6$ On the Musical Modes 



are four principal Mains, orfyft'ems, the firft of which is afcribed to Iswa- 

 ra, or Osiris i the fecond to Bherat; the third to Hanumat, or 

 Pa Van, the Pan of India, fuppofed to be the fon of Pavana, the 

 regent of air; and the fourth to Callina't'h, a Rijhi, or Indian philo- 

 fopher, eminently fkilled in mufick, theoretical and practical : all four are 

 mentioned by Soma ; and it is the third of them, which muft be very 

 ancient, and feems to have been extremely popular, that I propofe 

 to explain after a few introductory remarks ; but I may here obferve 

 with Soma, who exhibits a fyftem of his own, and with the author 

 of the Ndrdyan, who mentions a great many others, that almoft every 

 kingdom and province had a peculiar ftyle of melody, and very different 

 names for the modes, as well as a different arrangement and enumeration of 

 them. 



The two phenomena, which have already been ftated as the foundation, 

 ©f mufical modes, could not long have efcaped the attention of the Hindus , 

 and their flexible language readily fuppKed them with names for the fevers 

 Swaras, or founds, which they difpofe in the following order, Jha'dja, 

 pronounced fharja, rijhabha, gdndhara, madhyama, panebama, dbaivaia; 

 nijhada ; but the firft of them is emphatically named fwara, or the found, 

 from the important office, which it bears in the fcale ; and hence, by 

 taking the feven initial letters or fyllables of thofe words, tbey contrived a 

 notation for their airs, and at the fame time exhibited a gamut, at leaff. as 

 convenient as that of Gu i do : they call it fwaragrama or feptaea.. and ex- 

 prefs it in this form : 



Sa, ri t ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, 

 three of which fyllables are, by a lingular concurrence, exactly the fame*, 





