Sri Yukteswar sponsored four yearly festivals, at the equinoxes and solstices, when his students gathered from far and near. The winter solstice celebration was held in Serampore; the first one I attended left me with a permanent blessing.
The festivities started in the morning with a barefoot procession along the streets. The voices of a hundred students rang out with sweet religious songs; a few musicians played the flute and KHOL KARTAL (drums and cymbals). Enthusiastic townspeople strewed the path with flowers, glad to be summoned from prosaic tasks by our resounding praise of the Lord’s blessed name. The long tour ended in the courtyard of the hermitage. There we encircled our guru, while students on upper balconies showered us with marigold blossoms.
Many guests went upstairs to receive a pudding of CHANNA and oranges. I made my way to a group of brother disciples who were serving today as cooks. Food for such large gatherings had to be cooked outdoors in huge cauldrons. The improvised wood-burning brick stoves were smoky and tear-provoking, but we laughed merrily at our work. Religious festivals in India are never considered troublesome; each one does his part, supplying money, rice, vegetables, or his personal services.
Master was soon in our midst, supervising the details of the feast. Busy every moment, he kept pace with the most energetic young student.
A SANKIRTAN (group chanting), accompanied by the harmonium and hand-played Indian drums, was in progress on the second floor. Sri Yukteswar listened appreciatively; his musical sense was acutely perfect.
“They are off key!” Master left the cooks and joined the artists. The melody was heard again, this time correctly rendered.
In India, music as well as painting and the drama is considered a divine art. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva-the Eternal Trinity-were the first musicians. The Divine Dancer Shiva is scripturally represented as having worked out the infinite modes of rhythm in His cosmic dance of universal creation, preservation, and dissolution, while Brahma accentuated the time-beat with the clanging cymbals, and Vishnu sounded the holy MRIDANGA or drum. Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, is always shown in Hindu art with a flute, on which he plays the enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the human souls wandering in MAYA-delusion. Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, is symbolized as performing on the VINA, mother of all stringed instruments. The SAMA VEDA of India contains the world’s earliest writings on musical science.
The foundation stone of Hindu music is the RAGAS or fixed melodic scales. The six basic RAGAS branch out into 126 derivative RAGINIS (wives) and PUTRAS (sons). Each RAGA has a minimum of five notes: a leading note (VADI or king), a secondary note (SAMAVADI or prime minister), helping notes (ANUVADI, attendants), and a dissonant note (VIVADI, the enemy).
Each one of the six basic RAGAS has a natural correspondence with a certain hour of the day, season of the year, and a presiding deity who bestows a particular potency. Thus, (1) the HINDOLE RAGA is heard only at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; (2) DEEPAKA RAGA is played during the evening in summer, to arouse compassion; (3) MEGHA RAGA is a melody for midday in the rainy season, to summon courage; (4) BHAIRAVA RAGA is played in the mornings of August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity; (5) SRI RAGA is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; (6) MALKOUNSA RAGA is heard at midnights in winter, for valor.
The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of AUM, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain MANTRAS or chants. {FN15-7} Historical documents tell of the remarkable powers possessed by Miyan Tan Sen, sixteenth century court musician for Akbar the Great. Commanded by the Emperor to sing a night RAGA while the sun was overhead, Tan Sen intoned a MANTRA which instantly caused the whole palace precincts to become enveloped in darkness.
Indian music divides the octave into 22 SRUTIS or demi-semitones. These microtonal intervals permit fine shades of musical expression unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. Each one of the seven basic notes of the octave is associated in Hindu mythology with a color, and the natural cry of a bird or beast-DO with green, and the peacock; RE with red, and the skylark; MI with golden, and the goat; FA with yellowish white, and the heron; SOL with black, and the nightingale; LA with yellow, and the horse; SI with a combination of all colors, and the elephant.
Three scales-major, harmonic minor, melodic minor-are the only ones which Occidental music employs, but Indian music outlines 72 THATAS or scales. The musician has a creative scope for endless improvisation around the fixed traditional melody or RAGA; he concentrates on the sentiment or definitive mood of the structural theme and then embroiders it to the limits of his own originality. The Hindu musician does not read set notes; he clothes anew at each playing the bare skeleton of the RAGA, often confining himself to a single melodic sequence, stressing by repetition all its subtle microtonal and rhythmic variations. Bach, among Western composers, had an understanding of the charm and power of repetitious sound slightly differentiated in a hundred complex ways.
Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 TALAS or time-measures. The traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have isolated 32 kinds of TALA in the song of a lark. The origin of TALA or rhythm is rooted in human movements-the double time of walking, and the triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is twice the length of exhalation. India has always recognized the human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music therefore largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For the same reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed, rather than harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).
The deeper aim of the early rishi-musicians was to blend the singer with the Cosmic Song which can be heard through awakening of man’s occult spinal centers. Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Oversoul. The Sanskrit word for musician is BHAGAVATHAR, “he who sings the praises of God.” The SANKIRTANS or musical gatherings are an effective form of yoga or spiritual discipline, necessitating deep concentration, intense absorption in the seed thought and sound. Because man himself is an expression of the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect on him, offering a way to remembrance of his divine origin.
The SANKIRTAN issuing from Sri Yukteswar’s second-story sitting room on the day of the festival was inspiring to the cooks amidst the steaming pots. My brother disciples and I joyously sang the refrains, beating time with our hands.
By sunset we had served our hundreds of visitors with KHICHURI (rice and lentils), vegetable curry, and rice pudding. We laid cotton blankets over the courtyard; soon the assemblage was squatting under the starry vault, quietly attentive to the wisdom pouring from Sri Yukteswar’s lips. His public speeches emphasized the value of KRIYA YOGA, and a life of self-respect, calmness, determination, simple diet, and regular exercise.
A group of very young disciples then chanted a few sacred hymns; the meeting concluded with SANKIRTAN. From ten o’clock until midnight, the ashram residents washed pots and pans, and cleared the courtyard. My guru called me to his side.
“I am pleased over your cheerful labors today and during the past week of preparations. I want you with me; you may sleep in my bed tonight.”
This was a privilege I had never thought would fall to my lot. We sat awhile in a state of intense divine tranquillity. Hardly ten minutes after we had gotten into bed, Master rose and began to dress.
“What is the matter, sir?” I felt a tinge of unreality in the unexpected joy of sleeping beside my guru.
“I think that a few students who missed their proper train connections will be here soon. Let us have some food ready.”
“Guruji, no one would come at one o’clock in the morning!”
“Stay in bed; you have been working very hard. But I am going to cook.”
At Sri Yukteswar’s resolute tone, I jumped up and followed him to the small daily-used kitchen adjacent to the second-floor inner balcony. Rice and DHAL were soon boiling.
My guru smiled affectionately. “Tonight you have conquered fatigue and fear of hard work; you shall never be bothered by them in the future.”
As he uttered these words of lifelong blessing, footsteps sounded in the courtyard. I ran downstairs and admitted a group of students.
“Dear brother, how reluctant we are to disturb Master at this hour!” One man addressed me apologetically. “We made a mistake about train schedules, but felt we could not return home without a glimpse of our guru.”