The Indian national anthem and the Jaffna Hindu College anthem: which came first? Musical matches and unanswered historical questions from an AI study

Is there a musical connection between the anthem of Jaffna Hindu College, founded in 1890, and Rabindranath Tagore's "Jana Gana Mana," composed in 1911? An early-stage study, dated November 3, 2026, compared the two recordings using mathematics, computational musicology and historical evidence.

The study examined whether musical similarities exist between the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" and the historic Jaffna Hindu College anthem "Vazhiya Yazhnagar Hindu Kalluri." The two recordings were compared using computational musicology methods - Python, Librosa, digital signal processing and Chroma-based similarity analysis.

In the computer comparison, the maximum average Chroma similarity score between selected musical segments was 0.992, and the maximum time-series-based Chroma similarity score was 0.594.

These scores show mathematical similarities in some musical features of the two anthems. But they do not prove that the main melodies of the two are one and the same, or that one anthem was copied from the other.

Historically, Jaffna Hindu College was founded in 1890. "Jana Gana Mana" was composed in 1911 and first sung on December 27 that year. However, no firm historical document has yet been found establishing the year in which the Jaffna Hindu College anthem was first composed and set to music.

Therefore, on the basis of current evidence, it is not possible to determine conclusively which of the two anthems was created first, or whether there was any musical influence between them.

The study presents scientifically both the musical similarities between the two anthems and the unanswered historical questions about their chronology.