Meaning in Music by R.

Sathyanarayana - Based on a lecture delivered at the Seminar: 'What

Have the Arts in Common?' at Mysore on 3.6.1993


Meaning in Music
(R. Sathyanarayana)



1. The Musical Experience: Questions

Musical experience is Janus-like; it has an objective and a subjective face. Its
objective frame is structured with physical parameters; the subjective frame, by its
associative content. In its autonomy, it is non-referential; in its heteronomy it has
extensive ramifications in its multidisciplinal interactions. As with other primary
experiential modes, it is, in its autonomy, untranslatable; in its interactions and
projections it is, in its heteronomy, spread over a large domain of human experience
and knowledge.

Music is an aesthetic mode. Though structured in ephemeral, temporal
sequence its symbolic content and function are instantaneously revealed rather than
in cumulative progression. This is the central theme of this presentation. In an
epistemological, semantic or philospophical analysis, this experience may be
conveniently approached by the spha theory.

Within the frame of aesthesis, music in its heteronomy is interrelated to
dancing, poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture. All these arts arise from a
common source viz. collective consciousness of a human community, and have a
common destination; viz. emotional experience from the phenomenal world, but an
experience which is abstracted, transformed and transposed or extrapolated to an
aesthetic quality. All these arts employ similar elements taken from the material world
- recurrence, rhythm, colour, shade, line, contour etc. which are transformed and
structured into different semantic patterns; such meaning may be discursive or
nondiscursive. It is interesting to note that the same three laws operate in formulating
creative expression in all these arts viz. law of parsimony, law of recurrence and the
law of pragnanz. The first law is evidenced by the irreducibly small number of the
same common elements; the second, by the interaction of these selfsame elements at
different strata and different modes of the human mind; the third in providing the
appropriate psychological base for creativity and its communication.

All experience in general, and art experience in particular, is basically
untranslatable. Yet the mind seeks multiple and alternative modes of expression or
communication of what may be quintessentially the same quality or experience. This
results in intermodal and intramodal ramifications and parallel (interchangeable
experiences?) expressions. The human physio-neurological mechanism seems to be
conditioned for this and has made possible intersensory extrapolation in the form of
synaesthesia.

Thus in its heteronomy, musical experience yields metaphors in other aesthetic
modes; imagery (poetry), colouration, texture, linear resolution etc. (painting),
reification (painting, sculpture), structure and design (architecture), rhythm and
dynamics (or kinematics) (dancing) etc., such abstracted metaphors are occasionally
concretised in synaesthetic experience.

Is the experience of different arts the same or different in quality? To determine
this, simultaneity of their experience has to be achieved; and this is not normally
possible. How far is memory or recall reliable in such comparisons? Such
determination also presumes equal susceptibility, interest, taste and preparation on
the part of the same rasika or sahdaya, which is very difficult, if not impossible. Is it
possible to construct a single, common or eclectic theoretical model for the aesthetic
experience for all the arts? Or is it necessary to develop a separate, individual model
for each art? In other words, do the arts have a common meaning? Classical
aesthetic theories in ancient India are wholly preoccupied with poetry and drama. The
concepts and constructs of such theories can not be extended, by and large, to
music; nor have they been yet systematically tested for the visual arts. The symbolic
materials of music are peculiar to it in their semantic content and function. Does this
suggest a qualitative difference for musical experience?

Is it possible to group cognate art forms in terms of qualitative or material
similarity or identity? If so, what are the criteria for determining such affinities?

Art acquires its ethnic or national character depending on the geographic,
historical and sociocultural characteristics of the human community. Such
differentiation results from differentia in attitude and approach to beauty or rasa. How
may techniques be related to expression in an art in the context of the cultural values
which generate the art?

Interdisciplinal and intradisciplinal correlation is still a desideratum in studies of
Indian Music. Musical experience, though indivisible and incomparable (as other art
experiences may also be), may be, in a reductionistic approach, resolved along many
analogous and adjacent axes such as the aesthetic, mathematical, physical,
physiological, psychological, pedagocial, sociological, semantic etc. Psychology may
be regarded as the substrate discipline for all these and other analytical approaches
to the musical experience since the latter is essentially subjective in expression,
communication and reception though these function in an objective frame. Therefore
the reductionistic method may be applied to the study of musical experience.

