Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Ravi Shankar, born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, aka Pandit

Indian Contemporary Musician, Sitar Player and Composer

"Our tradition teaches us that sound is God - Nada Brahma. The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects."

"Love is seeing God in the person next to us, and meditation is seeing God within us. "

"Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner."

"How does one put the spiritual significance of music on paper? Music transcends all languages and barriers and is the most beautiful communicative skill one can have. Music makes us all experience different emotions or the Navarasa as we call it. Different types of music, whether it is vocal or instrumental, Eastern or Western, Classical or Pop or folk from any part of the world can all be spiritual if it has the power to stir the soul of a person and transcend time for the moment. It makes one get goose-bumps in the body and mind and equates the highest mental orgasm and the release of grateful tears!"

"In our culture we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God."

"Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature."

"There are only two kinds of music; good and bad. Music appreciation is very personal depending on the person's age, experience, knowledge and background."

"My secret ambition was always to provide music for animation films: something with an Indian theme, either a fairy tale or mythological tale or on the Krishna theme. I still have a very deep desire, but these sorts of chances don't always come."

"A raga is a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement consisting of either a full seven-note octave, or a series of six or five notes in a rising or falling structure called the Arohana and Avarohana. It is the subtle difference in the order of notes, an omission of a dissonant note, an emphasis on a particular note, the slide from one note to the other ? that demarcate one raga from the other."

"Age is a cage where I sit and watch my youth pass by, Though I cannot run as fast as I did before, musically I think I am better than ever for sure. Should I be missing my youth, or thank the Lord and rejoice in the everlasting magic of the music."

"Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom."

"Ah, 'Pather Panchali' was the most inspiring film that I wrote music for, and it was so spontaneously done. I saw the film, composed on the spot, along with myself and only four other musicians, and everything was done within 4-1/2 hours, I think an all-time record anywhere."

"Difference between motivation and inspiration - Motivation is external and short lived. Inspiration is internal and lifelong"

"Don't Fall in love, Rise in Love!"

"Even when you have talent and work hard, sometimes it is difficult to make it. You need your lucky stars!! How long can one go on promoting oneself? There are instant super stars and they also fade away very quickly. What is it that gives the staying power? It is when you can communicate with your music to your listeners and touch their soul. You can sell your first few shows with big talk, lineage and famous last names but it is the power of your music, which will keep you there."

"Except for a few of us senior musicians, I feel people don't go to listen to young talented musicians in India. I also would like to mention about the Delhi culture where people don't buy tickets to go to a concert, probably the only place in the world. Also a great country like India with some of the greatest art forms does not have one state of the art auditorium of international standard. I am also appalled to see that there are no music reviews any more except in the Hindu. All that people are interested is gossip and who went to which party wearing what. The other thing which shocks me, is the inaccuracy in reporting anything."

"Faith is realizing that you always get what you need."

"From the late 1950's I have been performing all the major halls in the world including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall etc. I have been having sold-out performances mainly consisting of the host community. Anybody can pay the money and hire a hall and perform, the prestige comes when the hall engages you."

"Human evolution has two steps - from being somebody to being nobody; and from being nobody to being everybody. This knowledge can bring sharing and caring throughout the world."

"Have eternal wait, infinite patience. When you have infinite patience, you will realize God belongs to you. Either through awareness or through practice you reach the same spot."

"God has been very kind to me and given me so much! I have been performing from the age of ten and at eighty seven still am very busy. I was very very sick recently with double pneumonia and was in intensive care for 25 days. For a further few months I was in a wheel chair with oxygen, and recouped slowly. But by some miracle and the love and care of my very dear and near ones, I performed seven concerts and am looking forward to the fall tour. I just composed a piece of music for the brilliant violist Joshua Bell and Anoushka which will be premiered at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. I am also writing another piece for Phillip Glass and Anoushka to play, and I am also writing another concerto for an orchestra in New York, and keeping busy. Through my centre in Delhi, I am getting a youth choir ready. Some of those children recently went to Austria and performed beautifully with the help of few of my senior disciples."

"I also feel the youngsters today lack humility. When they have a little success they think they are pandits, maestros and legends. I want to really discard my title of "pandit" as every Tom, Dick and Harry is a Pandit, and an Ustad. For the last so many years I have instructed all promoters to drop it and just call me ?Ravi Shankar.?"

