CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 98 of 120

Correct — D, Kudumiyamalai. The rock inscription at Kudumiyamalai in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu is the earliest surviving Indian record of music written down as notation. It is a Sanskrit text with a Tamil colophon, and it lays out svaras in seven sub-sections — madhyama grama, shadja grama, shadava, sadharita, panchama, kaisika madhyama and kaisika — sixteen sets of four notes each. The colophon is exactly what the stem is describing: the notes were set down for the benefit of pupils by a king who calls himself a devotee of the Supreme Lord and a pupil of Rudracharya. The seventh-century date and the royal, music-teaching author are why the inscription is standardly credited to the Pallava Mahendravarman I, a ruler celebrated as scholar, painter, architect and musician.

• (a)Ennayiram — Ennayiram, in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu, is famous for a Chola endowment supporting a Vedic college — the record speaks of teachers and hundreds of students with daily grain allowances. It is education, but Vedic learning, not notated music.
• (b)Uttaramerur — Uthiramerur in Kancheepuram district carries the Parantaka I inscriptions of 919 and 921 CE on village self-government — ward-wise committees and the kudavolai draw of palm-leaf tickets from a pot. It is the classic local-government site, not a music site.
• (c)Siyyamangalam — As printed this points to Siyamangalam, a Pallava rock-cut cave-temple site in Tamil Nadu. It belongs to the story of Pallava rock architecture, not to the story of written musical notation, and it carries no set of svaras arranged for pupils.

Indian music was taught and transmitted orally, so a written record of pitches is rare and valuable. The Kudumiyamalai inscription is the earliest such record to survive in India: groups of four svaras each, grouped under seven headings that name the old modal frameworks — the two gramas and five other modes. It fixes what notes were used and how they were grouped in the seventh century, which no text alone can do.

The stem hands you three clues — seventh or eighth century, a king, and notes arranged for the benefit of his pupils — and the third is the one that decides it, because the Kudumiyamalai colophon says precisely that. Two of the wrong options are strong sites in their own right, which is what makes the item work: Uttaramerur and Ennayiram are both famous inscription villages, just for local government and for a Vedic college. On spelling, the paper prints 'Siyyamangalam' where the site is normally written Siyamangalam; that is the booklet's own slip and changes nothing. On authorship, the attribution to Mahendravarman I is the standard scholarly reading rather than a signature — the inscription names its author only as a king who was a pupil of Rudracharya, so the safe thing to carry into the exam is the place and the seventh-century date.

• The musical inscription is at Kudumiyamalai (Kudumiyanmalai), Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu.
• It is dated to the seventh century CE and is the earliest surviving Indian example of music in notation.
• The svaras are arranged under seven headings — madhyama grama, shadja grama, shadava, sadharita, panchama, kaisika madhyama and kaisika — in sixteen sets of four notes.
• The main text is Sanskrit and the colophon Tamil; the colophon says the notes were made for pupils by a king who was a devotee of Siva and a pupil of Rudracharya.
• Uthiramerur's fame rests on Parantaka I's inscriptions of 919 and 921 CE describing ward committees and the kudavolai method of drawing palm-leaf tickets.

• Picking Uttaramerur because it is the inscription village everyone has heard of — its inscriptions are about village assemblies.
• Reading the stem's 'king' as proof of a signed royal authorship; the inscription identifies its author only by description.
• Confusing a Pallava rock-cut cave temple with a Pallava-period inscription on music.

As a straight site-identification for the music inscription, or in a match-the-site item where Uttaramerur, Ennayiram and Kudumiyamalai each have to be paired with what they record.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The earliest surviving Indian inscription recording music in notation is found at which one of the following places?

  • (a)Kudumiyamalai
  • (b)Mandagapattu
  • (c)Uthiramerur
  • (d)Gangaikonda Cholapuram

  Answer(a) Kudumiyamalai — the seventh-century rock inscription in Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu, sets out svaras under seven headings for the benefit of pupils.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The inscriptions of Parantaka I at Uthiramerur are the standard source for which one of the following?

  • (a)Musical notation
  • (b)Village assembly elections
  • (c)Land measurement units
  • (d)Temple bronze casting

  Answer(b) Village assembly elections — the 919 and 921 CE records describe ward-wise committees chosen by the kudavolai draw of palm-leaf tickets.