Hindustani Ragas and Their Influence on Moods

Waking up to a rendition of the raga 'Bhairav' by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi or any other musical maestro can fill your mind and soul with energy and vitality and get you charged up for the rest of your day. That is the power of Hindustani classical music over human moods and emotions. How did Hindustani ragas get to be this way? Was it the same in ancient times, too?

An Indian Classical Music Performance, Source: Wikimedia Commons

Six thousand years ago, when there were no formal music schools, no fancy instruments like a synthesizer, and no mixing equipment, melodies were, quite literally, in the air. Sages in Vedic times used to chant holy mantras in tunes that were almost divine, as if coming directly from the grace of God, uplifting their spiritual states of mind. Rituals of all kinds used to be accompanied by tunes that were a combination of 3-7 swaras (notes), which later manifested in various ragas, as the classical music fraternity knows them today.

Scripts of Samveda, Source: Wikimedia Commons

Vedic sages, gradually, began to hand down their music compositions, in the form of chants, to students in an oral lesson setting, as was a common education practice of ancient India. Notations and their usages in chants and mantras began to be written down, which form the core of Samveda.

The sages originally wanted to keep their music sacred, within their learned circle, and common men did not have access to it. But music, with its all-pervading nature, cannot be stopped. Melodies are like a flowing river, touching every soul, every being, and every inanimate object, much the same way as river water flows through every crevice and every stone. Soon enough, the sages started to loosen their hold on music and created two separate streams, one for the rituals, called Gandharva, and the other for the common people, known as Gana.

Presentation of Raga Bhairav Depicted in an Ancient Painting, Source: Wikimedia Commons

Centuries kept rolling, and with them, the first ragas that originated from the Samveda began to get modified. More notes came into play, and more texts about music began to be written.

It was around the early 13th century when gifted musician Sharngadeva wrote the book Sangitaratnakara, in which he introduced the concept of timestamping ragas. This means that certain ragas feel better suited for certain times of the day. For example, the raga 'Bhairav' was assigned to dawn, while 'Yaman' was demarcated as an evening raga.

He may have felt certain connections with the changing rasa (moods) of a person during the day and the various melodies of the different ragas. This can be seen as the first consideration of ragas affecting emotions among living beings.

A Singer Sings a Raga in a Painting, Source: Wikimedia Commons

This was at an era when classical music and the ragas were uniform throughout the country. About a couple of centuries later, when the Mughals took up the throne in Delhi, almost everything began to be divided into North and South. And so it was with music as well.

The Persian influence on the ancient ragas caused Indian classical music to be separated into two genres, the Hindustani, heavily influenced by the Mughals, and the Carnatic, predominantly played in the South. And around this period, timestamping of the Hindustani ragas and their association with varying moods of the kings and emperors became more pronounced.

Ravi Verma's Painting Showing a Woman Playing the SItar, Source: Wikimedia Commons

In present times, research is underway in several Western countries to experiment on the effect of Hindustani classical music on the emotions of people. Indeed, neuroimaging of subjects in various research settings has shown that people react differently to different ragas. Some ragas can make people feel elated while others can make them cry.

And not just emotions, neuroimaging also shows that ragas can improve cognitive functions and general brain activity. They are also seen to restore calmness in the mind almost as well as meditation.

In the contemporary world, it may feel like only a handful of music aficionados listen to ragas but indirectly, the number is a lot larger than that. This is because most kinds of film music that the general public listens to have their foundation in the ragas. And wherever someone is walking down the road, earphones attached, listening to a contemporary Indian song, the myriad of emotions registered in their brain is somewhere influenced by the classical ragas.