Kashmir.

An area of the western Himalayas which includes parts of India, Pakistan and China. The political control and borders of Kashmir are currently in dispute. The valley of Kashmir, in the upper regions of the Jhelum river, is the most densely populated area and is part of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of India. This entry covers the principal musical genres of the valley.

JÓZEF PACHOLCZYK

Kashmir

1. History.

Culturally Kashmir is a meeting point between Persian-dominated Central Asia and India. The cultural history of Kashmir can be divided into two periods; Hindu (3rd century bce to the 14th century ce) and Muslim (14th century to the present day).

During the Hindu period Kashmir was an important centre of Buddhism and Saivism, and the area from which Buddhism radiated further east. It was also a centre of Sanskrit learning and the Kashmiris produced important works on grammar (Mahābhāsya by Patañjali), history (Rājataranginī by Kalhana) and music (Sangīta-ratnākara by Śarngadeva). The Rājataranginī reports that during the Hindu period professional female dancers associated with the temples enjoyed a high social status and often became the wives of rulers. However, the musicians, especially instrumentalists, were seen in unfavourable terms, together with meat-eaters and drunkards. Musics from outside Kashmir were performed in the courts and some rulers were well versed in Sanskrit works such as Bharata’s Nātyaśāstra.

Islam entered Kashmir peacefully through the activities of Sufi mystics (the Suhravardīs, Kubravīs, Naqshbandīs and Qādirīs) from either Iran or the Islamized areas of Central Asia. It became the state religion in 1320 with the conversion of Rinchin, the first sultan. In spite of fundamental philosophical and social differences Islam was easily accepted; impregnated with elements of Sufism it had much in common with the mysticism of Saivism and Buddhism. The conversion of the population was especially large among the lower castes and it eventually resulted in the division of the society into a Muslim majority and a Hindu minority, the Pandits. Gradually the paramount position of the Pandits was challenged and Persian replaced Sanskrit as the language of administration and learning.

Sufism had a major impact on all aspects of Kashmiri culture, especially on poetry and music. Kashmiri poets such as Shaikh Yaqūb Sarfī (d 1594), Ghālib (1797–1869) and Ghulām Ahmad Mahjūr (?1885–1952) produced a body of literature based on Persian models using forms such as ghazal, rubā‘ī and dōbeytī. Most poems written in either Persian or Kashmiri were heavily imbued with Sufi philosophy, symbolism and imagery of wine, love and intoxication.

Information on music during the early Islamic period is fragmentary and comes from the ‘Ain-i akbarī by Abul Fazl and the continuation of Kalhana’s Rājataranginī by Śrivāra, Jonarāja and Sūka. From these we learn that musicians from India and Central Asia met at the court of Sultan Zainu’l ‘Ābidīn (1420–70), whose reign was a ‘golden age’ of Kashmiri culture. Zainu’l ‘Ābidīn’s son, Haydar Shāh, studied the lute with Khwaja ‘Abd’al-qādir.

Kashmir

2. Treatises.

In the 18th century, towards the end of the Mughal period, works specifically concerned with music were produced in Kashmir. Among them are theoretical treatises, the anonymous Karāmat-e-majrā (‘The Marvel of Courses’) and the Tarāna-e-sorūr (‘The Song of Joy’) by Daya Ram ‘Khushdil’, as well as anthologies of poetry, majmū‘as, containing poems to be sung in specific suites in specific modes or melody-types (maqāms) to specific rhythmic cycles (tālas).

These theoretical treatises are primarily concerned with listing and classifying the modes. The maqāms are organized in a system of one reng, six āvāzs, 12 maqāms, 24 shu‘bas and 48 gushes, thus following the duodecimal system found in many Arabic and Persian treatises from the Middle East and Central Asia from the 13th century onwards (see Arab music, §I, 4(i)). The modes are associated with the zodiac, the four elements, utterances of the prophets, sounds of animals, inanimate objects and have assigned therapeutic properties, as well as having an appropriate time for their performance.

The material in the treatises is heterogeneous, containing elements drawn from Arabic, Persian and Central Asian sources as well as India. This heterogeneous character, combined with a few specifically Kashmiri elements such as the identification of one of the maqāms as Rāst-e-kashmīrī, provides a strong argument that these treatises were actually produced in Kashmir. The Karāmat-e-majrā and the Tarāna-e-sorūr are speculative in character and do not provide much information about the musical practices of the time. However, many of the maqāms mentioned in them are presently in the repertory of the Kashmiri sūfyāna mūsīqī and sūrnāy ensembles.

The anthologies, majmū‘as, provide a closer link with the performing practice of the time. Many of the poems sung today in sūfyāna mūsīqī are sung in the same modes using the same rhythmic cycles as prescribed in the majmū‘as. It is thus highly probable that both the treatises and the anthologies refer to this genre of Kashmiri music.

