The Indian Drum of the King-God and the Pakhāvaj of Nathdwara

Paolo Pacciolla is Tagore Fellow affiliated with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts of New Delhi, where he is conducting research on ritual drumming in Kerala. His main ethnographic focus is on music in India, and his research interests include Ethnomusicology, Organology, Iconography of Music, Indology and Religious Studies.

Chapter One. Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Fieldwork among pakhāvajīs

1.3 Ancient courts: the roots of a musical tradition

1.4 Nathdwara, a contemporary reign of the King-God and his court

1.5 A multidimensional approach

Chapter Two. A drum between courts and temples

2.1 Music, religions, the sacred and the secular in India

2.2 Paramparās and gharānās according to contemporary pakhāvaj players

Chapter Three. The pakhāvaj in contemporary India and its religious and mythological heritage according to pakhāvaj players

3.1 The pakhāvaj

3.2 The pakhāvaj and the pakhāvaj players in the classical music scene of contemporary India

3.3 The pakhāvaj heritage according to its players

Chapter Four. Auspicious Drumming

4.1 Auspiciousness

4.2 Auspiciousness and its roots

4.3 The auspicious arts in literature and other textual sources

4.4 Rain on the lotus pond

4.5 Gaja-Lakṣmī

4.6 The cloud-drum

4.7 Rain of blessings

Chapter Five. The drum of the King-God: from mṛdaṅga to pakhāvaj

5.1 The socio-historical context of the emergence of the mṛdaṅga as major courtly drum

5.2 The sound of the mṛdaṅga in the aestheticised life of the courts

5.3 Śiva, the magnification of the warrior king

5.4 The drum giving voice to death

5.5 Viṣṇu- Kṛṣṇa, the righteous king and the bhakti cults

Chapter Six. From mṛdaṅga to pakhāvaj

6.1 The multiplication of mṛdaṅgas and the emergence of the pakhāvaj

6.2 From mṛdaṅga to pakhāvaj and vice versa: making the deśī mārga and the mārga deśī

Chapter Seven. The Nathdwara gharānā: playing the pakhāvaj for Nāthjī

7.1 Vallabhācarya and the Puṣṭimārg

7.2 Śrī Nāthji, the King-God, and his worship

7.3 The role of music and aesthetics in the cult of Puṣṭimārg

7.4 The family of Purushottam Das

7.5 Pandit Dalchand Sharma and my research

Chapter Eight. The repertoire

8.1 The pakhāvaj: facets of its language and playing styles

8.2 Compositional types

8.3 Parans as structures based on geometrical figures

8.4 Parans as prayers

8.5 Parans, images and poetry

8.6 A knowledgeable king of the 20th century and his parans

8.7 The torrent and the rain

Chapter Nine. The solo pakhāvaj recital

9.1 The structure of the solo recital

9.2 Lotuses, garlands of flowers and the solo pakhāvaj

9.3 The solo recital of the Nathdwara gharānā

9.4 Stuti paran

9.5 Madhya lay ka prastār

9.6 Dhenanaka bāj

9.7 Paran

9.8 Lay tāl torneka kata

9.9 Chandkari

9.10 Thapiyā ka bāj

9.11 Relā

Conclusion

Glossary

Bibliography

Solo Pakhāvaj Recordings