Sanskrit Subhashitas: About Raagas MARWA,,POORIA and SOHANI.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

About Raagas MARWA,,POORIA and SOHANI.

The above three Raags of Hindustani Classical Music share the same Musical Scale (Thaat) known as Marwa Thaat having swaras S r G M D N S', with P varjit in both aaroha and avaroha. But in spite of all these Raags being Shadav-Shadav category, they are differentiated by their chalan, different vaadi and samvadi swaras and prominence of lower octave or upper octave (poorvang pradhan or uttarang pradhan. There is some difference of opinion about the vadi-samvadi , chalan etc among scholars of music. So, here under I have tried to sum up all these aspects by consulting various Texts on these Raags available with me. I hope that members will find the information helpful in appreciating these Raags more meaningfully.

1. Marwa and Pooria are like twin brothers as there is much similarity in their aaroha-avaroha. Just as in the case of twin brothers there is still some difference between them and they are not identical in all respects,so is the case with these Raags. Pooria's nature is more 'gambheer' as compared to Marwa, because Marwa is sung with rather straight notes without using 'meend' and voice modulation. Dhaiwat is more prominent in Marwa because it is 'samvadi' in Marwa, whereas 'anuvadi' in Pooria. The structure of Marwa is dependent on swaras r G and D, whereas in Pooria it is dependent on G m and N. Vaadi-samvadi of Marwa are r and D, whereas in Pooria they are G and N .

2. The range of Pooria is from mandra saptak's teevra madhyam upto taar saptak teevra madhyam and elaborated mostly in mandra and madhya saptak, whereas Marwa is sung mostly in madhya saptak

3. Pt.Vinayak Rao Patrwardhan has mentioned in his treatise Raag Vigyaan Vol.2 that vaadi samvadi of Marwa are D and r, whereas other scholars have opined them as r and D and aarohav avaroha is also different as .N r G M D N r' - r' N D M G r .N r S. Pt Omkar Nath Thakur from the same Gharana has also mentioned the aroha- avaroha similarly, but as he follows the system of graha, ansha,nyas etc., instead of vadi-samvadi, he states r as Grah swara, Upgraha swara N, Ansha swara -r , Anugami swaras -G and M, Nyas swara - r, Apanyas - D , Vinyas - S (alpatwa of S).

Shri Thakur further states that one should never have 'nyaas' at G and N while singing Marwa, If this is done Pooria will tend to appear. There is so much prominence of r that at times S gets overshadowed. So it is necessary that S should be used from time to time. If S is not used for quite some time, r will become S and immediately Marwa will become 'tirohit'(disappear) and Malkons Raag will tend to appear, because r will take the place of S and N will become n, G will become g and M will become m and aroha-avaroha of Marwa will become S g mdnS' S'ndmgS.

4. As regards Raag Sohani, it is sung mostly in Madhya and Taaar saptak. Its vaadi-samvadi are D and G. r is 'durbal' in aaroha of Sohani and S' (taar saptak) is very prominent in it and meend is frequently used , which easily differentistes it from Marwa and Pooria.

5. It is said that Sohani is just another facet of Pooria ('pratimoorti'). That is why they are called 'Jodi ke Raag'. There are many other Raags of similar nature having the same swara pattern but different chalan e.g. Bhoopali and Deshkaar, Sooha and Adana, Todi and Multani.

6. Sohani is 'uttarang pradhaan' whereas Pooria is 'poorvaang pradhan'. The swaras pattern bring out Sohani is different than that of Pooria and Marwa.. S' r',S'R'NS', NDNS'ND, MDNS'r'S' will never appear in Pooria and Marwa, So, to differentiate between 'samaprikritk' (having the same nature) Raags, special swara patterns peculiar to the particular Raag is very important. One has to learn them carefully and use them judiciously to differentiate between the Raags concerned.

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Preface

If there is a language on the earth, dead or living, which may preeminently deserve, by its compressibility of thought, richness of expression, and euphony of words, to be entitled the Language of Poets , it is undoubtedly Sanskrit. The Sanskrit writers cultivated poetry to such an extent , that every work, whether on the philosophy of the soul , or on the theory of Music and Dance, on a battle deciding the fate of the Country for a thousand years to come and shedding the blood of millions of human beings, or on the prosaic sacrifice of an animal offered to appease the hungry demons or the reluctant gods, came to be written in verse. Logic and grammar no less than the art and science of medicine, were thought worthy of being written in verse. Shortness and capability of being easily committed to memory were the chief objects in preferring verse to prose as regards the subjects for which poetry as such had no sympathy. But real poetry was by no means not neglected and among other kinds , epigrammatic poetry received special attention. The Panchatantra is full of short epigrammes on all possible topics relating to humanity viewed in all possible aspects. Thousands of couplets and stanzas embodying in the most laconic style - the choicest thoughts of serious as well as humorous minds , are floating on the surface of what is called learned conversation among our country-men , and a man is not considered learned, and perhaps rightly, unless he is able to repeat some celebrated saying of a poet or a dramatist illustrating either side of a question that may form the subject of conversation in which he is taking part. And though very few of these popular sayings can be verified as the productions of known authors,they are nevertheless greedily learnt by heart by the generality of Shastries (scholars of Sanskrit Language), and may be heard repeated by them in the course of their conversation. As they are very generally used among the well informed and well read of the passing generation of Shastris, they may freely be described as containing a faithful reflection of the modes of thoughts and of the sentiments of the Indian mind busy in a civilization that is now in the state of transition. Not infrequently , these epigrammatic pieces serve as authorities with the ignorant classes, to whom every thing written in the sacred tongue has the authority of Shastras.

It is trusted that what is said above will be sufficient excuse for placing before the public the following collection of 'SUBHASHITAS' . The collection is arranged under various heads and some times sayings both praising and censuring a custom or a state of things are separately given. It is one of the characteristics of subhashita poetry that, coming as it does from various hands, it is both one sided and exhaustive - one sided when viewed only in parts, and exhaustive when viewed as a whole. The reader will doubtless remember the shatakas of Bhaartrihari, who writing in praise of pleasures of the company of young women will raise them to highest heaven; but speaking of indifference to the pleasures of the world will almost in the same breath send his angels to the lowest depth of bottomless perdition. The same may be said of the epigrammatic verses of the Panchatantra, the interlocutors in which are never at loss to support their conflicting views by authoritative verses either quoted from old writers or composed for the occasion by the author. Both sides of every subject touched by the subhashitas are well, some-times perhaps too well, illustrate and the truth always lies between the two extremes.

(The above preface is from a book "SUBHASHITA RATNAKARA" -a collection of witty and epigrammatic sayings in Sanskrit -complied and edited by KRISHNA SHASTRI BHATAVADEKAR - published in the year 1888. The book belonged to my Grandfather , who was a Sanskrit scholar. I inherited the book from my father and all the Subhashitas to be posted by me are from this book, which is in Sanskrit. The translation of the Subhashitas has been done by me to the best of my ability. As I do not possess deep knowledge of Sanskrit, I may be excused of any discrepancies in the translation, if any. I hope that my humble effort will be appreciated by discerning readers going through my blog.Your suggestions in the matter are most welcome. Many thanks for your patronage.)

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