2. Meaning

Meaning has many meanings. It is sought to be defined in many disciplines
such as linguistics, grammar, rhetoric/poetics, logic, ontology, philology, aesthetics,
psychology, anthropoloy and cybernetics. These are by and large, preoccupied with
word-meaning. Word meaning is undoubtedly of prime importance and covers a
major area of human endeavour. But there are other areas of human experience such
as those of art, religion, mysticism and intuition which lie beyond word-meaning. It is
important and necessary to explore and define meaning in these.

A few definitions of word meaning may be noted in passing; Morris Cohen
(logician) defines meaning thus; anything acquires meaning if it is connected with,
indicates or refers to something beyond itself so that its full nature points to, and is
revealed in, that connection. Nagel (symbolistic philosopher) sees meaning in any
occurrence or type of occurrence - usually of linguistic status - which is taken to
signify something else by tacit or explicit conventions or rules of language. According
to Susanne Langer (symbolistic philosopher and aesthetician) the more primary
function of symbols is to formulate experience as something imaginable in the first
place....... to articulate ideas, presenting experience objectively for contemplation,
logical intuition, recognition, understanding - that is, logical articulation or expression.
Richards and Ogden compile some sixteen meanings of meaning, most of which are
substitutions for other terms such as intention, value, referent and emotion.

Elucidation of word - meaning is the major preoccupation of every
philosophical system in India - hindu, jain or buddhist. An in-depth dialectic is
developed by each. Many insights, concepts and theories are presented by them
which are of vital relevance to modern linguistics, psychology, philology, semantics
and aesthetics e.g. abhidh, laka, ttpariya, jti (smnya) - vyakti (via),
svalakaa, saptabhagi, anvitbhidhna and abhihitnvaya, pha, dhvani, spha,
conditions of perceiving word meaning e.g. kk, ygyat, sannidhi, ttparya
jna etc. I submit that exposure to a modern exposition of these would be highly
stimulating to students of word meaning and art meaning both in India and abroad.

Meaning is a socio-culturally conditioned phenomenon. Within a given culture-
matrix which has generated them, symbols function specifically and inhere meanings
which are learned, articulated and communicated. It has also a general aspect in
which it is perceived as a pattern. A pattern becomes possible because of the
peculiar ability of the mind to relate the components of a physically discrete stimulus
or stimulus series to one another in an intelligible, articulated and definite
configuration and to perceive the configuration as a whole. In other words, separate
stimuli are perceived as parts of a larger, inclusive structure and as possessing not
only their own individual functions but also mutual interactions. Because of this, it
becomes possible to foresee consequents within and without the configuration with
some degree of probability. It is this that makes meaning possible. The stimuli in a
series must possess elements of both similarity and dissimilarity in some measure
amongst themselves in order to be perceived as a pattern. If not, they fail to cohere
and cluster. Too much similarity or congruence and too much dissimilarity tend to
inhibit this ability because they lead to monotony and unintelligibility respectively, and
therefore the capacity to develop mutual relationships. Clarity of perception of the
pattern is directly related to differentiation and unification among the stimuli and to the
norms of articulation prevailing within the given semantic system. A further factor
which influences pattern perception is the physical and/or temporal proximity of the
stimuli or symbol series, which in turn is related to attentive span and flow of
consciousness. For optimal perception, the velocity of consciousness should be
commensurate with stimulus presentation in the objective world in magnitude and
direction.
3. Meaning of Music

Determination and elucidation of meaning in music generated by a particular
culture are, naturally enough, restricted to the native music, largely because musical
meaning lacks the methods of determination available to word meaning such as
vddha vyavahra, ka, vivti, siddhapadasnnidhya etc. (q.v. infra) and because
musical experience is a much more learned phenomenon due to its socio-cultural
conditioning. Despite brief and superficial excursions into other musical systems than
their own by scholars such as Meyer and Langer, the field of comparative musical
meaning is virtually virgin (but fertile!). Musical meaning differs from word meaning
since it essentially involves undifferentiated emotion rather than intellection. It is
gratifying to note that leaders in the study of musial meaning such as Langer, Meyer,
Reid are more and more inclined to relate it to feeling, form and emotion, to
expectation and learning, to the laws of good continuation, completion-closure,
shapes, figures of probability and of perception. There is a growing awareness of the
roles of memory, impression and engram in the perception of musical meaning.
Ontological rules have been formulated for value, method and referent in art in general
and in music in particular. However, if a common theoretical model for the meaning of
all music is possible at all, it has not yet emerged, in the East or in the West.

