PanditRavi Shankar (Bengali pronunciation:[ˈrobiˈʃɔŋkor]; bornRobindro Shaunkor Chowdhury,[2] sometimes spelled asRavindra Shankar Chowdhury;[3] 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indiansitarist and composer. A sitarvirtuoso, he became the world's best-known exponent ofIndian classical music in the second half of the 20th century,[4] and influenced many musicians in India and throughout the world. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honour, theBharat Ratna, in 1999. He is also the father of American singerNorah Jones and British-American musician andsitar playerAnoushka Shankar.
Shankar was born to aBengali family[5][6] in India,[7] and spent his youth as a dancer touring India and Europe with the dance group of his brotherUday Shankar. At age 18, he gave up dancing to pursue a career in music, studying the sitar for seven years under court musicianAllauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for theApu Trilogy bySatyajit Ray, and was music director ofAll India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. He was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Score for scoring theblockbusterGandhi (1982).
Shankar was born on 7 April 1920 inBenares (now Varanasi), then the capital ofthe princely state of the same name, in aBengali Hindu family, as the youngest of seven brothers.[3][8][9] His father, Shyam ShankarChowdhury, was aMiddle Temple barrister and scholar who was fromNarail district,Bangladesh (thenJessore district inBengal). A respected statesman, lawyer, and politician, he served for several years asdewan (Prime Minister) ofJhalawar State,Rajasthan, and used theSanskrit spelling of the family name and removed its last part.[3][10] Shyam was married to Hemangini Devi, who hailed from a small village named Nasrathpur in Mardah block ofGhazipur district, near Benares and her father was a prosperous landlord. Shyam later worked as a lawyer inLondon, England,[3] and there he married a second time while Devi raised Shankar in Benares, and he did not meet his son until he was eight years old.[3]
Shankar shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi, for "sun".[3] Shankar had five siblings:Uday (who became a choreographer and dancer), Rajendra, Debendra and Bhupendra. Shankar attended the Bengalitola High School in Benares between 1927 and 1928.[11]
At the age of 10, after spending his first decade in Benares, Shankar went to Paris with the dance group of his brother, choreographer Uday Shankar.[12][13] By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance, and play various Indian instruments.[8][9] Uday's dance group travelled Europe and the United States in the early to mid-1930s and Shankar learned French, discovered Western classical music, jazz, cinema and became acquainted with Western customs.[14] Shankar heardAllauddin Khan – the lead musician at the court of theprincely state ofMaihar – play at a music conference in December 1934 inCalcutta, and Uday persuaded the Maharaja of Maihar H.H. MaharajaBrijnath Singh Judev in 1935 to allow Khan to become his group's soloist for a tour of Europe.[14] Shankar was sporadically trained by Khan on tour, and Khan offered Shankar training to become a serious musician under the condition that he abandon touring and come to Maihar.[14]
Shankar's parents had died by the time he returned from the Europe tour, and touring the West had become difficult because of political conflicts that would lead toWorld War II.[15] Shankar gave up his dancing career in 1938 to go toMaihar and studyIndian classical music as Khan's pupil, living with his family in the traditionalgurukul system.[12] Khan was a rigorous teacher and Shankar had training onsitar andsurbahar, learnedragas and the musical stylesdhrupad,dhamar, andkhyal, and was taught the techniques of the instrumentsrudra veena,rubab, andsursingar.[12][16] He often studied with Khan's childrenAli Akbar Khan andAnnapurna Devi.[15] Shankar began to perform publicly onsitar in December 1939 and his debut performance was ajugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan, who played the string instrumentsarod.[17]
Shankar completed his training in 1944.[8] He moved toMumbai and joined theIndian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946,Dharti Ke Lal, 1946.[8][18] Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25.[19][20] He began to record music forHis Master's Voice and worked as a music director forAll India Radio (AIR), New Delhi, from February 1949 until January 1956.[8] Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra at AIR and composed for it; in his compositions he combined Western and classical Indian instrumentation.[21] Beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the music for theApu Trilogy bySatyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed.[9][22] He was music director for several Hindi movies includingGodaan andAnuradha.[23]
