The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c5.19

c5.19

Religion, bound up as it is with almost everything in India, naturally exercises a most powerful influence upon all the arts, and upon music especially. The earliest use of music was doubtless for religious purposes. Hindu music can hardly be said to have ever shaken itself free from being in some way or other connected with the religion of the country, traces of which are everywhere apparent. Almost all the books, especially the most ancient, relating to the art contain constant references to mythological traditions. The language used is at times so figurative that in many cases no one but a finished scholar can decipher its real purport. More importance is paid to such trifling details as the proper attributes—colour, caste, or wives—of each deified melody type (râga) or mode (thât) than to the arrangements of notes which compose it and to the practical directions for its performance. Each note, scale, râga, and measure is canonized, and long chapters are devoted to the description of the habitations, wives, raiment, &c., of these demigods and nymphs. Much valuable information can of course be gleaned from these books, but many of them contain a good deal of what is quite useless to the musician, though most interesting from an antiquarian point of view. Besides these Sanskrit works, there are few books upon the art existing.