Sanskrit As Language Of Song In Hindustani Art Music (original) (raw)

From ancient times till date, the language of the song in India has undergone many changes. The song texts in the ancient period were primarily Sanskrit and Prakrit. In the medieval period, due to the development of regional languages, the importance of Sanskrit as a language of the song started diminishing. Sanskrit is still in vogue as song language in Carnatic music. But it is not the case in Hindustani Art music. Except for Ashtapadi, the song-texts of major song-forms such as Dhrupad, Khayal, Tappa, Thumri are chiefly in regional dialects such as Brij, Awadhi, Mewadi, Saraiki-Panjabi, etc. In the modern period, few composers have composed Dhrupad, Khayal, and also line-components for Tarana or Chaturang in Sanskrit. One also finds the influence of Sanskrit in some Dhrupad and Khayal compositions. This paper firstly takes a brief review of Sanskrit compositions of Hindustani Art music through the ages, and secondly discusses some questions such as why Sanskrit lost the pivotal place in song-texts in Hindustani Art music and still why modern composers, though few, have tried composing Sanskrit Bandish-s. The paper also ponders upon some issues such as potentialities and limitations of any language for being a song-language, and how vocalists handle the song-texts in actual rendition.