Music is regarded as a cultural universal, meaning that it forms an integral part of the culture of every human community that exists. The story of its origins and evolution is intricately linked with another cultural universal – language – with hotly contested debates occurring to this day to properly establish the relationship that the two concepts share. While some historians, anthropologists, and researchers believe that language originated from music that itself originated as a proto-language; others think that music was a by-product of the evolution of language; while others believe music and language both originated from a shared precursor. Although there is no consensus among these different schools of thought, one idea that becomes obvious from these notions is that music – as well as language – is intrinsically related to sound and how its use in communication forms a significant part of human evolution.

While bone flutes start appearing in human prehistory during this period, there is speculation that some forms of music predate these findings. Flutes are a relatively complex instrument, hence there exists an assumption that there must have been simpler instruments designed by humans and human ancestors before they arrived at the bone flute. Simpler rhythm instruments such as drums, rattles, and shakers, made with common perishable material found in hunting and gathering societies, are believed to have been developed before human societies evolved to use more complex instruments like the flute. Some form of singing, too, is believed to have existed since a period predating bone flutes.

As humans progressed from the prehistoric ages to proto-history and eventually into history, their music also evolved, as evidenced by the remains and depictions of much more complex instruments. In the Indian subcontinent, for instance, archaeological evidence from the Indus Valley Civilization indicates the use of rattles and vessel flutes. Findings from the later Indus Valley Civilization also include the earliest known depiction of an arched harp.

In early ancient societies, marked by the beginning of writing and literature, music came to be heavily associated with rituals and rites – an association that continues to date across the world. In India, this association crystallized with the Sama Veda, the second of the four holy Vedas in the Hindu religion. The Sama Veda comprises hymns and verses, most of them taken from the earlier Rig Veda, set to specific notations, to be sung by priests during sacrificial offerings (or yagnas) made to the gods.

During this period, roughly between 1000 BCE and 400 BCE, as the Hindu religion and its mythologies began taking shape, music came to be identified as a divine creation attributed to Brahma and Shiva. Saraswati, also the goddess of learning and literature, came to be identified as the goddess of music as well. Even today, depictions of Saraswati show her holding the celestial veena. Shiva is often shown holding a damru, especially in the depictions of Nataraja, a form of Shiva carrying out the dance of destruction. Hindu mythologies identified the celestial practitioners of music and arts as Gandharvas. This tradition has carried on in the modern age, where exceptionally skilled artists and musicians are often referred to as Gandharvas.

Modern Hindustani classical music employs the use of twelve notes – or svaras – arranged on a chromatic scale across octaves. Among these twelve notes, there exist seven distinct shuddha or natural notes, namely Shadaj (Sa), Rishabh (Re), Gandhar (Ga), Madhyam (Ma), Pancham (Pa), Dhaivat (Dha), and Nishad (Ni). Five others are identified as vikrit derivatives of Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Dhaivat, and Nishad, either a note flatter or sharper than their natural position on the scale. The seven distinct notes, obtained from twenty-two shrutis, today form the basis of all Hindustani music that is written in the subcontinent and elsewhere. Ragas are composed according by arranging different permutations and combinations of these twelve svaras. But this was not always the case.

The notations to the hymns in the Sama Veda, for instance, comprise combinations of only three notes – the anudaatta or lower note, svarita or neutral note, and the udaatta or higher note. Human vocal range, thus, was extremely limited during this period. The concept of the existence of twenty-two different shrutis, and that of seven distinct svaras derived from those shrutis, within a scale, was first laid down in a text known as the Natyashastra. Attributed to the great sage Bharata, and believed to have been written between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the treatise remains one of the most foundational works for not just Indian classical music, but also for other classical performing arts practised in the subcontinent during that time, including theatre and dance.

On the topic of music, Bharata didn’t simply lay out the concept and give the names of the seven svaras but also identified and classified musical instruments into four distinct categories. These were namely stringed, covered, solid, and hollow instruments. While the veena would fall in the category of stringed instruments, drums would qualify as covered instruments. Cymbals would be classified as solid instruments, while flutes would be a good example of hollow instruments.

For all its foundational work, it is imperative to mention one major shortcoming of the Natyashastra. In his work, Bharata mentions the existence of only nine svaras on a scale, correctly laying the concept of all seven shuddha svaras but theorising and conceptualising only two vikrit svaras. As we saw above, over time, scholars have arrived at a consensus on the existence of five – not two – vikrit svaras, which takes the count of the total number of svaras existing on a scale to twelve instead of just nine. Minor inconsistencies such as this notwithstanding, the Natyashastra remains a momentous text and continues to be of great reverence and importance in the field of Indian classical music even today.

During the 10th and 11th centuries, an aesthetician and philosopher from Kashmir named Abhinavagupta wrote one of the most extensive commentaries on Bharata’s Natyashastra. In his commentary, titled Abhinavabharati, he frequently mentions the developments that have taken place in Indian art between the writing of Natyashastra and the Abhinavabharati, being the only surviving documentation of those interim developments.

The most important contribution of the Abhinavabharati is the concepts of tala (rhythm), and laya (tempo), with the further classification of the laya into three different speed styles: vilambit (slow-paced), madhya (medium-paced), and drut (fast-paced). The concepts of tala and laya today are central to the performance of any form of Indian music and dance.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, a slave commander of the Afghan ruler Muhammad Ghori, established the foundations of the Delhi Sultanate, marking a watershed moment in the history of the subcontinent. One of the many things that the Sultanate influenced was the birth of Hindustani Classical Music.