By the thirteenth century, three major trade systems existed, one of which was the Asian system via the Indian Ocean. It was subdivided into three routes, one of which overlapped with the southern West Asia route that connected the Red Sea and Persian Gulf with the western coast of India. The ports of Gujarat (near Mumbai) in the north and on the Malabar (pepper) coast in the southern part of the subcontinent held merchant colonies of Muslims from West Asia who, like Buddhist merchant/missionaries a millennium earlier, were inter- mediaries who spread their religion and business practices wherever they went. India’s global encounters continued to be significant – by sea as well as overland. The second subroute in the Indian Ocean trade was based on the Coromandel Coast in eastern India and was far less influenced by Muslim Arab and Persian traders. Indigenous Indian merchants were intermediaries for most of the sea trade eastward through the Straits of Malacca to Chinese ports in the third subcircuit. All ships traveling between India and China had to pass through the narrow sea that separated Sumatra and Java from the Malay Peninsula. Monsoon winds reversed at the Straits, so long layovers were required for boats traveling in both directions. Permanent colonies of merchants drawn from points throughout the Asian circuit coexisted in Malacca, thus giving it a cosmopolitan quality.
At the same time, during the first three centuries of the second millenniumCE,
power in the southern part of the subcontinent was centered in Chola country on the southeastern Coromandel coast and the Deccan (widely referred to as in both the north and the mid-subcontinent). The Chola Rajaraja I (1012–44) conquered Sri Lanka, spread his land power to the mouth of the Ganges, and dispatched a fleet to occupy parts of Burma, Malaysia, and Sumatra. When the Cholas fell in the thirteenth century, their territory was divided between two other competing southern dynasties. In the Deccan the Western Chalukyas were the dominant power, competing with the Cholas, and they had numerous feudatories, among them the Yadava dynasty. Situated approximately in the middle of the subcon- tinent on the Indian Ocean side, with its capital at Devagiri, the Yadavas declared their independence in the mid-twelfth century. At their peak they ruled present- day Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, and parts of Madhya Pradesh. They attracted learned scholars, and the Marathi language and literature were devel- oped in their court.
It was at the Yadava king Singhana’s court in the thirteenth century that a theoretical treatise composed in Sanskrit gave evidence of profound changes in the musical system of the subcontinent – even to the point that “music in South Asia” was no longer unitary. The Sangīt Ratnākara is attributed to the scholarly royal accountant and ayurvedic physician Sarngadeva (Rowell 1992, 21). As tradition dictated, it accounts for both historical theory and current practice. For instance, the first of seven chapters discusses sound – its generation, microtones and intervals, scales, and scale degree patterns, as well as the ancient modal patterns (jāti). The second chapter discusses rāga (melody type) in both “doctrinal” and current terms. The third chapter is miscellaneous, dealing largely with performance practice, including ornaments, improvisation, and ensembles. The fourth chapter is on vocal composition and comprises discussion of meters, form, and songs in vernacular languages. The fifth chapter deals with tāla (time cycle), both doctrinal and current. “Tāla had made tremendous strides. Bharata mentions only five tālas . . . of eight and six mātrās [counts] respectively, whereas the Sangīta Ratnākarā mentions 108 tālas” (Gautam, 1980, 9). The sixth chapter discusses instruments and gives rāgas and drum syllable patterns for particular melodic instruments and drums. The seventh chapter is on dance.
Significantly, a different instrumental technique on the then-prevalent one-string stick zither (eka-tantrī vīnā) is described, which
should be correlated in some way with an equally radical change in the under- lying concept of pitch relationships. On open-string instruments (such as the bow harp) the basic pitch collection has to be tuned in advance. Any pitch is potentially as important as any other, and in different musical contexts
different pitches will assume the central role. . . A stopped-string instrument differs in that all the stopped pitches can easily be conceived as a function of the pitch of the open string, and ultimately as subordinate to it. That a conceptual change moving towards the notion of a single system tonic had occurred is explicitly confirmed early in the medieval period, but it may have been well under way during the last centuries of the ancient period. (Powers n. d.)
A millennium earlier, the ovoid-lute known in India was a stopped-string instrument, but the bow harp had prevailed at the time. As mentioned above, the stick zither type of instrument replaced the ovoid-shaped lute in Hindu sculptural iconography. The melodic systems recorded in the Sanskrit treatises suggest that melodic theory derived from melodic practice on the harp pre- vailed until the use of the stick zither became sufficiently widespread to change melodic practice and thereby melodic theory – or, as Powers put it, “during the last centuries of the ancient period” (ibid.).