Chronological Visualization of the Evolution of Indian Music: Design, Content and Critical Evaluation of a Bilingual (Sinhala–English) Interactive Timeline Application

Visualization of the Evolution of Indian Music: Design,Content and Critical Evaluation of a Bilingual (Sinhala–English) Interactive Timeline Application J.A.U. Prabhashana and Nimna Preshani Department of Musicology, University of the Visual and Performing Arts (UVPA), Sri Lanka Nimna Preshani: faculty of music, University of the visual and performing arts. Corresponding author: J.A.U. Prabhashana — [email protected] Abstract The history of Indian music spans more than thirty millennia of material evidence and some two thousand years of theoretical writing, yet it is rarely taught to Sinhala-speaking students as a single connected narrative. This paper describes and critically evaluates Evolution of Indian Music, a bilingual (Sinhala–English) interactive timeline application developed by the authors (Prabhashana & Preshani, 2026). The application organises the history of Indian music into twelve eras, from prehistoric archaeoacoustics (c. 30,000 BCE) to computational musicology, and pairs each era with three to four evidence-based statements and a custom visual. Using a content-analytic and design-analytic method, the paper (1) maps the application's content to the primary treatises and secondary scholarship on which it relies, (2) analyses its interface and data architecture, and (3) identifies strengths, limitations and corrections needed before wider classroom use. Three conceptual threads emerge from the twelve eras: the progressive formalisation of pitch (from three Vedic accents to twelve fretted or string-divided notes), the transition from ritual and theatrical contexts to concert and institutional contexts, and the growing role of technology in transmission. The paper concludes that single-file, bilingual timeline applications are a viable low-cost model for music-history pedagogy in Sri Lanka, provided that sources are cited at the statement level and contested claims are flagged. A declaration on the researchers' use of AI as a language and organising tool is included. Keywords: Indian music history; musicology education; interactive timeline; Sinhala–English bilingual learning; Nāṭyaśāstra; rāga; śruti; digital humanities