Peter Weismiller grew up in Claremont, California and first fell in love with Indian music and the Been in 1969, when he first heard it played in Bombay by Sri P.D. Shah, a pupil of Mohammed Khan Faridi Desai. He spent nine months studying Been with Mr. Shah in California in 1971, and then in 1972 began studying Carnatic music with T. Viswanathan and T. Ranganathan, first at California Institute of the Arts and later at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he took a B.A. in Music in 1977.

He moved to Seattle in 1979 for the Masters program in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, where he was also able to study Been with Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, at that time a Visiting Artist at UW. Afterwards, Peter taught Humanities for many years at the Northwest School in Seattle, during which time he also served for several years on the board of Ragamala and helped organize programs of Asian music for the annual Folklife Festival. Feeling the call of the Been once again in 2000, he spent three weeks studying with Ustad Asad Ali Khan in New Delhi.   In recent years, he has been living on Bainbridge Island, where he has refocused on music and teaches guitar and Nonviolent Communication. He also works as a Freedom Project volunteer with inmates at Twin Rivers Penitentiary in Monroe, teaching meditation and Nonviolent Communication.

The Been and Beenkars: An Historical Perspective

by Peter Weismiller

"He who knows the art of veena-playing and Shruti Shastra can attain God easily."

--Yagnavalka, ancient rishi [0. Gosvami, The Story of Indian Music (Bombay, 1961), p. 295.]

The Veena has traditionally held pride of place in the pantheon of Indian musical instruments.Veena-playing was recognized as a calling in the Yajur Veda [Herbert A. Popley, The Music of India (Madras, 1921), p. 8.], musical theorists for many centuries used the Veena's fret system as their standard of reference when discussing a priori pitch relationships [Harold Powers; The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), p. 79.], and masters of the instrument and its lore are accorded a special respect to this day. However, while the South Indian Veena is often seen in performance and has no rivals among other plucked stringed instruments (apart from its fretless variants, the Chitra Veena and Gottuvadyam) for its place on the concert stage, the North Indian Veena (or Been, as it shall be referred to henceforth) is rarely heard and has been virtually eclipsed by other stringed instruments, especially the Sitar and Sarod. Furthermore, while various traditional styles of South Indian Veena playing have been passed on to a good number of able exponents, there are to my knowledge only three eminent masters of the Been performing and recording professionally today who represent different teaching lineages: Bahauddin Dagar (son of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar), representing the Dagarbani; Asad Ali Khan, representing the Kandarbani; and Shamsuddin Faridi Desai, representing the Gauharbani.

Clearly, much has been lost, though it could be argued that much of the lore of the old Beenkars was passed on to players of other instruments and survives in only slightly transmuted form, no more altered than any tradition might be expected to be after having been passed through the hands of
successive generations [Ravi Shankar, My Music, My Life (New York, 1968), p. 55.]. On the other hand, while players of different instruments may draw on the same body of musical learning, each instrument has its peculiar technical possibilities and difficulties; by exploiting the former and minimizing the obviousness of the latter, performers develop idiomatic styles that may be approximated on another instrument, if not truly equalled, though those approximations may thereafter become part of the idiomatic "vocabulary" of the imitating instrument.

Be that as it may, it is not the purpose of this study to bemoan the decline of a great tradition, nor to examine the change and continuity of Been techniques in other instruments; rather, it is to trace the evolution and history of the instrument and its players, insofar as that may be gathered from available sources, and to attempt to analyze some of the factors that have brought the premier instrument of the Mughal and subsequent royal courts to its present status as a musical “endangered species.” However reverenced the Been may be within Indian musical culture, the fact remains that, unlike the art of the South Indian Veena, the art of the Been may not survive much longer. The reasons for this are complex, but may be thought of as falling within four general categories: 1) organological; 2) the nature of the music played on the Been; 3) the manner in which the lore of the Been has been transmitted; and 4) patronage. These categories are by no means disjunct from one another: for example, the physical attributes and construction of the instrument developed to suit the musical needs of
musicians who hoped to remain employed.

