Somewhere between 3000 and 6000 years ago, an Indian sage Bharat Muni, wrote a book about the performing arts and forever tied the stage, dance and music together. The book is called ‘Natyashastar’ (Natya = performing Arts, Shastar = Science). It is said that the Brahma himself taught Bharat the secrets of performing arts and asked him to spread the knowledge in the world.

The book became the most important source in the development of art of music throughout the world. At that time, India was an important destination for knowledge seekers and travelers. Artists from all over the world went to Indian Ashrams and learned the secrets of Natyashastar. The seven main notes of music in Indian, Chinese, Persian and European music are not just a coincidence, we have to thank Bharat Muni for it. He proved that the note intervals are not arbitrary but (should) have a relation to the root.

Natayshastar is the first available source in the history of our civilization that explains the true nature of harmonics. This knowledge eventually arrived in Europe and a couple of millennia later, Pythagoras used some of Bharat Muni’s techniques to explain the musical phenomenon thorough math and physics. Unlike Bharat Muni, Pythagorus established a scale based on perfect fifths. I read somewhere that at Pythagoras’ time, the consonant of third was not known to Europeans. Yet it was a major part of Bharat’s scale. Bharat established his scale based on three types of harmonics:

Perfect fifth or 3/2,
Perfect fourth or 4/3 and
Perfect third or 5/4.

We will continue discussing these concepts in detail in other posts. Here I would like to give you a simple example of Bharat Muni’s Shudh (pure) Suptak on a Swar Mandal or a Harpsichord:
1. Establish Sa
2. Establish Pa with Sa-Pa (3/2, perfect fifth or Sa-Pa) relation
3. Establish Ma with Sa-Ma (4/3, perfect fourth or Sa-Ma) relation
4. Establish N with M-N (4/3, perfect fourth or Sa-Ma) relation
5. Establish Ga with Ni-Ga Avrohagatic (3/2, perfect fourth or Sa-Ma in descending) relation
6. Establish Dha with Ma-Dha (5/4, perfect third or Ma-Dha) relation
7. Establish Re with Re-Dha Avrohagatic (3/2, perfect fourth or Sa-Ma in descending) relation
8. Establish upper Sa with Pa-Sa (4/3, perfect fourth or Sa-Ma) relation

Compared with modern natural scales, Bharat’s Ga and Ni are komal (flat). Bharat used only nine notes in his music. The above seven are the pure notes and the following two are the Vikrats (moved):
1. Modern shudh Ga (natural third) or Bharat’s Antar Ga (Gandhar) = Sa- Ga (5/4, perfect third or Ma-Dha) relation
2. Modern shudh Ni (natural seventh) or Bharat’s kakali Ni (Nishad) = Pa-Ni (5/4, perfect third or Ma-Dha) relation

Bharat established his music system based on Gram and Moorshana. Gram is the system of establishing the interval of notes, where Moorshana is the system of making parent scales. The above Shudh scale is Bharat’s Shadaj Gram (the Gram of Sa).

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