Art is intertwined with prevailing religion and mythology

[kvchellappa]

Nine Basic Arts
Paul Weiss

Excerpts
The arts of a given society and historic period have much in common with one another, with the prevailing mythology, religion, and philosophy, and with the dominant structure, the characteristic adventures, and the typical activities of the culture and day. None of these may have been consciously noted by the artist; he might even have set himself resolutely to oppose all of them. Yet the prevailing patterns make their presence inescapably felt in the language, the routine life, the omnipresent customs, rules, arid habits which characterize him no less than it does the other embers of the culture and period. Still, a work of art is much more than a function of a given time and place.
A work of art marries habit and originality, stability and exuberance.

[sam]

Sheik Chinna Moulana And His Music Adhered To The Sanatana Ideals Of Southern India

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/sheik-c ... hern-india

[girish_a]

Another lovely article

The Charmer of Chilakaluripeta – Sheik Chinna Moulana

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-cha ... na-moulana

[kvchellappa]

From Swarajya: V S Ramachandran
“There are two aspects of India that make it unique even among ancient civilisations.
First, it is the only country whose present customs, values and religious practices can claim a direct lineage from what existed four millennia ago.
Second, here in the West, each of the separate strands of music, visual art, mythology, religion is supremely sophisticated but often pursued in isolation from others.
Walk into the Kapaliswara temple whose foundations were laid two thousand years ago. When you enter into the temple precincts, you see a group of teenagers reciting the Vedas in Sanskrit as they have been doing for four thousand years. Inside the inner sanctum are sculptures of Shiva – a deity depicted in Harappan seals (3000 BCE) – surrounded by worshippers chanting hymns in Sanskrit which are older and closer to the root language than Latin and Greek. A hundred yards away a man is dancing to a song about Ganapathi’s brother – the warrior god Skanda. The dance form – Bharatanatya – was invented by sage Bharata in the 3rd century BCE. Unlike the West, all these different aspects of life and culture are in harmonious resonance, and are integrated into one’s daily life routines. As we walk out of the temple we pass through a lane full of vendors selling jasmine and rose garlands and vibhuthi (sacred ash) as they have been doing in that same lane for a millennium.”

[arasi]

KVC,
The temple scene you cite brings to mind Kannadasan's old lines. Those who strictly pursue the classical stuff here on the forum, forgive these lines from a movie song. After all, we are humans who don't live our day-to-day lives solely on the matter of our concepts of the loftiest things in life.

The lines go thus: ennai yAr enRu eNNi eNNi nI pArkiRAi, idu yAr pADum pADal enRu nI kETkiRAi (how do you perceive what you see, in what state of being do you hear this song, and as to who sings it?).

Well, at an ancient place of worship, your feet are grounded in the year 2024, but the ambience can defy your senses: whether you are here and now, or perhaps in any one of those billions of moments which bridge the original chant with you now, at this very moment...

[kvchellappa]

True,

[sam]

Globalization is a fast spreading cancerous growth. It has already cestroyed nany proud national cultures like Japan, Germany and France. In fact it began the attack in its own country of origin. We can have huge industrialization witnout malls and ugly high rise
. Requiem for cities like Madurai, , Mylapre , and Bangalore.

[vgovindan]

