Page:The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan.djvu/25

 CHAPTER I.

Indian music — How chani^ed in the course of years — Its decline under Mahomedan rule — Hindu ideas of music — How encouraged in the South of India — Connection with religion — Influence of religion upon music— Legends— Difficulty of deciphering the ancient treatises — How differing from European music — Most noticeable peculiarities.

AMONG the many arts and industries of India gradually decaying from want of patronage, but which, since the accession of the British Government, have again been fostered and encouraged, that of music has hitherto found no place. To Europeans it is certainly the least known of all Indian arts. Almost every traveller in India comes away with the idea that the music of the country consists of mere noise and nasal drawling of the most repulsive kind, often accompanied by contortions and gestures of the most ludicrous description. Perhaps the traveller may have fancied that he has seen a nautch — he has possibly been asked to some such entertainment at the house of a wealthy native ; or, more likely, he has possessed a treasure of a "boy," who has been able to make the necessary arrangements with the " nautchnees " for a performance of the kind. But in certainly two-thirds of such cases the singing and dancing witnessed has been ot the commonest, and the performers of the most abandoned and depraved of the citv — and the traveller has therefore received a false impression, which may abide through life, or impede the progress of a more correct appreciation ot the real value of Indian music. But it is hardly fair that an art so little really understood, even among the natives of India themselves, should be judged by such a criterion and then put aside as worthless because solitary individuals have been deceived by parties of outcast charlatans whose object is mere gain. For that Indian music is an art, and a very intricate and difficult one too, can hardly be denied. But to appreciate it one must first put away all thought of European music, and then judge of it by an Indian standard, and impartially upon its own merits — of the