The concept of sacred harmony implies a set of relations between human beings and the natural order that include a divine or transcendental aspect. These types of correspondences as they relate to music are found among many of the ancient civilizations. In the West, the principles of sacred harmony emerged in ancient Greece with Pythagoras and Plato, such that the implicit connections between...
While music plays a significant role in many of the world’s religions, it is in the Hindu religion that one finds one of the closest bonds between music and religious experience extending for millennia. The recitation of the syllable OM and the chanting of Sanskrit Mantras and hymns from the Vedas formed the core of ancient fire sacrifices. The Upanishads articulated OM as Śabda-Brahman, the...