o- f • t h e Hindu s.- 7.1 



Tranfactions j and I now exhibit a fcale of its finger board, which I receiv- 

 ed from him with the drawing of the inftrument, and on the correctnefs of 

 which you may confidently depend : the regular Indian gamut anfwers, I be- 

 lieve, pretty nearly to our major mode; 



Ltf, re j mi, fa r fol la-, ji, ut\ 

 and, when the fame fyllables are applied to the notes, which compofe oar 

 minor mode v they are diftinguifhed by epithets exprefiing the change, 

 which ■ they fuffer. It m'r.y be neceffary to add, before we come to the 

 Rcgas, or modes of the Hindus, that the' twenty-one murcKhanas, which 

 Mr. Shore's native mufician confounded with the two and twenty srutis, 

 appear to be no^more than ^^■zfpecies of diapafom multiplied by three, ac- 

 cording to the difference of pitch in the compafs of three octaves. 



Ra'ga, which I tranflate a mode, properly fignifies zpajjion or ajfeftion of 

 themind,. each mode being intended, according to Bherat's definition of 

 it, to move one or another of our fimple or mixed affections ; and we 

 learn accordingly from the Ndrayan, that, in the days of Crishna, 

 there were fixt'een ihoufund modes* each of the Gopzs at Mat'hura chufing 

 to fmg in one of them, in-order to cjptivate the heart of their paftoral God. 

 The very leariied So'ma, who mixes no mythology with his accurate 

 fyftem of Rdgas, enumerates nine hundred andjixty poffible variations by the 

 means of temparament, but fclects from them, as applicable to practice, 

 only twenty-three primary modes, from which he deduces many others ; 

 though he allows, that, by a diverfity of ornament and by various contri- 

 vances, the Rdgas might, like the waves of the fea, be multiplied to an 

 infinite number. We have already obferved, that eighty-four .modes or 

 manners, might naturally be formed by giving the lead to each of our twelve 

 founds, and varying in /even different ways- the pofition of the femitones ; 



