ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 describes the organological development of the mṛdaṅga during the 2nd millennium until the Mughal period and studies the evolution of the ideas associated with it. The author analyses the relationship between courtly (mārga) and regional (deśī) music, and argues that the pakhāvaj was a vernacular drum identified with the mṛdaṅga and legitimated as the social elite’s most representative drum under the Mughals. He further highlights the Mughals’ contribution to the evolution of the pakhāvaj suggesting that it completed its organological development – becoming a drum very similar to the contemporary instrument – during their empire, and that some of the most important ideas and aspects which are still strongly associated with the pakhāvaj, such as its vigorous and heroic character, had been attributed by them.
In this chapter, the author maintains that the evolution of the mṛdaṅga is the result of its deep relationship with kingship and godship over almost two millennia, as well as of a process of Sanskritization which has more than once transformed vernacular (deśī) drums into the courtly (mārga) mṛdaṅgas, and the pakhāvaj into the mṛdaṅga.