The Origin and Morphological Development of the Been

The Been, also known as the Mahati Veena and the Rudra Veena, is identified with the sage Narada and the goddess Saraswati. While the South Indian Veena is frequently referred to as the Saraswati Veena, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar once remarked to me that this name is proper to the Been as well. Wherever the truth may lie in this latter issue, differences of opinion as to the proper names for different types of Veenas abound in literature on the subject. "Veena" has been used since ancient times as a general term for stringed instruments capable of producing melody (for a modern example of this practice see pp. 35-36 in Ravi Shankar, op. cit.), and many references may be found in the Vedas and other ancient writings to variously named Veenas whose characteristics can only be guessed at. For present purposes, it should suffice to say that the Veenas that bear a morphologically ancestral relationship to the Been are not the Veenas of the Vedas, the most important of which (if sculpture bears true witness) were seven and nine-stringed bow-shaped harps (identified as vipanchi and sometimes chitra veena), and a fretless short-necked ovoid lute (identified as kacchapi and sometimes chitra veena) [B. Chaitanya Deva, Musical Instruments of India (Calcutta, 1978), pp. 144, 159.]

"From the 7^th century A.D. to the 13^th and after, these two string instruments disappear from sculpture and are replaced by stick zithers with one or more strings and often with bowl-shaped resonators or supports; these instruments are the direct ancestors of the modern bin...." [Powers, op.cit., p. 78.] These stick zithers are known as the eka tantri (one string) veena, which was fretless and was held in a similar playing position to the been, and the kinnari veena, which was fretted. "The earliest assignable period for the kinnari veena...could be about the 5^th century A.D. when one Matanga lived and wrote a book on music... . (he) is said to be the first one who mentions the fixing of frets to the kinnari veena." [B.O. Deva, Musical Instruments. India, the Land and the People (National Book Trust), p. 91. N.B. that Powers, op. cit., p. 78, dates Matanga from the eighth century.]

"Definite descriptions of this instrument commence from the 11^th century onwards, and they give a fairly detailed account of this veena. There were two 'classical' kinnaris: the laghu kinnari and the brhat kinnari. As their names indicate, the first one was small (laghu) and second was a larger (brhat) variety. There were also desi (folk) kinnaris of three sizes: brhati (big),madhyama (middling) and laghvi (small). The laghu kinnari used in classical music had a fingerboard of bamboo nearly 75 cms. long, with two pumpkins. The fourteen frets were usually of the chest bones of vultures and fixed to the danda (resonating tube) with a mixture of wax and the ashes of burnt cloth. Over these passed a string of steel or brass and this was tensed by a peg on one side. The brhati was nearly twenty centimeters longer with a stouter bamboo.It had three gourds instead of two, and was strung with gut." [ibid, p. 91 ff.]

Shaarangadeva, in the sixth chapter of his Sangita-Ratnakara, c. 1247, specifies playing techniques (both doctrinal and current) for the kinnari vina. [Powers, op.cit., p.78] By the time Abul Fazl wrote his description of the Emperor Akbar's musical establishment, the North Indian Veena had emerged as an instrument in its own right: "The Yantra is formed out of the hollow neck of wood a yard in length, at each end of which are attached the halves of two gourds. Above the neck are sixteen frets over which are strung five steel wires fastened securely at both ends. The low and high notes and their variations are produced by the disposition of the frets. The Veena resembles the Yantra, but has three strings. The Kinnar resembles the Veena, but with a longer fingerboard, and has three gourds and two wires." [Deva, op.cit., p.92]

Whether the above described Veena is in fact identical with the Been of the time I am at present unable to determine; a study of ancient veenas to be found in museums and private collections would be needed before one could safely make a definitive statement. In any event, Deva goes on to say that "It was one of the premier instruments of the court of Akbar and Abul Fazl names Shihab Khan of Gwahor  and Purbin Khan as the two court beenkars"[Ibid.]

