Days after sitarist-musician Anoushka Shankar questioned sitar player Rishab Rikhiram Sharma's claim of being the youngest and last disciple of her father, sitar legend Pandit Ravi Shankar, the Ravi Shankar Institute for Music and Performing Arts on Friday termed the claims as "incorrect".

The official statement, signed by Amitavaa Ghosh, director of the Ravi Shankar Centre, noted that the centre "does not seek to diminish" and only seeks to correct "inaccurate timelines, misperceptions around the nature and amount of instruction given by Guru ji, and the confusion around the term 'disciple'".

In an interview with Humans of Bombay recently, Anoushka Shankar had said that Sharma's association with her family got "blown up into some story of him being his last disciple or the youngest disciple".

"We knew him from childhood because he was the son of our instrument maker Sanjay Rikhiram Sharma...But he is super talented and deserves all successes with or without that story"," she said.

Sharma's team later issued a statement in which it claimed that Ravi Shankar had personally called Sanjay Sharma to bring his 13-year-old son for the "Ganda Bandhan ceremony" on January 3, 2012.

"Sukanya Shankar noted that during their stay in the USA she had shown Panditji a YouTube recording of Rishab performing Raag Tilak Kamod at a Sanjay Rikhi Ram Vadya Parampara event in New Delhi on February 10, 2011. After reviewing the recording again on the morning of 3rd January, Pandit Ravi Shankar decided to accept Rishab as shishya, intending to personally nurture his potential," the statement read.

However, the centre claimed that an informal string tying took place on January 3, 2012, but only at the "persuasion of Rishabh's father and due to the affection for the young child".

"Such ceremony was neither conducted as a formal “Ganda-Bandhan Ceremony" nor was it conducted according to traditional custom. In the mentioned informal ceremony, as is otherwise traditional and essential, no priest was present, there was no prepared ceremonial thread, no formal announcement was made, and no other students or extended family and friends were invited.

"For the record, other than Guruji and his wife, from the Centre only Guruji's one senior disciple, namely, Parimal Sadaphal was present. Guruji did not conduct a formal initiation discourse, and he did not conduct several hours of teaching that day. The mentioned ceremony was entirely impromptu. The event has been retrospectively amplified beyond what occurred," the centre said.

Ghosh said that between January 3, 2012 and March 9, 2012, when Ravi Shankar returned to the US, he along with Sadaphal gave a "few classes to Rishab. There were no several hours sessions".

Ravi Shankar died in the US on December 12, 2012.

"Any claim of prolonged, ongoing or remotely supervised instruction by Guruji to Rishab beyond 9 March 2012 is therefore incorrect," he said.

The centre also refuted Sharma's claim of being the youngest and last disciple of Ravi Shankar and said that the youngest disciples were Shubhendra Rao and Anoushka Shankar, while the last disciples were Nishad Gadgil and Dr Scott Eisman.

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