Playing Non-Music on the Sri Lankan Horanawa

Abstract

The Sri Lankan version of the double-reed oboe, the horanawa, has been and is still important to Sinhala Buddhists since it symbolizes “spiritualty” and “locality” in the Sri Lankan cultural context. Usually, the Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka implies avoiding music making as an act of entertainment. This paper will discuss this issue in the context of the sensual perception of playing the horanawa in this Buddhist environment. A short excursion into the history of the instrument may reveal a number of interesting observations. Kulathillaka1 writes that the horanawa has its origin in West Asia and that it migrated from there to Sri Lanka. To him, the term horanawa implies a foreign origin. He finds alternative terms used for horanawa in history such as “Oththu Thanthiri” and “Pata Thanthiri”. The horanawa falls under the category “Sushira” of the vernacular musical instrument classification system called “panchaturya”. The musicians who played in the context of panchaturya were considered as being of the lower caste according to literary sources. In a number of religious events the horanawa has been as equally important as all the other panchaturya instruments. Buddhist murals found in temples of the southern coastal area depict musicians playing panchaturya musical instruments, however, after the 19th century, in addition to these local musical instruments, the murals included the colonizers’ musical instruments such as wind instruments made of brass, foreign drums, harps, and the violin as Herath and Gajaweera2 describe. Looking at the aspect of defining music in a Buddhist context and the function of the horanawa, which is also one of the very few traditionally used instruments carrying an instrumental melodic line, this study is based on micro analysis, interviews with musicians and their audiences, and reviewing rare literature in the Sinhala language.