306 Lieut. -Colonel Tod on the Religious Establishments of Mezvar. 



Greeks, following the Egyptians, had but six notes, with their lettered 

 symbols ; and it was reserved for the Italians to add a seventh. Guido 

 Aretine, a monk in the thirteenth century, has the credit of this. I how- 

 ever believe the Hindus numbered their's from the heavenly bodies — the 

 Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, — hence they had 

 the regular octave, with its semitones : and as, in the pruriency of their 

 fancy, they converted the ascending and descending notes into grahas, or 

 planetary bodies, so they may have added them to the harmonious numbers, 

 and produced the no-ragini, their nine modes of music* 



Could we affirm that the hymns composed and set to music by Jydeva, 

 nearly three thousand years ago, and yet chaunted in honour of tlie Apollo 

 of Vrij, had been handed down with the sentiments of these mystic com- 

 positions (and Sir W. Jones sanctions the idea), we sliould say from their 

 simplicity, that the musicians of that age had only the diatonic scale ; 

 but we have every reason to believe, from the very elaborate character of 

 their written music, which is painful and almost discordant to the ear from 

 its minuteness of subdivision, that they had also the chromatic scale, said to 

 have been invented by Timotheus in the time of Alexander, who might 

 have carried it from the banks of the Indus, then peopled witli tiie worship- 

 pers of Crishna. In the mystic dance called the Ras-ma7idala, yet imitated 

 on the annual festival sacred to the Hindu Apollo, Crishna is represented with 

 a radiant crown, his legs crossed in a dancing attitude, playing on the murali 

 or flute, to the nymphs encircling him, who all hold musical instruments. 

 Each nymph represents a passion (rasa) : hence the no-rasa, or ' nine pas- 

 sions,' excited by the powers of harmony. These nymphs are also called 

 the no-ragini, from rdga, a mode of song over which each presides. May 

 we not in this trace the origin of Apollo and the sacred nine ? In the 



* An account of the state of musical science amongst tlie Hindus of early ages, and a 

 comparison between it and that of Europe, is yet a desideratum in Oriental literature. From 

 what we already know of the science, it appears to have attained a theoretical precision yet 

 imknown to Europe, and that, at a period when even Greece was little removed from barbarism. 

 The inspirations of the bards of the first ages were all set to music; and the children of the 

 most powerful potentates of both races {Suryn and Cliandra) sang the episodes of the great 

 epics of Valmika and Vyasu. There is a distinguished member of our Society, and perhaps, 

 the only one, who could fill up this hiatus; and we may hope that the leisure and inclination of 

 the Right Honourable Sir Gore Ouseley will tempt him to enlighten us on this most interesting 

 point. 



