South Asian Studies

Overview of the Collection

The Music Library holds a select collection of commercially produced South Asia recordings, with over 1,700 recordings.  It is the largest collection of non-Western music held at Duke and compares favorably to the collections held by the small handful of universities that have collected South Asian recordings in depth.  The bulk of the collection is comprised of record albums and cassettes, with call numbers preceded by LPI and SCI respectively, though nowadays mostly CDs are being received.

The diverse collection consists of works by the renowned music maestros in various Gharanas (traditions) of Hindustani and Karnatic classical, vocal and instrumental music; popular songs, film music, and folk songs. North Indian recordings are generally much more strongly represented in the collection than recordings from other regions of South Asia.  In acquisition of  'non-classical' recordings, emphasis is mostly on the South Asian languages currently taught at Duke, UNC, NCSU, and NCCU - namely, Bengali, Hindi & Urdu, Persian, and Tamil – rather than on languages not currently taught.

Searching the Collection

For listings of print sources and recordings search under the following subject headings in the online catalog of Duke and the other TRLN universities:

                                    Bhajans – Braj (Gujarati, Hindi, etc.)

                                    Carnatic music.

                                    Dhrupad.

                                    Folk music – India  (Pakistan, etc.)

                                    Folk songs, Bengali (Hindi, etc.)

                                    Ghazals.

                                    Hindustani music.

                                    Instrumental music – India (etc.)

                                    Islamic music.

                                    Khayal.

                                    Kritis.

                                    Motion picture music – India (etc.)

                                    Music – India (Bangladesh, etc.)

                                    Music – India – Religious aspects (also under other South Asian countries).

                                    Popular music – India (etc.)

                                    Qawwali.

                                    Ragas.

                                    Songs, Hindi (Bengali, etc.)

                                    Songs, Hindustani.

                                    Songs – India (Pakistan, etc.)

                                    Sufi music.

                                    Tala

                                    Thumris.

                                    Vaishnava music.

                                    Vocal music – India (etc.)

For instrumental music see under the names of the individual instruments, such as:  Flute music – India,  Santur and Tabla music, Sarangi and Tabla Music, Sarod music, Sarod and Tabla music, Shehnai music, Sitar music, Sitar and Tabla music, Tabla music, etc.

See also under the names of the individual singers, players or composers. For works by and about musicians see under: Musicians – India (Pakistan, etc.), Singers – India (Bangladesh, etc.). 

For an annotated musicography and videography of Indian music recordings at Duke, please consult this PDF document.