Page:Madras journal of literature and science 3rd series 1, July 1864.djvu/150

138 The accessible sources of knowledge of Indian music are still only two—Sir Wm. Jones' Essay On the Musical Notes of the Hindús, published in the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, p. 55, and J. D. Patterson, On the Grâmal or musical scales of the Hindús, Ibid. IX, 445. The following neat statement of the chief points established in these essays is translated from the fourth volume of Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, ss. 832, 833: "The native musical literature is tolerably copious, and the Indians are acquainted with four systems, whose founders, as usual with them, are mythical personages. The first system is ascribed to Devarshi Nárada, who in the epic poetry appears as well-skilled in stories, and goes about between the Gods and men, to recite tales to them. From him I′çvara or Çiva received this system. The author of the second system is Bharata, the mythic inventor of the dramatic art: the author of the third, is the divine ape Hánumat, and that of the fourth, Kapila, the founder of the Sánkhya-philosophy. These assertions of course only mean that the Indians attached a high value to the practice of music; and this view is confirmed by the circumstance that in the epic mythology the Gandharvas appear as musicians in Indra's heaven. For the antiquity of song amongst the Indians, it is important to observe that the Udgátar i. e. the priest who sings the sâman, belongs to the Vedic period. As to later times we may refer to the fact that in the Mṛicchakaṭika Rebhila is praised as a renowned singer.

"The Indians are acquainted with our scale of seven tones, and denote them by letters [sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni]. They admit, moreover, six rágas or modes, and the musical treatises contain minute directions as to the employment of them in the six seasons into which the year is divided. The Indians have also mythologised these ideas, and regard the six rágas as godlike beings, whose consorts are called Rágiṇîs and are eight in number. These couples produce forty-eight sons called râgaputras, by whom the various mixtures of the chief modes are denoted. This view furnishes a very striking example of the boundlessness of Indian imagination, as it is impossible really to distinguish so many modes from one another. In some MSS. are found portraits of these two and sixty male and female genii. A more accurate investigation of the musical writings of the Indians would be high-