SONG.
Sir, HELL I Stir, Glatt, . . . SANSK.
Geet, . . . . lituu.
Out of the 64 sciences of the Hindus, five, Nos. 22 to 26, belong to music, viz. the modulation of sounds, art of playing on stringed instruments, of playing on wind instruments, of beating the tam bourine, and of beating the cymbals. The musical notation extensively used by Curwen resembles the IIindu system. Sir William Jones' Essay on the Musical Notes of the Ifindus was published in the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, p. 55, and J. D. Patterson on the Gram], or 3Iusical Scales of the Hindus, ibid. ix. p. 445; and the chief points established in these essays aro thus given in the fourth volurae of Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, §§ 832, 833. The native musical literature is tolerably copious, and tho Indians aro acquainted 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. Front him 'swam or Siva received this system. The author of the second system is Ilharata, the mythic inventor of the dmunatic art ; the author of the third ix the divine ape Hanuman • and that of the fourth Kapila, the founder of' the Sankhya philosophy. These assertions, of cottrse, only mean that the Hindus 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 MUSIC111.118 Indra's heaven. For the antiquity of song amongst the Hindus, it ia im portant to observe that the Udgatar, i.e. the priest who sings the Raman, belongs to the Vedic period. As to later timea, we may refer to the
fact that, in the Mrich' chakat ika, Rebhila is praised as a renowned singer. The i ndus are acquainted with the European scale of seven tons, and denote them by letters (sa, ri, ga, Ina, pa, dila, ni). They admit, moreover, six raga or modes, and the musical treatises contain minute directiona as to the employment of them in the six Reasons into which the year is divided. The Ilindus have also mythologized these ideas, and regard the six raga as god-like being's, whose consorts are called Ragini, and are eight in number. These couples produce 48 sons, called Ragaputra, by whom the various mixtures of the chief modes are denoted. This view furnishes a very striking example of the boundlessness of Hindu imagination, as it is im possible really to distinguish so many modes front one another. In some MSS. are found portraits of these two and 60 male and female geoii. The people of India generally take no advantage of the wonderful power, range, flexibility, and sweet ness of the musical sounds producible by the. human larynx, especially in the female sex. Singing amongst the Muhamtnadans of India is never indulged in by any but professional men and public women ; no woman of the Muham =dans sings even to her infant child. Individuals of some Hindu sects, particularly the Jain, are occasionally heard singing, but it is confined to the Hindu women of thc temples of their deities, and to the singing bands of the Muhamtnadan women and Burmese. With the uncultivated aboriginal races, the efforts at singing is a mere howling.