Author: Somali Panda
Affiliation: Independent Researcher; Sonic-Historiographer; Musicologist; Founder President, Indus Band Foundation, India; Professional in Information & Cultural affairs sector
Email: somalipanda@gmail.com
Mode of Presentation: Oral
Abstract
Contemporary discourses on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) increasingly acknowledge culture as a contributor to sustainable development; however, heritage is still largely positioned as symbolic expression or preservable practice rather than as a functional knowledge system. This paper argues that sustainability frameworks remain structurally incomplete unless cultural memory systems—particularly oral and sonic traditions—are recognised as foundational infrastructure for social continuity, resilience, and intergenerational transmission.
Drawing upon the concept of SHABD—sound as word, vibration, harmony and cacophony, and meaning—the paper theorizes sound as a living epistemic resource through which memory is archived, activated, and regenerated. It proposes a three-tiered understanding of memory: individual memory embodied in the practitioner; cumulative memory sustained through repetitive oral transmission; and memory as cultural archive, where sound operates as a non-material, community-owned repository of knowledge. Within this framework, oral tradition is situated as the primary mode of civilizational documentation, progressing from collective orality to shruti (“that which is heard”) and subsequently to ancient literary corpora, where written texts emerge as secondary stabilisations of earlier sonic knowledge.
The paper further demonstrates how performance traditions—such as operatic vocal transmission, Pat Chitrakatha in Bengal, and African oral genealogical practices—function as living memory archives, sustaining ethical, ecological, and social knowledge across generations. These traditions reveal sound not merely as cultural expression but as an operational mechanism for cohesion, education, and well-being.
Aligning SHABD-based memory systems with Sustainable Development Goals—particularly SDGs 3, 4, 10, and 11—the paper advances a policy-oriented argument for integrating sonic and oral epistemologies into people-centred cultural governance and development planning. It
concludes by proposing a shift from preservation-centric heritage models toward memory-activation frameworks, positioning SHABD as the spine of sustainable cultural futures.
Keywords: Intangible Cultural Heritage; Cultural Memory and Oral Traditions; Sonic Knowledge Systems (SHABD); Sustainable Development; Living Heritage; Sound as Cultural Archive
Migrating Music 
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