History of Carnatic Music
Milestones in order
- Vedic samagana and Bharata's Natyashastra supply the earliest theory of seven notes.
- Matanga's Brihaddesi, around the ninth century, is the first work to use the word raga.
- Sarangadeva's Sangita Ratnakara, thirteenth century, is the great medieval compendium.
- Ramanatya's Svaramelakalanidhi appears in the sixteenth century.
- Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika, seventeenth century, sets out the idea of 72 melas; the familiar 72 names come later from Govindacharya's Sangraha Choodamani.
- Purandara Dasa, sixteenth century, builds the graded teaching method still used.
- The Trinity dominate the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, followed by Subbarama Dikshitar's Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini in 1904 and Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar's modern concert format in the twentieth.
Worked example
Arrange five items chronologically: Sangita Ratnakara, Purandara Dasa, Chaturdandi Prakashika, the Trinity, Sangita Sampradaya Pradarsini. Reasoning: the Ratnakara is thirteenth century; Purandara Dasa is sixteenth; Chaturdandi Prakashika is seventeenth; the Trinity are eighteenth to nineteenth; the Pradarsini is 1904.
Traps that cost marks
- Crediting the 72 melakarta names to Venkatamakhin rather than to Govindacharya.
- Listing Purandara Dasa as one of the Trinity.
- Reversing Brihaddesi and Sangita Ratnakara, which are four centuries apart.