More realistic and historical approaches to contextualising the emergence of Dhrupad tell us that the musical genre as we know it today may have ‘originated’ in the 15th century in the court of Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior. It also covertly sidelines or marginally co-opts the traditional practitioners of Dhrupad music, most of whom were Muslim, and from heterogenous-caste communities of hereditary musicians known as Dhadhis, Kalawants, Tawaifs. This simplistic history and theorisation – catalysed by the outlook of Savarna musicians/ musicologists like VN Bhatkhande and VD Paluskar – is an attempt to deliberately obscure the complex musical traditions and the vectors of change they have passed through. Along with this, they go back directly to the Sama Veda in a one-upmanship of ancientness and brahminical authority. Such commonly used descriptions to introduce the genre seek to gain textual approval for the music from the Natyashastra – a Sanskritic text on the performing arts, which artists across ‘classical’ genres are eager to latch on to as the source of all art. Seeking not to entertain, but to induce feelings of peace and contemplation in the listener … It is a form of devotional music that traces its origin to the ancient text of Sam Veda … The word ‘Dhruva’ is as old as the Natya Shastra itself in which we find a separate chapter on Dhruva-Geeta,” according to the Dhrupad Sansthan website. “The nature of Dhrupad music is spiritual. Dhrupad is also shrouded by lofty words that tie it to the hubris of spirituality – Nada Yoga, Dhrupad as pranayama, chakra meditation and so on. The oft-repeated refrains surrounding Dhrupad are that it is the oldest (and thus most ‘pure’) form of Hindustani ‘classical’ music that was born out of the Sama Veda, and had a glorious reception in history until the more entertaining/ less serious forms, Khayal and Thumri, emerged.
Within the popular imagination of Hindustani music, Dhrupad is seen not just as a musically ‘purer’ form, but also as somewhat more virtuous. On hearing him entering the music as a purely sensorial experience that resisted any rigid theorisation, my difficulty in reconciling these two vastly different ‘truths’ is almost expected. I first listened to the music in this recording of musician Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar (a vocalist from the hereditary family of Dhrupad practitioners known as the Dagars), whose artistry has often been described as fearless and untameable. Within the ecosystems of my brahminical upbringing and initial music training, I learnt of Dhrupad as an ancient form of music straight from the Vedas, in which the words Ananta Hari Narayan Om were tuned to musical form.
The first time I heard about a musical form called Dhrupad and the first time I actually listened to it were such starkly different experiences that it was hard to believe they were the same.
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