A Comparative Study of Some of the Leading Music Systems of the 15th, 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries c10.6

c10.6

The ancient writers are fond of defining the sruti as a sound devoid of "anuranan". When a shruti has the "anuranan" added to it, it becomes a swara. I do not think they had any clear notion of this fine distinction. This leads to the question what is "anuranan". Some of our modern scholars, read the modern "harmonics" into that ancient term. I do not think, of course their view is right. The ancients so far as could be judged from their writings had no knowledge of our modern harmonics, "Anuranan" according to them was nothing more than a prolonged or sustained note. Pandit Kallinatha I think, in one place calls it "pratidhwani". In the vadyadhyaya while describing the different "guna's or qualities of वश प्रकरण in the फूत्कार Sharangdeva says —