Holi Special: The "Hori" style of Vocal Music

Holi, a greeting to the spring season, is joyfully celebrated to remember Lord Vishnu’s protection of Prahlada, one of his kid devotees, and to remember Lord Krishna’s exchanging of colors with his friends in Vrindavan. Nothing equals such remembrance of God when it is coupled with music. The traditional style of vocal music developed specifically to celebrate this arrival of spring with devotion is called “hori.”

Hori songs with a devotional theme are almost always related to Krishna. Depending upon the imagination of the devotee poet, while the lyrics of one hori may envision the colorful galaxies as Krishna splashing colors (playing holi) in the universe, the lyrics of another may express the longing (viraha) that arises from not finding Krishna around even on the festival of holi. Numerous hori songs that display a delightful feel illustrate gopis, who already have their souls irreversibly colored in his love, continually requesting Krishna not to throw more colors at them.

As for the musical specifications, all ragas with the “spring” mood or a devotional feel are apt for a hori. However, Raga Kafi, which beautifully expresses the mood of the spring season, like Basant and Bahar, stands out as the most popular selection for composing a hori. Similarly, the fourteen-beat rhythmic cycles of Deepchandi (tabla; usually fast-medium tempo) and Dhamar (pakhawaj; slow tempo; classical) are favored in this style of singing.

This mix of festivity, devotion for the Lord’s divine plays, and musical sounds is offered in temples throughout early spring along with colored powders (gulal), flowers, and sweets.

Happy Holi!

Planetary Transits and Combinations: Removing their Fear

Even to me, a believer in selected principles of astrology, something looks wrong as I switch on the TV and see a group of people fearing planetary phenomena in the sky. A typical astrology show, intending to solve our problems, leaves me with the thought, “Does any planetary transit or combination in a chart need to be so horrifying?”

For believers, the location of planets in our birth chart is correlated with our past karma; Nature has supposedly sent us on earth at the right moment. While we maintain faith in the Lord’s behind-the-universe calculations, we should remember that the motion of planets is fixed and predictable for millenniums to come. Both an astronomer and astrologer can “predict” where planets will be positioned after a given number of years though their calculations will differ due to the difference in the ephemerides used. If there is anything predestined in astrology, it is the positioning of planets in the solar system; all future transits are natural, preset, and calculatable from our first day on earth. So the next time you hear an astrologer talk about a fear-provoking “unforeseen” planetary pattern in space, you do not have to panic but can peacefully listen to its effect in your horoscope. God knows how each planet revolves, for he has placed them there.

Furthermore, true Vedic astrology has never been fatalistic. The presence of remedies itself proves that karma is considered quite powerful in Indian thought. One-to-one mappings do not work for the most commonly used rashi chart, which remains static for a two-hour interval (approximately): Even if people with similar behavioral traits demonstrate similar combinations in their rashi charts, all individuals with a similar placement in their rashi charts are not expected to face the same influences in life because their divisional charts (like the Navamsa) almost always differ. Most astrologers understand this and use divisional charts, which divide the rashi chart into finer intervals, to solve a problem; however, the correct usage of divisional charts is still under study. Under such a scenario, with enormous amounts of traditional knowledge lost, even experts cannot be very certain in this field. For optimism, we should remember that a weak rashi chart can be countered by beneficial combinations in the divisional charts.

Also, to cope with astrological anxiety, we should leave some scope for the present in our mind: There is more to occult than astrology, more to destiny than occult, and more to future than destiny.

Maha Shivaratri Special: Lord Shiva’s Ancestry

Lord Shiva’s wedding anniversary is celebrated as Shivaratri on the 14^th day (krishna-paksha; waning fortnight) of the lunar month Magha (Phalgun according to some calendars). Shiva’s wedding with Goddess Parvati forms a popular, beautiful devotional event and some of its retellings in the Puranas are associated with a few witty scenes, all saturated with the devotion of His followers.

According to the Skanda Purana, when Parvati’s father, Himavan (personification of the Himalayas), asks for Shiva’s gotra (lineage) while performing the marriage ceremony of kanyadaan, Shiva prefers not to respond to the question. Instead, Rishi Narada starts playing his stringed musical instrument, the Veena. Finding the moment unsuitable for a musical recital, Himavan politely requests the seer not to create instrumental sound.

Narada then reacts with a full-scale lecture: “Shiva’s lineage and family is the Nada – sound energy – for He becomes available to the individual soul by Nada (from chanting, mantra, or music), and Nada and Shiva are both positioned in each other. I was playing the Veena only to truly answer your question.” Continuing his speech, Narada explains that none, including Brahma, is aware of Shiva’s family background, for He is the unborn and formless one. “Because of His power of illusion, the other seers present here do not know Him as well. Moreover, you do not really know your own daughter. Parvati and Shiva are the cause of the universe and its sustenance,” concludes Narada.

Happy Maha Shivaratri!