Kashmir

3. Genres.

Of the many musics performed in Kashmir, the majority are traditional Kashmiri genres, performed in both villages and urban centres. There are also genres recently imported, primarily from elsewhere in India, such as Indian film and popular musics, Hindustani music and Western popular styles. The majority of traditional genres are a part of the culture of the Muslim majority; relatively few belong to the heritage of the Hindu Pandits.

Often, however, the distinction between these genres is more in function and text than in musical style. The most prominent genres of the Kashmiri Muslims are: sūfyāna mūsīqī, considered by the Kashmiris as their classical tradition; the music of the instrumental sūrnāy ensembles, performed during the bande pather traditional theatre; and the traditional genres of chakri, nande baeth, nande chakri, rūf, wanawun and the music performed in the mosques. Hindu genres include the Hindu chakri and Kashmiri devotional bhajans.

(i) Sūfyāna mūsīqī.

Also known as sūfyāna kalām, sūfyāna mūsīqī is primarily the music of the Muslim urban élite. It is associated with Sufi circles but, at least in the recent past, it was also patronized by Hindu intellectuals who considered it a common Kashmiri heritage. It functions as both a ritual music performed at Sufi mehfils (meetings), especially of the Qādirī order, and as a secular music performed during secular mehfils and on the radio.

Sūfyāna mūsīqī is a vocal style performed by an ensemble of four to twelve musicians accompanying themselves on instruments (fig.1). The present-day composed repertory consists of 47 maqām-suites, each in a specific mode also named maqām. The performance of a maqām-suite opens with a short instrumental prelude in free rhythm, shakl, followed by a selection of metred songs. Each song, or group of songs, is performed in sequence according to the tāla, the longest and more complex tālas being performed before the shorter and simpler ones. Occasionally, after the shakl, the leader of the ensemble sings a nather, a solo vocal piece in free rhythm set to a poem of the same name. A radio performance of a maqām-suite typically consists of a shakl followed by two or three songs, each in a different tāla, lasting for 10–15 minutes. In the context of a mehfil a performance would include a shakl, nather and several songs in three or four tālas lasting up to an hour and a half.

Of the elaborate extra-musical associations of the maqāms described in the theoretical treatises of the past, only the concept of an appropriate time of the day for the performance of individual maqāms remains. In the traditional setting of an all-night Sufi mehfil, held during major Islamic holidays such as mi‘rāj, the night-time maqāms are performed in the correct two-hour periods. For a radio broadcast only those maqāms appropriate for the time of broadcast are performed.

All the pieces in a maqām-suite are in the same mode, or maqām. Some of the names of individual maqāms come from Arabic and Persian terminology (e.g. Nawā, Arā‘q, Segāh), some from Indian traditions (e.g. Asāvarī, Dhanāsrī) and some carry alternative names from both Indian and Arabic/Persian traditions (Bahār or ‘Ushshāq, Tilang or Mahūr). The tonal system of the instrumental parts may be different from that of the vocal parts. The instrumental maqāms use an untempered heptatonic scale with the third and seventh degrees either ‘natural’ (shudd) or ‘flat’ (kōmal). The vocal parts of some maqāms use microtonal variations of pitch, especially on the third and seventh degrees. This use of microtonal intervals is not articulated by the musicians but in performance the use of the altered pitches is consistent. The altered pitches are either sung together with those of the instrumental line or they are omitted in the instrumental parts. The range of the vocal parts is up to a 12th and the intervallic pattern of the main octave does not have to be the same as that in the upper register.

Maqāms are identified not only on the basis of a hierarchy of modal degrees (the note of primary importance being the vādī, that of secondary importance the samavādī) and the microtonal variations but also by melodic formulae. All pieces in a single maqām are built from a limited number of arhythmic melodic modules, recognizable by the musicians, used in different pieces with varying rhythms and in a different order.

Rhythmically the music is arranged in 14 cycles, tālas, which range from four to 32 mātras (`beats'). Within a tāla the mātras are organized in groups which start with either a strong beat (tālī), or an ‘empty’ beat (khālī). In performance the tālas are realized on a set of dokra; Hindustani Tablā.

In a song a two- or three-line fragment of a poem is set to two musical ideas; the āstā‘ī, usually in the lower register, and the antara, or bait, in the upper register. Between these sections an instrumental repeat, jawāb, is often played. Although in the anthologies of the 18th century about 85% of the poems are in Persian, in present practice about 60% are in Kashmiri.

Besides the dokra, the instruments used in sūfyāna mūsīqī are: the santūr, a relative of the Iranian instrument of the same name (see Santur; the Setār, again a relative of the Iranian instrument; and the sāz-e-kashmīrī, a bowed spike fiddle, related to the Kamānche, with three playing and 14 sympathetic strings. Now played very rarely, the sāz-e-kashmīrī is the only sūfyāna instrument capable of microtonal intonation. In an ensemble the leader usually plays the santūr and the other musicians the setār. There is only one dokra player in the ensemble. In some ensembles, with the exception of the dokra, all the musicians play the setār.

