JOIN US Does it not imply that ‘Rudra Veena’ existed long before Tansen’s period?
Was the wind instrument ‘Shehnaai’ – etymologically a combination of ‘shah’ – meaning King and ‘nai’, an age-old wind instrument of the Perso-Arabic belt, an import from Iran or a desi folk instrument? Another myth shattered. Sheikh Chinna Moulana (1924-1999), a well known Nagaswaram player who received the Padma Shri, had a musical lineage that showed how some Muslims gained expertise in this wind-instrument, when Nagaswaram has been traditionally associated with Hindu devotional music.
Bharatanatyam
How did the four brothers of Thanjavur in the early 19th century under the munificence of the Thanjavur Durbar of Maharaja Sarforji-II systematise the complex system of Bharatanatyam as widely performed today?
Such rare vignettes of information and seeking answers to the minutest of questions spanning 2,000 years of the Indian Musical traditions of music and dance, - including details of all forms of dance, raga, tala, gharana, treatises, technical terms, instruments as well as short biographies of musicians, Gurus, saint-poets and composers from Kashmir to Kerala have gone into this comprehensive and immensely vast encyclopedia.