Meaning is generally held to be revealed in a triadic (tripu) relationship viz.
symbol -reference - referent in Western semantic theory also (Cohen, Mead, Gardiner,
Ogden and Richards) though the relationship between the symbol and the referent is
sometimes held to be only imputed. The relationship between the word (pada) and
meaning (artha) is a subject of profound and detailed dialectic in all systems of Indian
(hindu, bauddha and jaina) philosophy. It is occasionally held to be direct and
immediate but generally the agency of memory and impression (saskra) is invoked.

Meaning symbols may occur successively in a temporal sequence (as in
music, dance sequence, language etc.) or together, simultaneously (as in painting,
sculpture, dance pose etc.). These are designated as discursive and presentational by
symbolistic philosophers. Laws of aural perception are not as well studied as those of
visual perception. Therefore it cannot be stated, in the present state of our knowledge
whether a single, theoretical model of meaning which covers both perceptual modes
and hence all the arts is possible.

Various theories of aesthetic experience i.e. art meaning have been
propounded in ancient India; these are concerned only with the medium of the word
viz. poetry and drama. The rasa-model proposed by Bharata is the most popular
among these and widely discussed in depth both by his commentators and others. It
is offered in the context of nya which is conceived by Bharata as the total theatre,
composed of all the arts and modelled on world. His commentators, and nearly all
later aestheticians interpret the theory in terms of dramatic presentation. Therefore
they expound rasa on the foundations of the spoken word which is augmented with
music, dance etc. The accent here is on word-meanings (which are transcended by
rasa) while the other supplemental arts are heterogeneous and auxiliary in both scope
and function. Rasa is evoked by abhinaya; it consists of representation (of the world)
and is of four kinds viz. verbal, corporeal, costumery and make-up and emotive; these
are clearly referential, and do not apply to nonreferential arts such as music and
dance (ntta) in their autonomy. Further, Bharata resolves rasa into physical
(referential) stimulants (vibhva), behavioral (anubhva) and affective (bhva,
vyabhicri) components. As defined by Bharata and his followers, these cannot be
extended to arts which have no objective correspondence in their symbolic material or
effect. The worldly sentiments such as gra, karua etc. evoked in the art
experience are universalised (sdhrakta) into an abstracted form in the
aesthetically susceptible spectator and are experienced as rasa. In autonomous
music and dance such worldly sentiments have no place except extrinsically, as for
example in Indian music through tonal curvatures called gamaka. Here the
sentiments are simulated as bhsa.

Nevertheless, undifferentiated emotion is the summum bonum of art
experience, especially in music. Since differentiated emotions such as gra,
karua etc. are not relevant to embodied (or autonomous) meaning in music,
Bharata's observation 'na hi kacidartha rasdt' needs to be explained. It lends
itself to several interpretations; a) in a general linguistic sense, word-meaning is
inevitably bound up with affect. b) in the context of art experience, there can be no art
meaning without rasa; i.e. rasa is the meaning in art. c) the aim or object (of art) is
rasa. d) there is no content of art other than rasa. Therefore any theory of the meaning
in general and of music in particular would be meaningless if it does not comprehend
rasa.