Sūfyāna musicians have traditionally belonged to a single caste; however, by the second half of the 20th century some master musicians had come from outside that caste. The musicians are concentrated in three main localities in the valley. The largest group lives in Srinagar, with the others living in Watora and Bij Bihara. These localities have developed distinct styles of performance and repertory. Until the 1950s sūfyāna mūsīqī was associated with the dance of female entertainers known as hāfizas. There is little information on this art as it has now completely died out.

Presently sūfyāna mūsīqī is in a state of severe decline and, in view of the political instability of the area, its future is uncertain. The number of master musicians, often associated with Radio Kashmiri Srinagar, has rapidly diminished. Because of the low social and economic status of the musicians few young people are now pursuing it as a career.

Sūfyāna mūsīqī shares many features with the musics of the surrounding areas. Some of the maqāms show a melodic affinity with the Hindustani rāgas (e.g. Asāvarlī and Suhānī), Middle Eastern maqāms (e.g. Segāh) and Bukharan shu’bas (e.g. Sabā) of the same name. However, the principal architecture of the suite is shared with several traditions of the Islamic Middle East, and Central Asia places sūfyāna mūsīqī firmly within that cultural area.

(ii) The sūrnāy ensemble.

Instrumental sūfyāna maqāms are also played by the traditional sūrnāy ensemble. This consists of several sūrnāy (oboes, see Śahnāī), one of them providing a drone, accompanied by a naqqāra (a single kettledrum also named dulas or duśra, see Naqqāra), a wosūl or a dhol (see Dhol) and occasionally a pair of hand-cymbals. Although the names of the maqāms do not always correspond to those used by the urban sūfyāna musicians, the heavily ornamented melodies of the suites are the same as those of sūfyāna mūsīqī. After the shakl one or two pieces from the sūfyāna repertory are played, followed by traditional local songs.

The ensembles are active in the villages and small towns of the valley and provide music for a variety of festive family occasions. The ensemble also accompanies the traditional theatre bande pather (fig.2). The shows, usually sponsored by a family to celebrate some special occasion, take place in the middle of the village. All the parts, including the female roles, are played by men. The plays are performed in a comic manner and may include social and political comments on current events. The sūrnāy ensemble provides the processional music for the arrival of the troupe, music for the opening and closing of the play and music for the interludes between the songs and dances performed at the conclusion of the drama. Occasionally the sūrnāy musicians are called upon to perform the vocal sūfyāna repertory for local Sufi gatherings in smaller towns. In this context they accompany themselves on setārs and dokra.

(iii) Chakri.

By far the most popular genre in Kashmir is chakri. This is a responsorial vocal genre for a solo leader and ensemble. Chakri is performed all over the valley, in villages as well as urban centres. In the past this was an exclusively male genre, but in recent decades a few female soloists have become leaders of the ensemble.

There are two types of chakri. The most common is a Muslim ensemble consisting of four to six musicians playing: a rebāb, a relative of the Afghan Rabāb; a sārang (see Sārindā); a nūt, a clay pot played with the hands (see Ghata); a tumbaknārī, a large goblet drum usually made of clay; and, increasingly, a harmonium played by the leader of the ensemble. The now rarely heard Hindu ensemble also contains: chumta, a set of small cymbals attached to a flexible forked rod; a geger, a brass vessel similar to a nūt; and various teacups played with sticks.

The Muslim chakri ensemble performs at family festive occasions such as weddings, circumcisions and also during religious holidays. In family contexts it often accompanies the bacha naghma, a dance-drama performed by cross-dressed male dancers. The chakri ensemble also provides music for Sufi mehfils, especially of the Qādirīs. In this context it is always performed by men. The texts are Kashmiri Sufi poems, similar to those used in sūfyāna mūsīqī. The chakri music is very dynamic, with sudden changes in tempo.

The chakri ensemble also performs rūf, a vocal dance genre similar to chakri but characterized by a steady tempo. In recent decades the practice of following a chakri piece with a rūf piece has become common.

Nande baeth and nande chakri are two genres of rice-planting songs. The former is unaccompanied, performed while planting rice or cleaning the fields. A leader sings the elaborate melody and is answered by a group in short responses. The texts are mystical Sufi poems, often written by famous Kashmiri poets. The nande chakri style is similar, except it is performed while sitting, either inside or outside, to the accompaniment of a tumbaknārī and one or two nūts.

(iv) Women’s song.