........As the poet, artist or musician, when he creates, does really nothing but develop some potentiality, in his unmanifested self, into a form of manifestation and as the thinker, statesman, mechanist only bring out into a shape of things that which lay hidden in themselves, was themselves, is still themselves, when it is cast into form, so is it with the world and the Eternal. All creation or becoming is nothing but this self-manifestation. Out of the seed there evolves that which is already in the seed, pre-existent in being, predestined in its will to become, prearranged in the delight of becoming. The original plasm held in itself in force of being the resultant organism. For it is always that secret, burdened, self-knowing force which labours under its own irresistible impulse to manifest the form of itself with which it is charged. Only, the individual who creates or develops out of himself, makes a distinction between himself, the force that works in him and the material in which he works. In reality the force is himself, the individualised consciousness which it instrumentalises is himself, the material which it uses is himself, the resultant form is himself. In other words it is one existence, one force, one delight of being which concentrates itself at various points, says of each “This is I” and works in it by a various play of self-force for a various play of self-formation.
What it produces is itself and can be nothing other than itself; it is working out a play, a rhythm, a development of its own existence, force of consciousness and delight of being. Therefore whatever comes into the world, seeks nothing but this, to be, to arrive at the intended form, to enlarge its selfexistence in that form, to develop, manifest, increase, realise infinitely the consciousness and the power that is in it, to have the delight of coming into manifestation, the delight of the form of being, the delight of the rhythm of consciousness, the delight of the play of force and to aggrandise and perfect that delight by whatever means is possible, in whatever direction, through whatever idea of itself may be suggested to it by the Existence, the Conscious-Force, the Delight active within its deepest being.
And if there is any goal, any completeness towards which things tend, it can only be the completeness — in the individual and in the whole which the individuals constitute — of its selfexistence, of its power and consciousness and of its delight of being. But such completeness is not possible in the individual consciousness concentrated within the limits of the individual formation; absolute completeness is not feasible in the finite because it is alien to the self-conception of the finite. Therefore the only final goal possible is the emergence of the infinite consciousness in the individual; it is his recovery of the truth of himself by self-knowledge and by self-realisation, the truth of the Infinite in being, the Infinite in consciousness, the Infinite in delight repossessed as his own Self and Reality of which the finite is only a mask and an instrument for various expression.
Thus by the very nature of the world-play as it has been realised by Sachchidananda in the vastness of His existence extended as Space and Time, we have to conceive first of an involution and a self-absorption of conscious being into the density and infinite divisibility of substance, for otherwise there can be no finite variation; next, an emergence of the self-imprisoned force into formal being, living being, thinking being; and finally a release of the formed thinking being into the free realisation of itself as the One and the Infinite at play in the world and by the releaseits recoveryof the boundless existence-consciousnessbliss that even now it is secretly, really and eternally. This triple movement is the whole key of the world-enigma......
Excerpt from 'The Life Divine' - by Shri Aurobindo - Chapter 13 - The Divine Maya

[shankarank]

Sri Aurobindo's stress on evolution of consciousness parallel to evolution of life and other physical structures also, is well known! Now scientific literature also takes this idea seriously!

To manifest itself the way humans see it , the seed though waits for tortuous amount of time it seems. Here is an article that tries to theorize why we could be alone in the cosmos! It boils down to plate tectonics. It is plate tectonics that can generate the mineral and nutrients and facilitate their flow back to the sea, to jump start life processes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecarte ... prise-you/

The mountains and rivers don't just stop there. Later on they differentiate and actually create languages and dialects. In India at least it easy to see that clearly especially in the south! Rivers separate dialects and landscape the language.

But still the underlying ideas have cultural unity!

[sam]

In every period of history, there always have been multiple streams of thoughts and art forms. The support of the ruling circles made a few streams dominant.
Values and practices once held sacred and eternal are cast aside by evolution of technology .
Adaptability is the secret of survival.
At some stage, quantity decides quality.
Elitism is the road to ruin. No art can survive without becoming mass-based.

[sam]

Ilaiyaraaja has composed music for a few selected pasurams from Nalayira Divya Prabhandam.
Tiruvoimozhi is a liturgical compilation of 12 Tamizh Azhwars. With the support of Prof. Gnanasundaram, an acclaimed academician, Ilaiyaraaja chose some pasurams written by Periyazhwar, Naachiyar, Kulasekara Azhwar, Thondaradipodi Azhwar and Thirumangai Azhwar for the album Divya Pasurams, which was released recently.

The album begins with Periyazhwar’s pasuram sung by Ilaiyaraaja, with the moola mantra ‘Om Namo Narayanaya’ being rendered in the background. This pasuram, largely composed in raga Sindhubhairavi, sings paeans to Narayana and emphasises the lyrics with minimal orchestration.

The second piece is based on another Periyazhwar’s pasuram ‘Vanna maadankal’, (sung by Narayanan Ravishankar and V.V. Prasanna) reminding us of ‘Kothumbi’ from Thiruvachagam in Oratorio. The music arrangements capture every single scene in these pasurams such as spraying scented powder and fragrant oil to celebrate the arrival of Krishna. This piece, based on raga Hindolam, concludes with Yasodha realising that this child is the Supreme being.

Naachiyaar Pasuram “Vaanidai Vaazhum Avvanavarkku” wherein Aandal, in her strong words, declares that her body is meant for Sarangan residing in Brindavan and that she will never offer it to any mortals. This short and beautiful composition is sung by Vibhavari in raga Suddha Saveri.

The album progresses through various pasurams, each capturing different aspects of Krishna’s life, with Ilaiyaraaja’s orchestration bringing out the essence of each raga used such as Mohanam, Tilang, Suddha Dhanyasi and Mayamalavagowla.

The album concludes with Thirumangai Azhwar’s ‘Kulantharum selvam thandhidum’ in raga Hamsanandhi, an intense and poignant composition, in the voice of Hariharan, where the saint expresses his desire to merge with the Lord.
https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/ ... 381065.ece
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