of the Hindus. 67 



This book alone would enable me, were I mailer of my time, to compofe a 

 treatife on the mufick of India, with affiftance, in the practical part, from 

 an European profeifor and a native player on the Vina ; but I have leifure 

 only to prefent you with an effay, and even that, I am confeious, mult be 

 very fuperficial : it may be fometimes.but, I truft, not often, erroneous; and 

 I have fpared no pains to fecure myfelf from errour. 



In the literature of the Hindus all nature is animated and perfonified 5 

 every fine art is declared to have been revealed from heaven; and all know- 

 ledge, divine and human, is traced to its fource in the Vedas ; among which 

 t! e Sdmaveda was intended to be fung, whence the reader, or finger of it is 

 called Udgdtri or Sdmaga : in Colonel Polier's copy of it the drains are 

 noted in figures, which it may not be importable to decypher. On account 

 of this diftin&ion, fay the Brdbmens, the Jupreme preserving power, 

 in the form of Crishna, having enumerated in the Git a various or- 

 ders of beings, to the chief of which he compares himfelf, pronoun- 

 ces, that " among the Vedas he was the Saman. " From that Veda was 

 accordingly -derived the TJ pave da of the Gandharbas, or muficians in 

 Indra's heaven; fo that the. divine art was communicated to our fpe- 

 ciesby Brahma' himfelf, or by his atlive power Seres wati', the Goddefs 

 of Speech ; and their mythological fon Na'red, who was in truth an an- 

 cient lawgiver and aftronomer, invented the Vina, called alfo CacFhapt, 

 or Tejludo ; a very remarkable fact, which may be added to the other 

 proofs of a refemblance between that Indian God, and the Mercury of 

 the Lafians. Among infpired mortals the firfr. mufician is believed to 

 have been the fage Bherat, who was the inventor, they fay, of Ndtacs, 

 or dramas, reprefentcd with fongs and dances, and author of a mufical 

 fyftem, which bears his name. If we can rely on Mi'rzakiia'n, there 



la 



