''Vadya'' (, ), also called or , is one of the three components of (musical performance arts), and refers to "instrumental music" in the Indian traditions.
Indian musicology
The term in the sense of "music, sounded, played, uttered" appears in Vedic literature such as the , and in early post-Vedic era Sanskrit texts such as the , , , and .[Monier Monier-Williams]
Oxford University Press, page 940 These texts refer to the musician or instrumental performer as .[ A stringed instrument is described with proportional lengths in and , and these are compared to poetical meters.]
Classification of instruments
Sanskrit literature describes four types of :chordophone
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners.
Musicians play some ...
)
*: hollow musical instrument (aerophone
An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrume ...
)
*: solid musical instrument (idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electrophone ...
)
*: covered musical instrument (membranophone
A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a acoustic membrane, vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument ...
)
Ensembles and orchestras
The chapter 14 of the describes musical ensembles based on a collective performance of instruments by musicians, and it calls such a band orchestra as a .
Cultural exchange
The term also appears in the Buddhist Sanskrit text , influential in the Chinese and Japanese traditions, which Luis Gomez translates as "instrumental music".
In Hindu-Javanese music tradition, is called .Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...
, most scholars consider the term ''valiha
The valiha is a tube zither from Madagascar made from a species of Valiha diffusa, local bamboo; it is considered the "List of national instruments (music), national instrument" of Madagascar. The term is also used to describe a number of re ...
'' (a Madagascar tube zither
The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it acoustic resonance, modifies the sound and ...
instrument) to be rooted in the Sanskrit term , reflecting a period of cultural exchange over the Indian Ocean.[Roger Blench (2014), Using Diverse Sources of Evidence for Reconstructing the Past History of Musical Exchanges in the Indian Ocean, African Archaeological Review, Volume 31, Issue 4 (December), pp 675–703]
See also
*Indian classical music
Indian classical music is the art music, classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It is generally described using terms like ''Shastriya Sangeet'' and ''Marg Sangeet''. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as ...
* List of Indian musical instruments
*Natya shastra
The ''Nāṭya Shāstra'' (, ''Nāṭyaśāstra'') is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary b ...
* Tala
* Udaka vadya
References
{{Indian musical instruments
Hindu texts
Theatre of India
Musical theatre
Sanskrit texts
Cultural history of India