The Music of Hindostan c15.74

c15.74

The use of astronomical subdivisions is interesting, though hardly illuminating (there are other explanations of the *kāṣṭhā* and *lava*). The only one of these terms in practical use is the *kalā*, which properly means 1/16. The *kalā* is 1/16 of the *Laghu* (their unit) as the semiquaver is 1/16 of the semibreve (our unit). Cp. the German *Sechzehntel* and the American ‘sixteenth note’.