The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan c9.227

c9.227

Hindustani music in some respects differs from the system previously described, and which is called Karnâtik. It has been much copied from the latter, but its professors are not often men of much education; and though many of them are skilled executants, their knowledge of the theory of their art is, as a general rule, but small. In Hindustani music more attention is paid to the minute distinction between the various râgas than to the actual melody itself. To melodic form the same importance is not attached. The nomenclature of Hindustani and Karnâtik râgas differs, but musicians everywhere quote the Sangíta Ratnâkera as their principal authority. They also say that, apart from Arabian and Persian innovations, the difference between the systems of music prevalent in the North and South of India is accounted for by the fact that in the former that of Hanumân is preferred, while the Southern music is a relic of the earliest system of Nârada.