Dattila

Dattila (between 4th c. BCE and 2nd c. CE) is an early Indian musicologist, who refined the melodic structures, scales and other aspects of Indian Classical Music in his work Dattilam.

Date

In Bharata's Natya Shastra, Bharata gives a list of a hundred sons who will put the knowledge of performances ("Natyaveda") to use. One of these sons is named Dattilacite book
title = Kapila Vatsyayan
author = Bharata: The Natyasastra
publisher = Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi
date = 1996p. 8; "Dattila was either a predecessor or a contemporary (p.115)."] , which had led to some speculation that Dattila may be a little later or contemporary to Bharata. However, today it is mostly felt, given the lack of "Natyashastra" elements in Dattilam, that he may have been a little earlier or a contemporary.

Of course, the date of Bharata is itself not known; usually he is dated somewhere between 400BC to 200AD.

Work

Nothing is known of Dattila beyond the work Dattilam. These 244 verses discuss gandharva music, i.e. music with a less pronounced religious intent (as opposed to "sama-gayan" or ritual chants as in the Samaveda). Dattilam discusses scales (swara), the base note ("sthana"), and defines a tonal framework called "grama" in terms of 22 micro-tonal intervals ("sruti") comprising one ocave. It also discusses various arrangements of the notes ("murchhana"), the permutations and combinations of note-sequences ("tanas"), and "alankara" or elaboration.

The melodic structure is categorized into 18 groups called "jati", which are the fundamental melodic structures pre-dating the concept of the raga. The names of the jatis reflect regional origins, e.g. "andhri", "oudichya". (Note that many modern raga names are also after regions - e.g. Khamaj, Kanada, Gauda, Multani, Jaunpuri, etc.). Ten characteristics are mentioned for each jati, which resemble the structuring and elaboration of the contemporary raga in Hindustani music.

References