66 On the Mus-ical Modes 



The moft valuable work, that I have feen, and perhaps the moil valua^ 

 ble that exifts, on the fubjecl: of India?! mufick, is named Rdgavibodba, or 

 The Docln'/ie of Mujical Modes ; and it -ought here to be mentioned very par- 

 ticularly, becaufe none of the Pandits, in our provinces, nor any of thofe 

 from Cdji or CaJIjmir, to whom I have mown it, appear to have known 

 that it was 'extant ; and it may be considered as a treafure in the hiftory of 

 the art, which the zeal of Colonel PoLiER.has brought into light, and per- 

 haps has preferved from destruction. He had purchafed, among other 

 curiofities, a volume containing a number of feparate effays on mulick 

 in profe and verfe and in a great variety of idioms: beiides tracts, 

 in Arabick y Hindi and Perjian, it included a fhort cflay in Latin 

 by Alstedius, with an interlineary Perjian translation, in which 

 the paflages • quoted from Lucretius and Virgil made a lingular 

 appearance; but the brightefl gem in the firing was the Rdgavibodba* 

 which the Colonel permitted my Ndgari writer to transcribe, and the trans- 

 cript was diligently collated with the original by my Pandit and myfelf.. 

 It feems a very ancient composition, but is lefs old unqueitionably' than the' 

 Ratnaedra by Sa'rnga De'va, which is more than once mentioned in it, 

 and a copy of which Mr. Burrow procured in his journey to Heridwari 

 the name of the author was So'ma, and he appears to. have been a. practi- 

 cal mufician as well as a great fcholar and an elegant poet ;. for the whole 

 book, without excepting the Strains noted in letters, which, fill the fifth an& 

 and laft chapter of it, confifts of mafterly couplets in the melodious metre 

 called A'rya ; the jir/i, third, and jourth chapters explain the doctrine of 

 mufical founds, their divifion and fucceffion, the variations of fcales bjr 

 temperament, and the enumeration of modes on a fyftern totally different 

 from thofe, which will presently be mentioned ; and th.z fecond chapter con- 

 tains a minute ddcription of different Vinds with rules for playing on them,. 