V. K. Narayana Menon, director of AIR Delhi, introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin to Shankar during Menuhin's first visit to India in 1952.[24] Shankar had performed as part of a cultural delegation in theSoviet Union in 1954 and Menuhin invited Shankar in 1955 to perform in New York City for a demonstration of Indian classical music, sponsored by theFord Foundation.[25][26][a]
Shankar heard about the positive response Khan received and resigned from AIR in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States.[28] He played for smaller audiences and educated them about Indian music, incorporatingragas from theSouth IndianCarnatic music in his performances, and recorded his firstLP albumThree Ragas in London, released in 1956.[28] In 1958, Shankar participated in the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the United Nations andUNESCO music festival in Paris.[18] From 1961, he toured Europe, the United States, and Australia, and became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films.[18][b] Shankar founded theKinnara School of Music inMumbai in 1962.[29]
Shankar befriendedRichard Bock, founder ofWorld Pacific Records, on his first American tour and recorded most of his albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label.[28]The Byrds recorded at the same studio and heard Shankar's music, which led them to incorporate some of its elements in theirs, introducing the genre to their friendGeorge Harrison of theBeatles.[30][31] In 1967, Shankar performed a well-received set at theMonterey Pop Festival.[32][33][34] While complimentary of the talents of several of the rock artists at the festival, he said he was "horrified" to seeJimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar on stage:[35] "That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God."[36] Shankar'slive album from Monterey peaked at number 43 onBillboard'spop LPs chart in the US, which remains the highest placing he achieved on that chart.[37]
He performed at theWoodstock Festival in August 1969, and found he disliked the venue.[39] In the late 1960s, Shankar distanced himself from thehippie movement and drug culture.[41] He explained during an interview:
It makes me feel rather hurt when I see the association of drugs with our music. The music to us is religion. The quickest way to reach godliness is through music. I don't like the association of one bad thing with the music.[42]
In October 1970, Shankar became chair of the Department of Indian Music of theCalifornia Institute of the Arts after previously teaching at theCity College of New York, theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, and being guest lecturer at other colleges and universities, including theAli Akbar College of Music.[18][43][44] In late 1970, theLondon Symphony Orchestra invited Shankar to compose a concerto withsitar.Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra was performed withAndré Previn as conductor and Shankar playing thesitar.[9][45][c] Shankar performed at theConcert for Bangladesh in August 1971, held atMadison Square Garden in New York. After the musicians had tuned up on stage for over a minute, the crowd of rock-music fans broke into applause, to which the amused Shankar responded, "If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more." which confused the audience. Still, the audience well received the subsequent performance.[47] Although interest in Indian music had decreased in the early 1970s, thelive album from the concert became one of the best-selling recordings to feature the genre and won Shankar a second Grammy Award.[40][44]
As for Shankar and the sitar, they are extensions one of the other, each seeming to enter into the other's soul in one of the world's supreme musical arts. It is a thing inimitable, beyond words and forever new. For, as Shankar explained, 90 percent of all the music played was improvised.
He performed in Moscow in 1988,[55][56] with 140 musicians, including the Russian Folk Ensemble and members of the Moscow Philharmonic, along with his own group of Indian musicians.[55]
He served as a member of theRajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India, from 12 May 1986 to 11 May 1992, after being nominated by Indian Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi.[20][57] Shankar composed the dance dramaGhanashyam in 1989.[29] His liberal views on musical co-operation led him to contemporary composerPhilip Glass, with whom he released an album,Passages, in 1990,[12] in a project initiated byPeter Baumann of the bandTangerine Dream.