During the month of Ramadan women from the neighbourhood gather in the evening and perform rūf. The genre is unrelated to the rūf performed by the chakri ensemble. The women line up in two rows facing each other, and holding each other’s shoulders, move rhythmically backwards and forwards. They sing a largely improvised religious text which often has Sufi overtones. The singing is antiphonal and loud, using traditional stock melodies. The group that is ready first initiates the line and the other answers with a refrain, the leadership changing every few lines.

(v) Religious musics.

The Friday noon services in the major mosques in Srinagar are tri-lingual and musically elaborate. Besides the recitation of the Qu’ran and the adhān (call to prayer), always in Arabic and sometimes performed by muezzins trained in other states of India, they include na‘ts and munājāts (see India, §VI, 2), both in Persian. They are explained and commented on in Kashmiri. In some mosques the leaders are trained sūfyāna musicians. The music is stylistically heterogeneous, drawing on elements of North Indian Islamic religious music.

Two kinds of bhajans are sung in the Hindu temples. One follows the styles of bhajan singing found in other states of North India, drawing on North Indian popular melodies; the other is Kashmiri. In these the texts, always in Kashmiri, are poems set to music that closely resembles the Muslim chakri, with the leader singing elaborate solos in free rhythm, followed by metred responsorial sections. The instrumental accompaniment varies from ensemble to ensemble, but it usually includes the tumbaknārī and the nūt.

Kashmir

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

Grove6 (H.S. Powers)

Abul Fazl: ‘Ain-i akbarī (1597); Eng. trans., H. Blochmann and H.S. Jarrett (Calcutta, 1873, rev. 2/1927–49/R)

J.C. Dutt: Kings of Kashmira (Calcutta, 1879–98) [Eng. trans. of Sanskrit works by various authors]

M. Aima: ‘Folk Music of Kashmir’, Marg, viii/2 (1955), 154–8

L. Picken: ‘Kashmiri Musiqi (sa, ri, ga, ma): Part 1’, JIFMC, viii (1955), 62–4

D.R.K. Kachroo: Tarāna-e-sorūr [The song of joy] (Srinagar, 1962)

S.A. Aziz: Kōshur sargam [Kashmiri do-re-mi] (Srinagar, 1963–5)

S.K. Kaul: Rajatarangini of Srivara and Suka (Hoshiarpur, 1966)

R.S. Pandit, ed.: Kalhana’s Rājataranginī: the Saga of the Kings of Kashmir (New Delhi, 2/1968)

M. Aima: ‘Music of Kashmir’, Sangeet Natak, xi (1969), 67–73

A.Q. Rafiqi: Sufism in Kashmir: from the Fourteenth Century to the Sixteenth Century (Varanasi,1972)

P.N.K. Bamzai: A History of Kashmir (New Delhi, 1973)

S.K. Kaul: Rajatarangini of Jonaraja (Hoshiarpur, 1976)

Q. Qalandar: ‘Music in Kashmir: an Introduction’, Journal of the Indian Musicological Society, vii/4 (1976), 15–22

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘Sufyana Kalam: the Classical Music of Kashmir’, AsM, x/1 (1978), 1–16

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘Traditional Music of Kashmir’, World of Music, xxi/3 (1979), 50–61

A.S. Stein, ed.: Kalhana’s Rajatarangini: a Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir (Delhi, 1979)

S.A. Aziz: Ramūz-e-mūsīqī: sūfyāna mūsīqī ka tawārīkhī pas manzar [Secrets of music: sūfyāna music, its historical background] (Srinagar, 1983)

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘The Status of Sufiana Kalam in Kashmir’, Maqām: Music of the Islamic World and its Influences (New York, 1984), 28–9

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘Musical Determinants of the Maqam in Sufyana Kalam’, Maqam, Raga, Zeilenmelodik: Berlin 1988, 248–58

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘Towards a Comparative Study of a Suite Tradition in the Islamic Near East and Central Asia: Kashmir and Morocco’, Regionale maqam-Traditionen: Gosen, nr Berlin 1992, 429–63

J.M. Pacholczyk: ‘Melodic Affinity of Kashmiri and Bukharan Suite Traditions’, The Structure and Idea of Maqām: Tampere 1995, 115–24

J.M. Pacholczyk: Sūfyāna Mūsīqī: the Classical Music of Kashmir (Berlin, 1996) [incl. CD]

N.M. But: Sūfyāna mūsīqī: wādan sangit [Sufyāna mūsīqī: instrumental music] (Srinagar, n.d.)

S.N. Sopori: Kashmirī mūsīqī (sargam) (Srinagar, n.d.)

recordings

Anthology of Music of the Kashmir Valley, Ethnodisc of the journal Recorded Sound, xvi: Sufyana Kalam; xvii: Chakri; xviii: Surnay Ensemble; xix: Nande bath; xx: Ruf, wanawun and bande pather; xxi: Religious Music: Islam; xxii: Religious Music: Hindu (1982)