Indeed, meaning and emotion in music are of the same ilk. As Meyer says, 'It
must be recognised that that affective experience is just as dependent upon intelligent
cognition as conscious intellection, that both involve perception, taking account of,
envisaging and so forth; then thinking and feeling need not be viewed as polar
opposites but as different manifestations of a single psychological process. There is
no diametric opposition, no inseparable gulf between the affective and the intellectual
responses to music. Though psychologically differentiated as responses, both depend
on the same perceptive processes, the same stylistic habits, the same mode of
mental organisation and the same musical processes give rise to and shape both
types of experience' (Emotion and Meaning in Music, pp39,40)

4. A Theoretical Model for Musical Meaning

Against the foregoing background, I shall venture to propose a theoretical
model for the meaning of music with special reference to Indian music. I am
encouraged in this attempt by the following; a) music - especially homophonic music -
is analogous to language structurally. b) Bharthari's theory of spha may be
extended to homophonic, especially Indian, music with minor modifications. c)
conceptual ground work for such theory already occurs in ancient Indian musical
theory.

There are parallels between language and homophonic music; this does not
mean that music is a universal language; far from it; in fact, it is highly doubtful as
mentioned in section (1) if there could be any single semantic mode which
comprehends all human expression and communication; for, among other reasons,
meaning is a socio-culturally conditioned phenomenon.

The core concept of the proposed model is that as in language, meaning is
revealed in spha. Spha means revelation in an instantaneous burst, insight or
flash. The Indian grammarian Bharthari postulates that thought and sentence are
inseparable and that the division of the latter into words and syllables is only an
artificial device. Spha i.e. meaning is compounded of, but different from its
ingredients. Three classical analogies are given; i) the taste of a delicious drink is
perceived at once and not in terms of or the sequence of its ingredients. It may be
noted that Bharata offers exactly the same analogy of 'Pnaka' for rasa, which is the
meaning in art. ii) though constituted from the atoms of different elements, a chemical
compound is perceived instantaneously as a single entity and not as a sum of the
sequence or series of the component atoms. iii) the variegated hue of mayra rasa
(liquid in the egg of a peahen) is perceived instantaneously as a single entity, not as a
mixture or sum of the component colours. This applies equally to a concatenation of
words constituted of syllables and to a concatenation of svaras constituted of rutis.
The strength of the spha theory is its appeal to common sense and to direct
experience.

. +...-.- +. -. + ..-.-. . . .-....|-.+
[na kalpaymyaha spham. pratyakamva tvnamavagacchmi.]
akara, comm. Brahmastra, 1.3.28

Some parallels and dissimilarities between language and music may now be
noticed. These are not exhaustively listed here.

i. Both employ sound as medium, expressed in a temporal, ephemeral succession of
sound elements.

ii. Language-sound is a manifestation of abdabrahman; musical sound is
manifestation of ndabrahman. abdabrahman is manifest, vyakta or unmanifest,
avyakta. Ndabrahman is similarly manifest, hata or unmanifest, anhata.

iii. Manifestation of language sound proceeds from the principle of consciousness or
pratibh called payant which is subtle, through a psychologically and intellectually
apprehended midphase called madhyam. The phonological structure, sound norm
(form?) or acoustic image, and all the linguistic appurtenances required for the
sentence-meaning (vkyaspha) are latent in this phase. This is called prkta
dhvani. This assumes different forms to express the same meaning and same spha
through different linguistic systems. The final stage of manifestation is in vaikhar
which consists of the actual utterance of the sounds and its perception. This is called
vaikta dhvani and is the actualisation of all that is latent in madhyam (or prkta).
The individual peculiarities characterising the speaker and all the relevant linguistic
elements are present in it.

In music, the highest state is called par, a postulate borrowed from yga,
tantra, mantra and pratyabhij philosophy. This corresponds to attributeless,
formless, unmanifested state of ndabrahman in its sat-cit-nanda state. This is
anhata nda. hata nda i.e. manifest musical sound proceeds from the subtle
payant and madhyam in which the abstract form, the motif, universal to all music
in all its vocal or instrumental forms and all musically relevant ingredients required for
sthya spha or rga spha' are inhered. This corresponds to prkta dhvani and
assumes different forms, techniques and modalities to express the same meaning and
the same gya-spha in different media in different musical systems. Musical
meaning is fully manifest in all its maturity in the final vaikhar phase. Here the sounds
are actually sung or played, involving the individual peculiarities and qualities of the
musician and the medium as well as the musically relevant syntactical and other
components.