By way of contrast, it may be noted here that Ustad Z.M. Dagar once informed me that the Been had eleven frets before the 13^th century; afterwards, twenty-four. While I have been unable to find much information regarding the physical evolution of the Been to its modern form from its medieval form, S. Krishnawamy informs us as follows: “It is said that during the period between Amir Khusrau and Akbar, the bin had only twelve frets on which a range of three oc­taves could be played. Subsequently the number of frets was increased." [S. Krishnaswamy, Musical Instruments of India (Delhi, 1967), p.42]

One thing that may be inferred is that, however many frets the Been had at this time, they were fixed and arranged in semitones: Pandit Ahobala in his Sangita Parijata (early 17^th century) “was the first musicologist to describe the values of notes in terms of lengths of the string on the veena.” [ibid., p.29] It should be noted here that Ahobala thus set an important precedent: not long afterwards, a South Indian “…musicologist named Govinda Dikshita fixed the frets of the southern Indian veena so that all ragas could be played. . .before this, the frets were movable, and their number varied.” [Ibid.]

Venkatamakhi soon thereafter published his 72 melakarta raga systern, which he demonstrated by reference to the veena's fret system. [Powers, op.cit., p.82] Venkatamakhi was more systematic than his North Indian counterparts, however; while a great many new treatises appeared in the North after 1550, “…many of the works in fact dealt only with raga, touching on the tonal system and on the vina as an instrument of reference only to the extent necessary to elucidate their ragas,” though there were some attempts to introduce “a new tonal system based on the fretted stick zither (veena) and try to reconcile it with the tonal material of Sangita Ratnakara...(some) merely reproduce the Sangita Ratnakara tonal material.” [Powers, op.cit., p.81]

Been and Beenkars in the history of North Indian Music Culture

“I'll teach you [Allauddin Khan] all the dhrupad and dhamar songs," [Wazir Khan] said, "and the technique and different baj (styles of playing) of the been, rabab, and sursringar.” He qualified his vow, however, by saying he could never permit Allauddin Khan to play the Been, because it is traditionally restricted to the Beenkar gharana — his family — and he warned that if Baba were to play it, Baba would never have an heir and his family would die out. [Shankar, op.cit., p.55]

On the surface, the above anecdote seems straightforward enough: Wazir Khan was apparently protecting his family monopoly, his ultimate stock-in-trade, and benignly warning Allauddin Khan of a calamity of mystical origin that would befall him if he were to go against his Ustad's wishes on the matter. On a deeper level, however, the anecdote becomes enigmatic if one knows a little about the history of the Been and its players in modern times, and particularly if one knows what became of Wazir Khan's line: he had a son who was musically trained, but the son went to Baghdad and wasn't heard from again. [Dr. Daniel Neuman, personal communication, 1982] Wazir Khan's lineage seems to have died out with his been-playing grandson, Dabir Khan (d. 1972). In any event, it is not my impression that every reputable beenkar was a member of Wazir Khan's khandan, or lineage (please see the appendix for such information as I’ve been able to gather); however, whatever their lineages, it is indisputable that almost none of Wazir Khan's beenkar contemporaries have left us with heirs to their art.

The late P.D. Shah, an amateur Been player, once remarked to me that his Ustad, Mohammed Khan Faridi Desai, had claimed that there was a tradition among Beenkars that the Been brought extraordinary suffering of many kinds —as well as extraordinary musical exaltation — to its players. Faridi said that aside from the practical difficulties attendant on living as a professional Been player, the suffering resulted from a combination of the consuming riaz (discipline) needed to master the Been and its lore, and the mystical power of the Been's sound: together, they tended to render a man psychologically unfit for ordinary human life. So, was Wazir Khan politely threatening Allauddin Khan with The Ustad's Curse, or warning him about a rather dire reality that had been observed by beenkars over the generations? Or both? It is interesting to note that after his father died, Wazir Khan’s own musical training had been taken over by Haidar Ali Khan, younger brother of the Nawab of Oudh and foremost disciple of two important musicians of the court [Powers, op.cit., p.90]— so Wazir Khan had every reason to understand the danger inherent in a patrilinear transmission as well as the value of the diffusion of musical knowledge beyond one’s family.