When George heard Indian music, that really was the trigger, it was like a bell that went off in his head. It not only awakened a desire to hear more music, but also to understand what was going on in Indian philosophy. It was a unique diversion.[70]: 114
Harrison became interested in Indian classical music, bought a sitar and used it to record the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".[73] In 1968, he went to India to take lessons from Shankar, some of which were captured on film.[74] This led to Indian music being used by other musicians and popularised theraga rock trend.[73] As the sitar and Indian music grew in popularity, groups such asthe Rolling Stones,the Animals andthe Byrds began using it in some of their songs.[55] The influence even extended to blues musicians such asMichael Bloomfield, who created a raga-influenced improvisation number, "East-West" (Bloomfield scholars have cited its working title as "The Raga" when Bloomfield and his collaboratorNick Gravenites began to develop the idea) for theButterfield Blues Band in 1966.
I think Ravi was rather taken aback, because he was a classical musician, and rock and roll was really out of his sphere. He thought it rather amusing that George took to him so much, but he and George really bonded. Ravi realised that it wasn't just a fashion for George, that he had dedication. Ravi had such integrity, and was someone to be respected, and at the same time huge fun. George hadn't really met anyone like that, and he really encouraged his interest.
Harrison met Shankar in London in June 1966 and visited India later that year for six weeks to studysitar under Shankar inSrinagar.[20][39][75] During the visit, a documentary film about Shankar namedRaga was shot by Howard Worth and released in 1971.[76][77] Shankar's association with Harrison greatly increased Shankar's popularity, and decades laterKen Hunt ofAllMusic wrote that Shankar had become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" by 1966.[8][39]
George Harrison organized the charityConcert for Bangladesh in August 1971, in which Shankar participated.[39][78] During the 1970s, Shankar and Harrison worked together again, recordingShankar Family & Friends in 1973 and touring North America the following year to a mixed response after Shankar had toured Europe with the Harrison-sponsoredMusic Festival from India.[79] Shankar wrote a second autobiography,Raga Mala, with Harrison as editor.
Shankar developed a style distinct from that of his contemporaries and incorporated influences from rhythm practices ofCarnatic music.[12] His performances begin with soloalap,jor, andjhala (introduction and performances with pulse and rapid pulse) influenced by the slow and seriousdhrupad genre, followed by a section withtabla accompaniment featuring compositions associated with the prevalentkhyal style.[12] Shankar often closed his performances with a piece inspired by the light-classicalthumri genre.[12]
Shankar has been considered one of the topsitar players of the second half of the 20th century.[46] He popularised performing on the bass octave of thesitar for thealap section and became known for a distinctive playing style in the middle and high registers that used quick and short deviations of the playing string and his sound creation through stops and strikes on the main playing string.[12][46] Narayana Menon ofThe New Grove Dictionary noted Shankar's fondness for rhythmic novelties, among them the use of unconventional rhythmic cycles.[80] Hans Neuhoff ofMusik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has argued that Shankar's playing style was not widely adopted and that he was surpassed by othersitar players in the performance of melodic passages.[46] Shankar's interplay with Alla Rakha improved appreciation fortabla playing inHindustani classical music.[46] Shankar promoted thejugalbandi duet concert style. Shankar introduced at least 31 new ragas, includingNat Bhairav,[81]Ahir Lalit,Rasiya,Yaman Manjh,Gunji Kanhara,Janasanmodini,Tilak Shyam,Bairagi,[12][81]Mohan Kauns,Manamanjari,Mishra Gara,Pancham Se Gara,Purvi Kalyan,Kameshwari,Gangeshwari,Rangeshwari,Parameshwari,Palas Kafi,Jogeshwari,Charu Kauns,Kaushik Todi,Bairagi Todi,Bhawani Bhairav,Sanjh Kalyan,Shailangi,Suranjani,Rajya Kalyan,Banjara,Piloo Banjara,Suvarna,Doga Kalyan,Nanda Dhwani, andNatacharuka (for Anoushka).[82][83] In 2011, at a concert recorded and released in 2012 asTenth Decade in Concert: Ravi Shankar Live in Escondido, Shankar introduced a new percussive sitar technique calledGoonga Sitar, whereby the strings are muffled with a cloth.[84]
On 7 April 2016 (his 96th birthday), Google published a Google Doodle to honour his work.[105] Google commented: "Shankar evangelized the use of Indian instruments in Western music, introducing the atmospheric hum of the sitar to audiences worldwide. Shankar's music popularized the fundamentals of Indian music, including raga, a melodic form and widely influenced popular music in the 1960s and 70s.".[106]
In September 2014, a postage stamp featuring Shankar was released byIndia Post commemorating his contributions.[107]
An affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, led to the birth ofNorah Jones in 1979.[108] He separated from Shastri in 1981 and lived with Jones until 1986.