iv. Conditions for determining linguistic meaning are stated to be four:
a. kk, mutual or syntactic expectancy which gives rise to arthaikatva or
semantic unity.
b. ygyat, logical consistency i.e. cumulative or mutual consistency of the terms in a
sentence; ygyat is defined as arthbdh or non-contradiction of the purported
meaning or the absence of antilogical elements.
c. sannidhi or satti is immediate recollection of the meaning of words. This is
contributed by phonetic contiguity or coherence.
d. ttparya is apprehension of the total import, corresponding to the purpose or
intention of the speaker. According to the Mmsaka school, ttparya involves six
ligas or indications viz upakrama - upasahra: sustained semantic consistency
between introduction and conclusion; abhysa, recurrence of the main theme;
aprvat, novelty or innovativeness; phala, intended result; arthavda, corroborative
and augmentative secondary motifs and upapatti, logical support to the main theme.

Conditions for determining musical meaning are analogous;
a. meaning in music emerges by the creation and resolution of tension i.e. kk in
which the vdi-vivdi relation assumes primary significance. Semantic unity accrues
from the mutual or syntactic expectancy of svaras in a passage.
b. ygyat in music is musico-logical consistency of svaras and varlakras in a
melodic passage, arising from contiguity, absence of contradiction, inhibition, or
antilogicity of the terms; every musical system has an inner logic governing the mutual
relationships of its parts and their radical relationships to the central characteristics of
the generating culture. Every musical form in the system is governed by a logical unity
which is conferred on it by its grammar and idiom.
c. sannidhi is the tonal contiguity or coherence in a melodic passage or the emphasis
of explicit or implicit relations among the notes in a melodic series so as to cause
immediate recollection of the musical meaning.
d. ttparyajna in music consists of the apprehension of the spha of a melodic
passage, and the apprehension of a rgabhva spha through a progression of such
passages. It also means the total import, purpose or intention which the musician
wants to communicate. Parallels to its six ligas may be drawn as follows; upakrama
corresponds to kiptik and upasahra to muktyi or makarii in lapti or to
grahasvara and nysa svara respectively. Musical logic should be sustained between
these; abhysa is like the jvasvara sacra/paka of a rga or the aa svara;
aprvat corresponds to aprva sacra or via sacra of a rga; it also refers to
the capacity of the musician to insert flashes of innovative elements of melodic
contour and rhythm ex tempore; arthavda corresponds to the corroborative,
augmentative and secondary musical motifs which are like the anuvdi note.Phala
refers to the musical idea/s and effect which the musician intends to convey. Upapatti
is analogous to the musician's effort to render the phala convincing and appealing.

v. The spha theory asserts that sentence meaning (vkya spha) is both indivisible
and indefinable. That is, even when it is understood, neither the nature of this
understanding (pratibh, intuitive insight) nor the experience itself can be explained.
Its existence is attested only by its experience. This is fully true of musical meaning
and musical experience, embodied musical meaning and autonomous musical
experience are anirvacanya. This is why it is sought to be concretised through
interesting extrapolations such as reification, colour hearing (synaesthesia) etc.

vi. Again, according to Bharthari, only the spha is real and the words and syllables
have no absolute reality. These are only constructs of the mind. In the perception of
sentence meaning neither the words, nor their constituent syllables nor their sub-
division (into the respective organs of the vocal apparatus which generates them) are
individually known.

. . ... |.v. .. .(..... . .+
..+... .... .. .|.. +. . +-..++
[pad na var vidyant varva(va)yav na ca
vkyt padn atyanta pravivk na kacana.]

It is true that sagtastra asserts the progressive genesis from nda of pada and
vkya e.g.

.. . .-.. .. . ... . ...+
.... ..-.. :. ....|.-... -... ++
[ndna vyajyat vara pada vart paddvaca
vacas vyavahr'ya nddhnamat jagat.]

