The Music of Hindostan c11.14

c11.14

But the truer explanation of this deep-seated feeling is more likely to lie in the history of *Rāga*, as far as we may hope to know it. What is antecedently probable, and, indeed, is evident from the data in the first two chapters of this book, is that songs were sung long before *Rāga* as such was formulated. The Hindu account is that there were four sources of *Rāg*: (1) local tribal song, (2) poetical creations, (3) the devotional songs of the mystics, and (4) the labours of the scientific musicians. The principal ground for this belief is, no doubt, that all four causes are in full operation in India to-day, and are evolving the *Rāgs* of the next thousand years; a secondary reason for thinking it to be the case is to be found in the names of *Rāgs* such as (1) *Kānaḍā*, the Carnatic; (2) *Hindol*, a swing; (3) *Jogi*, a mystic; (4) *Sārang*, from Sāraṅgadeva, a musician of the thirteenth century. The most important of these sources, because the most constant and widespread and unconscious, is the first—tribal song. Unfortunately, we do not yet possess nearly sufficient data to enable us to trace the actual formation of *Rāga* from this source, for India; but we may get an idea of it from our own Folk-song.