Panchaka in Indian Music

Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. The magical five. 2. Panchaka and origin of music. 3. Significance of Panchaka in Indian music. 4. Panchaka and ragas in various treatises on music. 5. Ghanaraga panchaka in musical forms. 6. The great composers and ghana raga panchaka. 7. Conclusion. Appendix.

The title Panchaka in Indian Music itself lends credit to the magical number five, which has extra ordinary control of the universe nonetheless to music and other allied arts. It is given in detail the influence of number five panchaka in relation to every aspect of culture and musical study.

Elaborate touch has been given on the reflections of number five to dance, mythology, philosophy, religion, geography, literature, architecture and painting.

The relation of panchaka to Vedas, including their ramifications and sub divisions; Sruti, Naada, and the Saman and has touched upon the early church music which has widely used the five tones and semitones in the pentatonic scales.

The crux of the work is related to the effects of panchaka in the delineation of ragas as handed down to us from centuries through literary works with reference to ghana ragas, shad ragas, second set of ghana panchaka ragas.

The chapter on ragas and panchaka finds an extension in the following chapter dealing on important, ancient and popular musical forms like Prabandha, Thaya, Dhruva, Swarajati, Jathiswara, Varna, Kriti etc. This is an important part of study in the work dealing on various tenets of musical forms and its influence through the panchaka factor.

Then one of the most and vital chapter of the work is the handling of panchaka by the musical trinity - Tyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshitar and Syama Sastri and other pre-trinity composers like Purandara-dasa and contemporary trinity composers Swati Tirunal, Veena Kuppayyar etc. Their compositions are analyzed and the beauty of the panchaka has been brought out with very high clarity. The annexure carries many rare compositions in the ghana ragas by some unknown composers and well known composers as well. (jacket)