But, as Ngabhaa says, this kind of analysis is only a pre-occupation of the
strakra, not actual:

.-.. |.-... -...-...|...-. +
[tattadarthavibhga stramtraviayam.]

vii. The concept of class (jti, smnya) in linguistic theory of meaning is akin to that
of sdhrakaraa in the rasa theory of art meaning.

viii. Like consciousness and light, language can reveal itself as well as its content.
Similarly, music can reveal itself as well as its word content, in its heteronomy. Again,
svara in music is self illuminant, can independently afford aesthetic pleasure; in a
pattern it reveals the meaning also.

ix. Sentence construction in language is comparable to the construction of sthyas
(e.g. Sagtaratnkara), hya (e.g. Caturdaprakik) and the various melodic
movements in the four svasthnas of rglapti.

x. Linguistic syllables viz. varas are manifested by external and internal effort
(bhybhyantara yatna) in terms of the union and disunion (sayga-viyga) of the
appropriate organs of the vocal apparatus. Nradyaik and other works teach that
this is true of svaras also.

xi. Just as the word in a sentence has not only its own meaning but its contextual
meaning which depends on its environment, similarly a svara has its own identity as
also a contextual value which depends on the environment and acquires such values
from gamaka.

xii. According to linguistic theory, each syllable in a word generates an impression
(saskra) of its own before it disappears. Each impression is progressively donated
to the next; when the impressions accumulate to the degree of maturity, pada spha
occurs and its meaning is perceived. Consecutive words are separated by silences.
The pada spha similarly donates its impression to the next one and so on to the
point of maturity when vkyaspha occurs and the indivisible sentence meaning is
perceived in a burst. Each sentence is a meaning unit in language; such progression,
intervening silences, impression-donation and culmination into perception of the
purport or import (artha) may be extended to a whole essay.

This theory may be extended to musical meaning also. Just as dhvani is the
actualisation of vara-sound, dhvani is the actualisation of nda in music, in voice or
instrument. Dhvani-vailakaya is perceived as ruti. ruti is thus the locus of musical
sound, sometimes manifest, sometimes latent as in words and their intervening
silences. Each ruti donates its saskra to the next. Just as definite order and
number of definite syllables are necessary for padaspha, a definite number and
order of definite rutijtis are necessary for svara spha, which, as in pada spha,
occurs in the final ruti. The ruti on which svara spha occurs is svaragata and that
on which svara is latent is antaragata. As with the final syllable and pada spha,
svara spha is simultaneous - nirantara - with the final ruti. This explanation may be
extended to the spha of varlakra (musical phrase), tna, sthya and rga (or
any musical form based on rga).

Music and language differ from each other in some respects including the
following :-

i. Language is based only on words whereas music depends on two elements
viz. svara and laya.
ii. Word as a linguistic symbol in aesthetic experience is not wholly transparent.
For, metaphorical or other poetic meaning has to transcend the denotational meaning
(vcyrtha); the aesthetic rasa has to transcend transactional rasa.

iii. Pada differs from svara in several ways:
a. Despite sustained attempt in sagtastra to provide svara with associative
content, it is essentially non-referential.

b. Pada has lexical meaning i.e. it may be explained in terms of other words;
svara has no such meaning.

c. Pada has an absolute meaning of its own (jti) and a contextual or
associative meaning. Svara has no fixed meaning or value except in the tonal
continuum (as in western music) but is essentially relative and contextual.

d. Pada has multiple meanings (nnrtha). Svara has shades or degrees;
savdi is a conjugate of vdi but not synonym.

e. Word meaning may be changed with dhvani; svara meaning may be
changed with gamaka. In Indian music gamaka is integral to svara (except the
fundamental and the fifth) and confers on it the contextual meaning.

f. Recollection (smti) plays a vital role in the auditory perception of spoken
sound and of musical sound and in the perception of the respective spha. The
Bha-Mmsakas postulate such recollection as a power of the saskra
whereas with the Naiyyikas it is a natural function, and the Vdntins, who embrace
the anvitbhidhna theory, postulate samhlambana smti (collective recollection)
towards such unified perception and assert that the word produces cognition of the
meaning by arousing the mental impressions of the things previously known. In music
such arousal is not possible because of its nonreferential meaning; samhlambana
smti is also inapplicable because it assumes specific sequential order and does not
accommodate simultaneity of perception of spha.

