The Music of Hindostan c12.61

c12.61

Grace is so natural an accompaniment of any non-harmonic music that it may seem idle to search for a reason for it. Yet in the music of India it is so elaborate and so integral a part of song that it is tempting to try to account for it in some way. It seems as if the language may have been at least a contributory cause. When two vowels meet in Sanskrit, except in a few special cases they coalesce; and the compound thus formed was marked in the *Rigveda* with the circumflex accent called *Svarita* (‘sounded’), which had half a dozen or more names according to the particular vowels which were in question. When the *Rigveda* accents (there were two others) were employed in the *Sāmaveda*, that is, in the chants to which the *Rigveda* was sung, they took the form of musical notes; and the *Svarita* in particular was a high note with ‘grace’ attached to it. It is natural to conclude, therefore, that the ‘deflect’, as we have called it when it appears in instrumental music, represents that ‘grace’ and is traceable to this peculiar treatment of the vowels.