''Dhol Sagar'' ( Garhwali; literally "ocean of drumming") is an ancient Indian treatise on the art of playing the

dhol damau Dhol damau or dhol damaun is the term used to collectively refer to two folk instruments of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the dhol Dhol () can refer to any one of a number of similar types of double-headed drum widely used, with regional ...

, the folk instruments of the Garhwal region of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand (, ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2007), is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. The state is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the n ...

. It does not exist in a complete printed form, as it was transmitted orally (through

percussive A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

verses and

vocable In the broadest sense of the word, a vocable (from ) is any identifiable utterance or writing, such as a word or term, that is fixed by their language and culture. The use of the term for words in the broad sense is archaic and the term is instea ...

syllables) or empirically within the traditional drumming families. It is believed to have mythical origins and its existence has only been confirmed by local scholars and practitioners. The treatise contains shlokas in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

or Garhwali, and specific rhythm patterns for occasions like christening, wedding ceremonies, religious festivals, shamanic rituals, ritual dramas like '' Pandav Lila'', death rites etc. The players of ''Dhol Sagar'' traditionally belonged to particular musical caste groups such as ''auji'', ''bajgi'', ''das'' or ''dholi''. Either due to urban migration among the youth in the drumming families, the growing popularity of

brass bands A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting primarily of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands (particularl ...

and DJs in villages, or the drummers' desire to disassociate themselves from a practice that was historically tied to their specific "low-

caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...

", the unwritten ancient knowledge of ''Dhol Sagar'' faces the threat of being lost. Many traditional drummers have either given up the practice or have been driven out of work.

References

Bibliography

*{{cite book , last=Alter , first=Andrew , date=2014 , title=Mountainous Sound Spaces: Listening to History and Music in the Uttarakhand Himalayas , publisher=

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, isbn= 9789384463069 Drums Music theory Indian folk music Sanskrit texts Culture of Uttarakhand Garhwal division Indian folk culture