g. Besides smti and saskra pradna, svara formulation is governed by the
principles of vertical recurrence (rdhvaspara) and progressive decrement (niksa).
This does not apply to pada.

h. Vara and dhvani are basic to both language and music and mean quite
different things. In language vara is a phoneme or letter; in music it is the act of
singing (gnakriy) or melodising, its specific instances being called alakras. The
phonematic pattern of a word is its spha while the actual sound is called dhvani.
Dhvani also means suggestion. In music dhvani is the actualisation of nda. Its liminal
change gives rise to the ruti. However, Mataga's definition of rga seems to
partake of both :

.. :.. .|.|.-. .. ... |.-. |..+
-.+. -..|.-.... . .. +|... . . ++
[y'sau dhvaniviastu svaravaravibhita
rajak janacittn sa rga kathit budhai.]

In language the ways of knowing meaning are a) usage by elders (vddhavyavahra),
b) direct statement of a trustworthy authority (ptavkya), c) grammar (vykaraa), e)
analogy (upamna), f) lexicon (ka), g) rest of the sentence (vkyaa), h)
explanation (vivti) and i) syntactic connection with terms of established meaning
(siddhapadasnnidhya). These are not applicable to musical meaning.

iv. Intonation, rhythm, accent, articulatory peculiarities are incidental to linguistic
meaning and constitute vaiktadhvani. They are essential to musical meaning and
constitute prkta dhvani.

5. Early Indications of the Theory

Mataga, one of the earliest and most influential authorities on music, does not
employ the term spha but leans unambiguously towards the spha theory in his
use of the terms par nda, dhvani, vara etc. and concepts which parallel
prktadhvani and vaiktadhvani etc. as also in classical analogies. (He does so in
respect of the ruti). He flourished approximately in the same period as Bharthari.
Abhinavagupta inclines to the Pratyabhij school of Philosophy but he introduces the
principles of saskra pradna, niksa and rdhvaspara in explaining the ruti and
mentions dhvani as actualised musical sound. rgadva introduces the concept of
ndabrahman for the first time in Indian music in an obvious analogy with
abdabrahman and anhata and hata nda comparable to prkta and vaikta
dhvani. He speaks of sequential order of rutis and maturation into svara at the final
ruti in much the same way as padaspha occurring at the final syllable of the pada.
Just as the grammarian regards vara as born of abda, rgadva holds vara as
emanating from nda. He employs the term dhvani as actualised sound in the context
of the ruti experiment and as a synonym of the voice in the context of voice qualities.
Kallintha, while commenting on rgadva on his exposition of ndabrahman,
explicitly mentions it as spha, synonymous with par vk and as illuminating the
entirety of word meaning complex and as being of the nature of ruti, vara etc.,
comprehending the word and sound. These and similar references in ancient Indian
musical literature allow the postulation of a spha model for musical meaning,
recalling to the mind Bharthari's awe-inspired exclamation :



..|-. |.+. -... .+.|+.. +
[svaravtti vikurut madhau puskkilasya ka?]

What causes the cuckoo to sing in the spring?

What makes the poet speak, the musician sing, and the dancer dance?
Spha? Pratibh ? Parvk? Parabrahman?
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Meaning in Music
Suggested Reading

Abhinavagupta Abhinavabhrat (Nyastravivti), comm. Bharatamuni,
Nyastram, q.v.

idem. Dhvanylkalcanam comm. nandavardhana, Dhvanylka,
ed. tr. Krishnamurthy, K., Meharchand Lachmandas
Publications, New Delhi, 1988

nandavardhana Dhvanylka, ed. tr. Krishnamurthy, K., Motilal Banarsidas,
New Delhi, 1982

Bharatamuni Nyastram, ed. Ramakrishna Kavi, M., Gaekwad Oriental
Institute, Baroda
vol. 1, 4th. rev. edn. Krishnamurthy, K., No. 36, 1992
vol. 2, No. 62, 1934; vol. 3, No. 124, 1954; vol. 4, No. 145,
1964

Bharthari Vkyapadyam, ed. Gangadhara Sastri, M., Benares Sanskrit
Series, Nos. 11, 19, 24, Braj B. Das & co., Chs. I, II. Benares,
1887
Ch. III, Benares, 1937