He began an affair in 1978 with marriedtanpura player Sukanya Rajan, whom he had known since 1972,[108] which led to the birth of their daughterAnoushka Shankar in 1981. In 1989, he married Sukanya Rajan atChilkur Temple inHyderabad.[109]
Shankar's son, Shubhendra, often accompanied him on tours.[110] He could play thesitar andsurbahar, but elected not to pursue a solo career. Shubhendra died of pneumonia in 1992.[110]
Ananda Shankar, the experimental fusion musician, was his nephew.
His daughterNorah Jones became a successful musician, winning five Grammy Awards in 2003[111] and overall ten Grammy Awards as of 2025.[112]
Shankar was aHindu,[114] and a devotee of the Hindu godHanuman. He was also an "ardent devotee" of the Bengali Hindu saint,Sri Anandamayi Ma. Shankar used to visit Anandamayi Ma frequently and performed for her on various occasions. Shankar wrote of his hometown, Benares (Varanasi), and his initial encounter with "Ma":
Varanasi is the eternal abode of LordShiva, and one of my favorite temples is that of LordHanuman, the monkey god. The city is also where one of the miracles that have happened in my life took place: I met Ma Anandamayi, a great spiritual soul. Seeing the beauty of her face and mind, I became her ardent devotee. Sitting at home now in Encinitas, in Southern California, at the age of 88, surrounded by the beautiful greens, multi-colored flowers, blue sky, clean air, and the Pacific Ocean, I often reminisce about all the wonderful places I have seen in the world. I cherish the memories of Paris, New York, and a few other places. But Varanasi seems to be etched in my heart![115]
^Shankar declined to attend because of problems in his marriage, but recommended Ali Akbar Khan to play instead.[26] Khan reluctantly accepted and performed withtabla (percussion) playerChatur Lal in theMuseum of Modern Art, and he later became the first Indian classical musician to perform on American television and record a fullraga performance, forAngel Records.[27]
^Chatur Lal accompanied Shankar ontabla until 1962, when Alla Rakha assumed the role.[28]
^This performance was recorded and is available on CD.[68] The website of the Ravi Shankar Foundation provides the information that "The symphony was written in Indian notation in 2010, and has been interpreted by his student and conductor, David Murphy."[69] The information available on the website does not explain this process of "interpretation" of Ravi Shankar's notation by David Murphy, nor how Ravi Shankar's Indian notation could accommodate Western orchestral writing.
^Vasudev Vasanthi (2008).Harmony 4. Pearson Education India. p. 121.ISBN9788131725139.Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved16 August 2019.
^Associated Press (11 December 2012)."Sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92".Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.Archived from the original on 15 July 2022. Retrieved15 July 2022.Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half. 'If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more,' he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.
^Hume, Paul. "A Sensational Jam Session with India's Ravi Shankar",Washington Post, 11 September 1968.
^"राष्ट्रीय कालिदास सम्मान" [Rashtriya Kalidas Samman] (in Hindi). Department of Public Relations of Madhya Pradesh. 2006. Archived fromthe original on 23 September 2010. Retrieved29 July 2010.
Ghosh, Dibyendu (December 1983). "A Humble Homage to the Superb". In Ghosh, Dibyendu (ed.).The Great Shankars. Kolkata: Agee Prakashani. p. 7.OCLC15483971.
Ghosh, Dibyendu (December 1983). "Ravishankar". In Ghosh, Dibyendu (ed.).The Great Shankars. Kolkata: Agee Prakashani. p. 55.OCLC15483971.
Slawek, Stephen (2001). "Shankar, Ravi". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.).The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 23 (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers.ISBN0-333-60800-3.
