Return to Music of India CatalogueFoundations of Indian Musicology--Perspectives in the Philosophy of Art and Culture/Pradip Kumar Sengupta. 1991, xii, 159 p., $11.
Contents: Preface. 1. Religion, culture and art: man's spiritual universe. 2. Visual art and performing art. 3. The phenomenon of music. 4. Music and man. 5. Music and tradition. 6. The concept of Tala in music. 7. Raga and Rasa. 8. Rabindranath Tagore on Indian musicology: a critical appraisal. Appendix: A list of some important works on musicology. Bibliography. Index.
"This book is an attempt at a rational reconstruction of the fundamental principles of Indian musicology and tries to indicate how the basic aesthetic appeal of the Ragas could be best interpreted. Challenging the idea that Indian music is a closed orthodox set of so-called rigid rules and principles, it treats Indian music as rooted in man's spiritual vision. Music unfolds this vision spontaneously through proportionate note-sequences and it is the unending pilgrimage of man which opens richer and greater horizons where man can find his home to be a hermitage of abiding peace and blissful joy." (jacket)
[Pradip Kumar Sengupta is Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan.]