The Music of Hindostan c15.77

c15.77

*Kruṣṭa*. In more than one of these authorities the order in the original text is *prathama*, *dvitīya*, *tṛtīya*, *caturtha*, *mandra*, *kruṣṭa*, *atisvārya*. *Kruṣṭa* is used of the highest note; and as the sixth in a downward series this word has given trouble. Burnell proposed to read *kṛṣṭa*, ‘that to which *karṣaṇa* has been applied.’ He did not, however, explain why *karṣaṇa* should be applied in the sixth place especially, and it appears now that it is typically applied to the highest note. But there is nothing to show that the order of the names is the melodic order; and it is at least possible that in the order given above the first five name the ordinary notes of the scale (see p. 258, l. 12) and the last two the extraordinary ones (which happen to be at either end of the five). Meanwhile, if order does matter, that of No. III, in which *kṛṣṭa* actually occurs, is the order of the original. Moreover, No. V alludes to the seven *svaras* as *kruṣṭādi*, ‘beginning on *kruṣṭa*’; so there is little doubt that the *kruṣṭa* is above the *prathama*, and that another statement of Burnell’s that *kruṣṭa* and *prathama* are the same note is not universally true.