Page:The Music of India.djvu/82

66 Indian rāgas are also supposed to be able to reproduce the conditions and emotions associated with them. The Dīpak rāga is supposed to produce flames in actuality; and a story is told of a famous musician named Naik Gopāl who, when ordered to sing this by the Emperor Akbar, went and stood in the Jumna up to his neck and then started the song. The water became gradually hotter until it was boiling, and he went on singing until flames burst out of his body and he was consumed to ashes. The Megh mallār rāga is supposed to be able to produce rain. It is said that a dancing girl in Bengal, in a time of drought, once drew from the clouds with this rāga a timely refreshing shower which saved the rice crop. Sir W. Ousley, who relates many of these anecdotes, says that he was told by Bengal people that this power of reproducing the actual conditions of the rāga is now only possessed by some musicians in western India, and by people in western India that such musicians can only be found in Bengal.

There are many interesting anecdotes told with reference to rāgas. One of these relates a story of a southern musician named Toḍī Sītāramāyya,—so-called on account of his fondness for the rāga Toḍī,—who was a musician at the court of the Mahārāja Sarabhoji of Tanjore in the last century. The musician got into serious money difficulties, and was forced by the money lender to whom he went to mortgage his favourite rāga Toḍī for the loan he obtained, under the condition that until the money was repaid he should not sing it before any one. It was not long before Sarabhoji missed his favourite rāga and asked his musician to sing it. He explained why he could not do so; and then the Mahārāja laughed heartily at the cuteness of the moneylender and paid up the loan, besides rewarding the moneylender for his keen appreciation of the value of music. Another story is told of a prince, who was not possessed of sufficient musical knowledge to recognize the different rāgas when they were played or sung, and so arranged with a princess, who was well versed in music, to help him by means of a special prompting apparatus. This consisted of a set of strings, hardly visible at a distance, suspended from above, directly opposite the principal