Hinduism—Liturgy. 5. Liturgics. I. Title. II. Title: Ritual and music in Hindu tradition.   BL1215.M87B43 2012   294.5'38—dc23                                                                                                         2011031529
ISBN 978-1-61117-108-2 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Series Editor's Preface
Preface
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
1 Ancient India: Yajna and Sama-Gana
2 Classical India: Puja and Gandharva Sangita
3 Medieval India: Temple Hinduism and Bhakti Sangit
4 Seva and Haveli Sangit
5 Seva and Samaj Gayan
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE
This new book is an important sequel to Professor Beck's pioneering earlier book in this series— Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound , published in 1993. The earlier book focused on theoretical understandings of sacred sound in Hindu traditions from the earliest times, whereas this sequel takes us into the actual, lived world of Hindu ritual and liturgy, which the author refers to as “sacred sound in practice as opposed to sacred sound in theory.” “Sonic liturgy” is a new category for understanding religious music in comparative perspective, thus enriching the traditional fields of ritual and religious studies. Although this book focuses principally on Hindu ritual and its musical dimensions, it provides a universal methodology for the study of sacred sound in whatever religious traditions are being studied.
Frederick M. Denny
PREFACE
This book is dedicated to all the musicians and ritual specialists of Hindu India who have diligently maintained their traditions with unswerving devotion over the centuries. Sonic Liturgy: Ritual and Music in Hindu Tradition may be viewed as a sequel to the previous Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (1993), also published by the University of South Carolina Press. While the former deals with theories of sacred sound in Hinduism, the present work covers some of the practical aspects of sound and music. Financial support for the research conducted in 1992 and 1993 was provided by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) in the form of a Fulbright Research Grant and by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in the form of a Senior Research Fellowship. During the periods covered by these grants, I greatly appreciate the assistance provided by the Vrindaban Research Institute for fieldwork in the Braj area and the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Calcutta for instruction on Indian music theory and history.
For the present work, thanks go to Professor Ed Johnson, chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of New Orleans, for providing me with a wonderful office while I taught courses at UNO from fall 2008 through fall 2009. During this time most of the actual writing took place in the peaceful solitude of the third floor of the Liberal Arts Building. In addition, the fact that the Tulane University School of Continuing Studies kept me on board during the difficult post-Katrina years will never be forgotten. Without the employment support of these two institutions, the completion of this book would not have been possible.
I sincerely extend a vote of thanks to Professor Fred Denny for graciously accommodating this text in his USC Press series, Studies in Comparative Religion. I also thank James Denton and the editors of the University of South Carolina Press for taking an interest in a work on Hindu ritual and music and for their help through the acquisitions and editorial processes.
Last, Kajal Beck, my wife, deserves much credit for her patient assistance and encouragement through all phases of the project, including in Vrindaban and Rajasthan in northern India when I was the recipient of the Fulbright and AIIS grants.
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
For the many terms in this book that are derived from Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, and Tamil languages, the diacritical marks have been omitted in the main text but appear in the appropriate entries in the glossary and in the titles listed in the notes and bibliography. Several of the Hindu proper nouns are given in standardized form as Vishnu, Krishna, Siva, Sarasvati, Durga, and so on, while terms used repeatedly in the text are given in uppercase as Yajna, Puja, Seva, Sama-Gana, Gandharva Sangita, Kirtan, Bhakti Sangit, Pada-Kirtan, Dhrupad, Dhamar, Haveli Sangit, Samaj Gayan, Apurva, Adrishta, Raga, Tala, and so forth. For consistency omission of diacriticals and the uppercasing of foreign terms has also been applied when quoting sources within the text.
Introduction
THE ONLINE DESCRIPTION OF THE GRADUATE program in liturgical studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, contained the following statement in August 2010: “The goal of this program is to promote the study and understanding of Christian worship as it is lived and expressed through the churches' various traditions and cultures. It assumes that worship is at the heart of the theological enterprise, since it is both the primary context of the churches' encounter with the mystery of the Triune God and a primary actualization of the ecclesial body. Study in this area requires an interdisciplinary approach to liturgical studies that integrates the historical, theological, and social-scientific study of Christian ritual practice” ( www.gtu.edu/academics/areas/liturgical-studies ).
At first glance this statement suggests that “liturgical studies” is essentially a Christian concern. In fact this notion is found throughout the curricula of many theological schools and seminaries. But despite this seemingly closed perspective, there are multiple indications of the widening of the liturgical lens within Christianity, as is evident in the number of non-Christian entries found in The New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (2002), edited by Paul Bradshaw. There are entries regarding Jewish worship, Islamic worship, Hindu worship, Buddhist worship, Sikh worship, and Shinto worship. In each case the presence of music and chant is briefly woven into the description of the ritual and liturgical dimensions of each tradition. Outside the Christian fold scholars in the phenomenology of religion and music have also been struggling to break the ironclad hold of sectarianism on otherwise neutral terms and categories such as liturgy, ritual , and sacred music. These expressions, and others, are now increasingly employed by Christian as well as religious studies scholars as comparative categories, understood not to be the “possession” of certain religious groups. Hence despite some programmatic setbacks, the field of liturgical studies, along with ritual studies, has the potential of developing into a rewarding comparative discipline and one that also provides new elements of method and theory with regard to Hindu tradition.
Recent scholarship in musicology has broadened the scope of music and religious worship by explaining the various ways in which music and song play central roles in all known religions: “In some religions sound itself is a cosmological starting point. As such, it represents the essence of the universe and to be in harmony with the universe means to hear accurately its sound…. Further, sound may be the medium of revelation by which the gods have chosen to make themselves known. Further still, sound may be the believer's means of communication to the gods and/or preparing oneself for such communication. The content of this preparation and communication is combined with the music to become songs, that is, music with an articulated goal. Music has been used cosmologically, liturgically, and devotionally in all the world's religions.” 1
One of the tasks in the study of religion and music is to recognize and document common denominators among varying forms of religious music. For example, a parallel feature shared by religious practitioners is the conservative attitude with which they approach their music as it relates to ritual and liturgy. In most religions throughout the world, there are strict rules regarding the performance of music and chant in ritual contexts. Traditional psalms, chants, hymns, and liturgical songs are generally predetermined and contain little scope for alteration beyond fixed parameters: Latin Gregorian chants, Calvinist psalmody, Lutheran chorales, gospel hymns, church litanies, and prayers in the Christian tradition; Qur'an recitation and Majlis in Islam; Chinese ceremonial songs and chants in Confucian or Taoist contexts; Buddhist chants throughout Asia; musical forms of ancient Egypt as described by Plato; Vedic invocations and hymns, Gandharva music, Sanskrit mantras and Stotras, scriptural recitations, Kirtana and Kriti in South India, Bhajans, Bhakti Sangit, Haveli Sangit, Samaj Gayan, and Padavali Kirtan in North India, and Shabad Kirtan in Sikhism. A widely held assumption is that these traditional musical forms are performed in connection with one God, specific deities, sacred ancestors, or spirits. They are handed down from the hoary past and effectively produce expected results onl