"Have this faith that someone is there to take away your weaknesses. Ok, you slipped once, twice, thrice. It does not matter. Keep moving ahead. People take vows never to commit mistakes again. Breaking the vows makes it worse. Surrendering is better"

"I don't know what to say when you ask me if I did all my projects for money and fame. I have always bubbled with energy and desire to do new things and never bothered about the financial aspect of it. Never in my life have I sat back and settled with my laurels. I have gone further and further with wanting to do new things, experimenting with music, instruments and musicians and dancers. If I had just performed my concerts which I had plenty of, and wanted to make money, I would have been a multi-millionaire now. (I think the record was something like 43 concerts in 42 days in the late 60's. Penny Estabrook toured with me then and she can tell you about that.)"

"I don't appreciate avant-garde, electronic music. It makes me feel quite ill."

"I do think that my Indian classical audiences thought I was sacrificing them through working with George; I became known as the 'fifth Beatle.' In India, they thought I was mad."

"I believe in one thing: that anyone who is able to do something good for someone, I mean, should be praised."

"I have always encouraged the creativity of an artist. But one has to have solid knowledge and know the rules to break it. Improvisation does not mean tampering with the authenticity of a classical raga. I was probably way beyond my time when I first started to experiment with western instruments and western musicians. Contrary to popular belief, I never performed with the Beatles. George Harrison came to me as he was so taken by our music and became my student. It was not a fad for him, he loved it until the end and became very very dear to me. John Coltrane was so impressed by my music and had a few lessons from me, and again was so moved that he named his son after me."

"I have my own spiritual guru, and I'm so happy, and I feel so satisfied that I might appreciate many other famous gurus, but, you know, I am not attracted that way because I have found the person."

"I feel lucky and blessed that even today after being on the stage for over 7 decades. I perform to sold-out audiences and I am overwhelmed by the way I am received by my admirers. And all this when I perform our Indian classical music."

"I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians - old and young - coming to Europe and America and having some success. I'm happy to have contributed to that."

"I have always had an instinct for doing new things. Call it good or bad, I love to experiment."

"I have great difficulty sitting in the middle of the night and writing. Everything I do comes spontaneous. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it comes just like that."

"I love the work of Matisse and Picasso, but I don't have enough millions to own one. And I don't really believe in owning art, anyway."

"I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music."

"I implore students to volunteer help to their gurus and their schools and also help so many existing music institutions. If your guru has imparted his precious knowledge, it is most important for you to contribute with your time and get his blessings. It really makes me laugh when I see young and upcoming musicians talking so big and comparing themselves to legends and few even have their own foundation I believe!! There is a great saying in Benares, I am sorry its bit crude but so true "kal ka jogi (yogi) gantt mey jatah!!" Or something like: "An empty vessel makes more noise.""

"I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough."

"I try to give to my music the spiritual quality, very deep in the soul, which does something even if you are not realizing it or analyzing it - that's the duty of the music."

"I was admired by all these hippies, and it was wonderful playing at Monterey and Woodstock, performing for half a million people."

"If I go back in time, about 67 years when I was 20, and think about the dream and vision of what I had then for Indian classical music as a young aspiring musician, I have to admit that even though I have achieved more than I have ever dreamed of personally, I am disturbed to see the plight of it today here in India."

"I will keep playing as long as my body lets me, and as long as I'm wanted by my listeners. Because music is the only thing that keeps me going."

"I think musicians and actors have all these problems, because of the popularity and the opportunity."

"I was invited for the first Woodstock. Actually, I started the program."

"In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned."

"In always wanting to be comfortable, you become lazy. In always wanting perfection, you become angry. In always wanting to be rich, you become greedy."

"If you can win over your mind, you can win over the whole world."

"In the late sixties, I also presented the Festival of India (one) concerts; bringing artists like Shivkumar Sharma, Jitendra Abhisheki, Palghat Raghu and several others. In 1974 when George asked me to join him to perform for one half of his concert tours, I could have just gone myself but I told George that I want the world to see and hear all our wonderful music and musicians. George had not heard any of them. I suggested and took Hari Prasad, Shivkumar Sharma, L. Subramnaiam, T.V. Gopalakrishnan, Lakshmi Shankar, Allah Rakha, and few others, and we had a fantastic tour."

"In the olden days, I believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines, they just read the lines."

"It is also very irritating for me when I see young musicians trying to sing or play a raga for a long time. It takes much experience to do that without repetition. It also makes me laugh when some idiots who know nothing about music appreciate and evaluate that as good just because he or she sang or played a raga for so long. One has to understand it is the quality and not the quantity."

"In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice."