A Comparative Study of Some of the Leading Music Systems of the 15th, 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries c4.s1.1

c4.s1.1

This is another work by the same author. It is much more interesting than the Koutuka. In this book the author describes the position of the shuddha and vikrita swaras in terms of the lengths of the sounding strings of the Vina. The classification of the ragas also is instructive and more scientific. Ahobala in his Sangeet Parijata also, describes his swaras in terms of the lengths of the sounding string as we shall see hereafter. But we do not know whether he got that idea from Hrdaya's book. Some scholars on the contrary suspect that Hrdaya took the idea from Ahobala. There is no reliable evidence on the point but there are two facts which may lend some colour to the last mentioned suspicion. Hrdaya in his Koutuka omits to fix the positions of his shuddha and vikrita swaras in terms of the lengths of the strings. And secondly, Sangeeta Parijata is a much more elaborate work than the Hrdaya Prakasha. All will depend therefore upon the question whether or not the Parijat was written before the Prakasha.