Text

E-book Drumming in Bhaktapur : Music of the Newar People of Nepal

---

Penilaian

---

The Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley and beyond are an ethnic group of Nepal that absorbed many cultural influences from South Asia over the past two thousand years. Their Newari language belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese language group. Their admirable musical culture saw its heyday during the rule of the later Malla kings of Bhaktapur, Patan and Kathmandu (13th to 18th centuries) and continued to thrive initially even under later Nepali-speaking rulers of other ethnic background. During the 1980s, the decline of Newar culture had become a matter of concern to many Newars who engaged in appeals to preserve their language.1 As there are now several ground-breaking publications about the social, spatial and ritual orders of Bhaktapur, I will not duplicate this but recommend the reader to consult these essential books for detailed and fascinating background information.2 Owing to the lack of data, it is not possible to recon-struct a continuous early history of music in the Kathmandu Valley. This was not made easier by the unhelpful habit of invading armies destroying and eradicating whatever they encountered. Frequent massive earthquakes had a similar effect. The earliest written document dates from 464 A.D. when the Licchavi ruler M?nadeva (464 to 505) had a stone pillar with a carved inscription installed at C??gu N?r?ya?a. Originally the pillar carried the glorious statue of Garuda that now stands on the pavement, facing the sanctum and is said to be a portrait of King M?nadeva. The stone plinth of the temple shows coarse carvings that could be the earliest depictions of musical instruments in the Kathmandu Valley. Although the temple was destroyed and rebuilt several times after earthquakes and fire, the plinth carvings—now in part concealed by later structures—could refer to the music practice of the Licchavi period that coincided with the North Indian Gupta period. We perceive musicians playing various drums, cymbals, transverse flutes, lutes and harps. The first stone inscription mentioning a music group dates from 604 A.D. It stands at the roadside in Lele3. Line eleven of the Sanskrit inscription goes “...y??m?12v?dittragau??hik?n?mm?10...rasyam?40prad?pagau??hik?n?mm?8arcc?gau??hik?n?m...”, mentioning a group of musicians endowed with a land donation of ten m?nik?. V?dittragau??hik?translates into Nepali as b?j?gu?hi. So the practice of supporting music groups with land donations goes back to the Licchavi rulers. It reached a monumental scale during the later Malla period (15th to 18th centuries), the Golden Age of Newar culture.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

781.69 WEG d

Penerbit

Germany : Heidelberg University Publishing (heiUP)., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

427 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783968222295

Klasifikasi

781.69

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

Vol. 1

Subjek

Nonwestern Classical Music

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar