Anahat Nad
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Heard through music
Pranav Khullar, January 14, 2023: The Times of India
The ancient Tamil Shaivite Agama tradition was among the earliest to postulate that sound is even more central to consciousness than mind or matter. This Primordial Sound perhaps existed even prior to mind and matter; it is the basic building block of our universe. This idea of the Nada-Brahmn gets expanded into a metaphysical principle by Matanga in his classic work ‘Brihaddeshi’, proposing that jagat, the manifest world, is sound only, in its essential nature.
This exposition of sound being at the heart of the universe, the Pranav Nada, further expands into the notion that the soul is not an abstract principle, as in Advaita Vedanta. As Sarangdeva puts it in his definitive treatise on music, the ‘Sangita-Ratnakara’, the soul of the world is itself suffused with emotions, colours andaesthetic hues. These transcendental layers of the soul can only be expressed through music, and the practice of music is itself a spiritual practice, a yog, which can lead to the realisation of the Self.
It is this quest for the Self through music, which is at the heart of most of the kritis of Thyagaraja. The ‘Nadopasana Kritis’ of Thyagaraja sing of the glory of music itself – that music is not only a means to mukti, liberation, but jivanmukti, freedom itself. In his ‘SwarRaga-Sudha-Rasa’, he talks of the origin of the nada in the Mooladhar, the root-chakra of the kundalini, and sings of how the knowledge of this nada through music can lead to blissful realisation. In his kriti, ‘Nadopasanche’, he refers to the divine state of Shiv, Vishnu and Brahma as being one which has been attained by theconstant worship of nada.
In another kriti, Thyagaraja points out that nada, swar and pranav are the form of Sadashiv himself. In ‘Andolika, Raga Sudha Rasa’, he says, “The nectar of nada-rasa gives one the blessings of yog, yajna, tyag and bhog. Drink that raga-rasa, O mind and delight. ”
Thyagaraja was quite rare among musicians to write songs exclusively in respect of the medium, music itself, through which he was expressing himself. In another kriti, he writes, “Devotion associated with the nectar of swar, notes, and raga, melodies, is itself paradise and liberation. ” His love for Ram is at the heart of many kritis, wherein Ram is Narottama, the best of human beings, and Thyagaraja recounts Ram’s story in endearing personal terms, much like Valmiki. The famous‘Panch-ratna Kritis’, mostly in praise of Ram, set to Adi-taal, are sung to this day at his samadhi at Thiruvaiyaru. In other kritis, he praises Narad, the quintessential wandering musician, as the “honey-bee in the lotus of divine sound”.
Schopenhauer writes of how “music is an unconscious exercise in metaphysics, wherein the mind does not know it is philosophising. ” The songs of Thyagaraja create this space, where music and metaphysics, bhakti bhava and a rasa mood, are simultaneously experienced. Nadopasana Yog is presented in the kritis as a means to experience transcendence, which is rooted in bhakti and human emotions.
And even as he sings of Shiv as the embodiment of the seven musical notes, Thyagaraja offers Nadopasana as the means to strive for the silence of the Anahat Nada, through the ecstasy of music itself.