The harrowing mystique of the Been aside, more pragmatic reasons for the eclipse of this tradition are not difficult to find. Essentially, the very strategies and events that rapidly brought Beenkars to pre­eminence among instrumentalists in Mughal times contributed greatly to their equally rapid downfall once the heyday of the courts was over. The most important of these strategies were the almost exclusively patrilinear transmission of technique and the concomitant hoarding of prestigious esoteric knowledge. This prestige became relatively valueless once the power of patronage had shifted away from those whose taste and learning were refined enough to fully appreciate the music of the Been. Another pragmatic reason for the decline of the Been in North Indian music culture is to be found, I believe, in the challenging physical attributes of the instrument itself; but this subject will be dealt with after we first trace the history of the rise and decline of the Beenkars.

As we have seen, Emperor Akbar employed two Beenkars. While I have found no references to been-playing as a recognized specialty among professional musicians before Akbar's time, Powers informs us that the Been was associated with the Gwalior singers who came to Akbar's court sometime after he came to power in 1562; and that Tansen, the musical crown jewel of Akbar's court, is universally said to have had his musical roots in Gwalior during the reigns of Man Singh Tomar (1486-1516) and his son (1516-1526). [Powers, op.cit., p.87] Powers is curiously silent on the subject of Tansen's guru Haridas Swami of Vrindaban, who according to legend not only taught Tansen his great art, but also “. . is credited with having improved the technique of playing the bin and standardised the different styles of music played on it.” [Krishnaswamy, op.cit., p.42]

While Tansen himself is said to have played the plucked rabab [Powers, op. cit., p. 88], R. and J. Massey inform us that his daughter, Saraswati, became a leading player of the veena, which was her father's favorite instrument. [Reginald and Jamila Massey, The Music of India (New York, 1977), p.53] Akbar arranged her marriage to a prince named Misri Singh, a veena player and pupil of Swami Haridas. From this marriage came the lineage of beenkars referred to by Shankar as the "beenkar gharana." [p. 255 of Daniel M.Neuman, The Life of Music in North India (Detroit 1980)] It may be noted here that the above-mentioned Saraswati is the only woman who is named as a Been player in any of the literature I have encountered, though women playing the Been seem more the rule than the exception in graphic art dating from the Mughal period onwards.

The reigns of Jehangir (1605-1627) and Shahjehan (1628-1658) were brilliant eras for artists of all kinds, including musicians, but quite the opposite was true of the fifty-year reign of Aurangezeb, who came to power in 1658. Though this austere monarch did maintain musicians to entertain his wives and daughters, he withdrew his personal patronage, and many musicians left his court to seek their fortunes in provincial courts.[Massey, op.cit., p. 53 ff.] Vani Bai Ram goes so far as to say that Aurangezeb “destroyed and abolished what little music was left in his court” and says that the musicians were “turned out.” [Vani Bai Ram, Glimpses of Indian Music (Allahabad, 1962), p. 6 ff.]

Better times returned with the reigns of Bahadur Shah (1708 – 1719) and (especially) of Mohammad Shah Rangile (1719 –1748), a great patron of music and the last of the Mughals to wield considerable temporal power. His reign marked a most important turning-point in the history of North Indian music, for his chief instrumentalist, the beenkar Sadarang (born Nyamet Khan, Tansen's great-great-great-grandson), initiated a change in performance practice and, ultimately, musical taste. Paradoxically, this change both elevated the Been and its players to new heights of prestige and set forces in motion that would eventually eclipse the Been tradition.

