The Music of Hindostan c14.11

c14.11

The mṛdāṅga and dhol are respectively barrel-shaped and cylindrical. The tabla, left and right, are of the shape of a giant tea-cup and coffee-cup respectively; the left is tucked into the crook of the knee, the right is propped against a cloth. For the other varieties of percussion, any one who has not access to Captain Day’s excellent illustrations may get a rough idea of them from the photograph opposite of some South Indian specimens. The *karadivadya*, *udukkai*, and *budubudike* are three sizes of the same make, the smallest being squeezed in the hand, the longest under the arm. The *karadivadya* is beaten with a padded drumstick. Against it leans a *kokkara*, a metal tube with serrated edges, which are rubbed, to produce a grating sound, with the metal pin on a chain, which hangs down over the tambourine (*kanjari*) below it: it is used by pariahs, especially by the Pulaiyars of Travancore, for casting out devils. The goblet-shaped *udupe* is used by Lingayets in temple worship. Below are the *nāgari*, seventeen inches in height and diameter, for use on an elephant and in the temple, with seventy turns of lacing: the *maddale* (*mṛdāṅga*-shape) hollowed out of a tree, and the Mohammedan *dolu* (*dhol*) of copper. The *dhol* is played with hands or sticks; if open at one end, as occasionally, it is played with sticks at the other end. In a Panjabi regiment a drummer (Miranbaksh, see p. 237) was pointed out to me who sometimes wielded his sticks till his hands bled.