Bhskararyamakhin Saubhgyabhskara, comm. Lalitsahasranman, ed.
Vasudeva Sharma Panshikar, Nirnayasagar Press, Bombay,
1914

Carnap, Rudolf Introduction to Semantics, Cambridge, Mass. 1942

Carrit, E. F. Philosophies of Beauty, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966

Cassirer, Ernst Language and Myth, Harper and Brothers, New York and
London 1946

Cohen, A. The Phonemes of English, The Hague, 1952

Cohen, Morris A Preface to Logic, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1944

Fiebleman, James Ontology, Greenwood Press, New York, 1968

Firth, J. R. 'Modes of Meaning', Essays and Studies, English Association,
London, 1951

Gagpdhyya Tattvacintmai, Bibliotheca Indica 98, Calcutta, 1892-1901

Gardiner, A. H. The Theory of Speech and Language, Oxford, 1951

Gaurinatha Sastry The Philosophy of Word and Meaning, Calcutta Sanskrit
College
Series 5, Calcutta, 1959

Gopinatha Kaviraja The Doctrine of Pratibh in Indian Philosophy, Annals of
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 5, Poona, 1924

Heimann, Betty 'Spha and Artha', A Volume of Studies in Indology,
presented
to Prof. P. V. Kane, Oriental Book Agency, Poona, 1941

Hiriyanna, M. 'An Indian View of the Present Time', Indian Philosophical
Studies, vol. I, Kavyalaya Publishers, Mysore, 1957

Jespersen, Otto Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin, George Allen
and Unwin, London, 1934

Kallintha Sagtakalnidhi, comm. rgadva, Sagtaratnkara, q.v.

Kunjunni Raja, K. Indian Theories of Meaning, The Adyar Library Series 91, The
Adyar Library and Research Centre, Adyar, Madras, 1969 (2nd
edn.)

Langer, Susanne, K. Philosophy in a New Key, Mentor Book, The New American
Library, New York, 1951

idem. Feeling and Form, Routledge, London, 1959

Malinowski, B. The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages, supplement
to Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, q.v.

Maanasira Sphasiddhi with comm. Gplik of Paramvara, Madras
University Series 6, Madras University, Madras, 1931

Mataga Bhadd, ed. Sambashiva Sastri, K., Trivandrum Sanskrit
Series 94, Trivandrum, 1928

Meyer, Leonard B. Music, the Arts and Ideas, The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago and London, 1967

Idem. Emotion and Meaning in Music, The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago and London, 1956

Ngabhaa Laghumaj, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series 44, Benares,
1925

Idem. Sphavda, The Adyar Library Series 55, The Adyar Library
and Research Centre, Adyar, Madras, 1956

Ogden, C.K. and Richards, I.A., The Meaning of Meaning, Routledge and KeganPaul
Ltd., London, 1936

Ratnakrti phasiddhi, in Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, Bibiotheca Indica
185, Calcutta, 1910

Reid, L.A.., Meaning in the Arts, Allen and Unwin (Muirhead Library of
Philosophy), London, 1969

akara Brahmastrabhya on Vysa, Brahmastra 1, 3. 28, q.v.

rgadva Sagtaratnkara, vol. 1, ed. Subrahmanya Sastri, S., The
Adyar Library Series 30, The Adyar Library and Research
Centre, Adyar, Madras, 1943

Sathyanarayana, R. 'ruti, Dhvani and Spha' in The Indian Theosophist, Thakur
(Dr.) Jaidev Singh Felicitation Volume, No. 82-10,11, Oct-Nov.
1985, Varanasi

Suryanarayana Sastri, S. 'Vcaspati's Criticism of Sphavda', The Journal of
Oriental Research, vol. 6, Madras

Vysa Brahmastra, ed. tr. Sri Satchidanandendra Saraswati, 2 vols,
Sri Jayachamarajendra Granthaml, Adhyatmaprakasha
Karyalaya, Holenarasipura, 1952

Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, London, 1953

idem. Logico Tactus Logico Philosophicus, London and New York,
1922
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