What Are The Musical Instruments Of India?

Why is Chenda, a cylindrical percussion instrument used widely in South India, considered Asura Vadyam? What other musical instruments come under this category?

• Answer:

  I came across this question the day before and I was intrigued. I asked a musician friend of mine about this and he flushed out an answer from some old blogpost. The blogger quoted some British council study, as below. "The Marar musicians regard all kshetram instruments, except the kuzhal oboe, as tala vadyam (rhythm instruments). Generally they classify musical instruments according to their function in the kshetram ritual, thus dividing them into devavadyam and asuravadyam. In the Rigveda the term deva is used for the higher gods and asuras for the lower respectively. In the kshetram temple the main god or goddess is seated in the srikovil and the asuras are grouped in various shrines in the surrounding temple precinct. Following this distinction the drums timila, edaykka, valantala (the bass side of the chenda), and maram, the conch shankh, and the small chengila gong are devavadyam, which are played beside the srikovil entrance. The drums itantala (the treble side of the chenda), both forms of maddalam, the cymbals ilatalam, and the wind instruments kombu and kuzhal are asuravadyam." So basically, Chenda is both asuravadyam and devavadyam, as explained above. Also, other asuravadyam instruments include maddalam, ilatalam etc. P.S. Here is the original blog post (@http://maddy06.blogspot.in/2008/06/temple-beats-and-pallavur-trinity.html) if you are interested.This discussion actually happened as a comment there. The guy seems pretty knowledgeable and the info is probably accurate.