op the Hindus. 63 



and cornpofed by a very learned man, fo generally called Allami Sb/rdzi, or 

 the great pbifofopber of Sb/raz, that his proper name is almoft forgotten j 

 But, as the modern Perjians had accefs, I believe, to Ptolemy's harmo- 

 nicks, their mathematical writers on mufick treat it rather as a fcience 

 than as an art, and feem, like the Greeks, to be more intent on fplitting 

 tones into quarters and eighth parts, of which they compute the ratios to 

 il ow their arithmetick, than on dxfplaying the principles of modulation, as 

 it may affect the pafTions. I apply the fame obfervation to a fhort, but maf- 

 terly, tract of the famed Abu'si'n a', and fufpect that it is applicable to an 

 elegant effay in Perjian, called Shamfulajwat, of which I have not had cou- 

 rage to read more than the preface. It will be fufHcient to fubjoin on 

 this head, that the Perjians diftribute their eighty-four modes, according to 

 an idea of locality, into twelve rooms, twenty-four recejfes, and forty-eight 

 angles or corners : in the beautiful tale, known by the title of the Four Der- 

 vifes, originally written in Perjia with great purity and elegance, we find 

 the defcription of a concert, where four fingers, with as many different in- 

 ftruments, are reprefented *• modulating in twelve makdms or perdabs, twenty- 

 " four ftobabs, and forty-eight gujhahs, and beginning a mirthful fong of 

 " Ha'fiz on vernal delight in the perdab named raft, or direct. " All 

 the twelve perdabs, with their appropriated' Jhobahs, are enumerated by 

 Ami'h, a writer and muiician oi Hindu ft an, who mentions an opinion of 

 the learned, that only /even primary modes were in ufe before the reign of 

 Parvt'z, whofe mufical entertainments are magnificently defcribed by the 

 incomparable Niza'm 1 : the modes are chiefly denominated, like thofe of 

 the Greeks and Hindus, from different regions or towns ; as, among the 

 p<rdubs, wefee H'jaz, Irak, Isfahan; and, among the Jbdbabs, or fecend- 

 aty modes, ZabuL, NiJJjapiir, and the like. In a Sanfc/it book, which mail 

 Ijow be- particularly mentioned, I find the fcale of a mode, named Hijcja p 