Sadarang did this by refining the khyal style to a new elegance, teaching new khyal compositions to his disciples (particularly those outside his family) and having them perform this newly ennobled art before the gratified Mohammed Shah Rangile and his court. Sadarang was rewarded for his innovations by being allowed to perform the Been as a solo instrument, apparently a rare occurrence before this time. While Dr. Neuman interprets Sadarang's innovations as having been rooted in a desire for upward mobility [see op.cit. p. 133 – 134], it seems to me that an important question — probably unanswerable at this remove in time — is whether indeed strategy alone was involved in Sadarang's innovations: perhaps his fertile musical imagination simply felt constrained at times within the austere tradition he had inherited; perhaps his choice of vocal music as the medium of his creativity was no less innocent than, say, a Western composer's choosing to write for an instrument he or she does not perform; perhaps his choice not to perform in the khyal style on the Been was due both to veneration for the tradition he had inherited and to the technical difficulties involved in presenting a more brilliant and florid style on his instrument; and perhaps he did not expect to be rewarded in the manner Muhammad Shah decided he deserved. Furthermore, if Sadarang's motives for promoting a refined khyal style were purely strategic, it would stand to reason that a few hundred compositions, rather than the thousands with which he is credited [Massey, op. cit., p. 54], would have sufficed.

Whether or not Sadarang had a premeditated strategy for upward mobility, the exalted position in which he found himself once his talents had been recognized may well have encouraged him to set a certain standard and model of behavior for his Beenkar successors. Whatever may have been his reasons for not performing khyal on the Been, his not doing so can only have added to such mystique as already surrounded the specialized lore of the Been: for if a man appears to value an old form of beauty he has inherited above a new form he has himself created, those of his audience who find the new form marvellous are constrained not to dismiss the old form, but to reassess it in a spirit of veneration. And it should be kept in mind that Dhrupad and Dhamar rendered in purely instrumental fashion were something of a novelty at the time in any case. Pehaps Sadarang’s choice thus preserved the prestige of those older styles for a number of generations longer than it would have lasted otherwise. Sharmistha Sen's account of the event (quoted on p. 134 Neuman, op. cit.) suggests that Muhammad Shah's court, if not bored by dhrupad and dhamar, were at least quite ready to hear something new. Given that these styles had been propounded in the same form since the days of Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior (1486-1516), this is perhaps not surprising [Shankar, op. cit., p. 48].

In any event, whatever his motivation may have been, Sadarang bequeathed to his descendents a paramount legitimacy as Beenkars and guardians of a special knowledge.To be sure, much of Sadarang's knowledge ultimately derived from Haridas Swami and Tansen, and must equally have been a part of ther heritage of his rababiya and vocalist cousins; logically, only those techniques proper to the Been might not have been. However, it is possible that certain compositions and ragas, especially newer ones, may have been "hoarded" by particular lineages within Tansen's descendants. For example, while the raga Bilaskhani Todi -— said to have been composed by Tansen's son, Bilas Khan, on the occasion of his father's death — is widely known, some among Tansen's descendants may well have reserved for their own family members rarely-heard (“achop”) ragas as well as ragas and compositions they themselves had developed.

A period of chaos followed the reign of Muhammad Shah Rangile. Powers informs us: "...many of the Delhi musicians dispersed to regional centres of independent power... The most important patronage outside Delhi was at Lucknow, the court of the Nawabs of Oudh, but other princely states and the newly rich tax-farmers and businessmen in Calcutta also patronized musicians.."[Powers, op.cit., p.81]

According to Z.M. Dagar, most Beenkars after this time were to be found in the various courts of the area now known as Uttar Pradesh, to the east of Delhi; however, he went on to say that two other important centers of the art were the courts of Gwalior and Jaipur [personal communication, 1979]. Powers mentions Indore and Baroda as having been important for music generally in this period, but states that Lucknow was the most illustrious seat of music in India for about seventy-five years, a period that ended abruptly when the British deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah in 1856 and annexed Oudh shortly thereafter. [Powers, op. cit., p. 88]

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