138 



Miscellanea. 



The accessible sources of knowledge of Indian music are 

 still only two — Sir Wm. Jones' Essay On the Musical 

 Notes of the Hindus, published in the third volume of the 

 A siatic Researches, p. 55, and J. D. Patterson, On the Grdmal 

 or musical scales of the Hindus, Ibid. IX, 445. The fol- 

 lowing neat statement of the chief points established in 

 these essays is translated from the fourth volume of Lassen's 

 Indische Alterthumskunde, ss. 832, 833 : " The native mu- 

 sical literature is tolerably copious, and the Indians are ac- 

 quainted with four systems, whose founders, as usual with 

 them, are mythical personages. The first system is ascribed 

 to Devarshi Narada, who in the epic poetry appears as well- 

 skilled in stories, and goes about between the Gods and 

 men, to recite tales to them. From him I'cvara or Qiva re- 

 ceived this system. The author of the second system is 

 Bharata, the mythic inventor of the dramatic art : 

 the author of the third, is the divine ape Hanumat, 

 and that of the fourth, Kapila, the founder of the 

 Sankhya-philosophy. These assertions of course only mean 

 that the Indians attached a high value to the practice 

 of music; and this view is confirmed by the circum- 

 stance that in the epic mythology the Gandharvas appear 

 as musicians in Indra's heaven. For the antiquity of song 

 amongst the Indians, it is important to observe that the 

 Udgatar i. e. the priest who sings the sdman, belongs to 

 the Vedic period. As to later times we may refer to 

 the fact that in the Mricchakatika Rebhila is praised as 

 a renowned singer. 



" The Indians are acquainted with our scale of seven tones, 

 and denote them by letters [sa } ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni\ They 

 admit, moreover, six ragas'or modes, and the musical treatises 

 contain minute directions as to the employment of them in 

 the six seasons into which the year is divided. The Indians 

 have also mythologised these ideas, and regard the six ragas 

 as godlike beings, whose consorts are called Raginis and are 

 eight in number. These couples produce forty-eight sons 

 called rdgaputras, by whom the various mixtures of the 

 chief modes are denoted. This view furnishes a very 

 striking example of the boundlessness of Indian imagination, 

 as it is impossible really to distinguish so many modes from 

 one another. In some MSS. are found portraits of these two 

 and sixty male and female genii. A more accurate investi- 

 gation of the musical writings of the Indians would be high- 



