यदृच्छा (yadṛcchā)

In the last few years of playing music I have noticed a tendency to eschew playing from memory. Rather I poke around the instrument making weird sounds. I try a little chord, give up. I try a little melody, give up again. After a few such noisy oscillations, I arrive at silence. Three participants: instrument, myself and silence. From this emptiness a sound emerges. Sometimes in the mind sometimes from the instrument. I try not to identify which. The sound expands. Then contracts. At some point of time I helplessly observe as it turns into music. The music becomes the fourth participant. Or perhaps all participants disappear. Cannot say. But the moment I attempt to consider, a fleeting thought, the rapture ends abruptly. I lapse once again into noisy oscillations. Such a precarious state of awareness. Fragile, yet potent.

It was then that I thought the idea “of its own accord”. Naturally I thought it in Odia: ନିଜ ଇଚ୍ଛା (IPA: nidʒʌ itʃtʃʰaː). Per word translation: own desire. This prompted me to search for a single word that represents this concept. As it was quite a profound concept. It reminded me of the Taoist concept of Wu Wei. I searched for a Sanskrit word whose meaning was the same as, or closest to “of its own accord”. It is rare that one arrives at a word backward. One is aware of the meaning, the idea, still one seeks a more pithy representation. I googled this exact phrase: “sanskrit for of its own accord”, and struck gold at the very first result.

Yadṛcchā: spontaneous, accidental; states the first result on sanskritdictionary.com; more results mention by chance. The word is found! Further research revealed an obscure philosophy by the name of yadṛcchāvāda: accidentalism. Another related philosophy that appeared while searching is svabhāvavāda: naturalism. They were quite unorthodox philosophies even for ancient India. Here is an article on Indian philosophy that showed up. It is curious that yadṛcchāvāda points to acausal relationship. I cannot help but think of Carl Jung‘s concept of synchronicity. Also intriguing is the fact that I arrived at this word in the reverse order of events.

Last year me and a close musician friend of mine were discussing thermodynamics and the mysterious nonsensical ways in which songs emerge and he coined the word negentropy (reverse entropy: negative disorder) since neither of us could think of any word to describe the phenomenon. I believe this is that word. The word whose imaginary synonym is negentropy.

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