The Music of Hindostan c15.78

c15.78

There is another interest attaching to the word *kruṣṭa*, ‘highest.’ It shows us, as do also the ordinals *prathama*, *caturtha*, that the Hindus regarded the treble as high and the bass as low; as we do, and as the Greeks, who named the lowest note *hypatē* (highest), did not. This reminds us that high and low in music are merely a metaphor, though a very natural one. In a somewhat similar way Europeans regard the harmony of a song as ‘underneath’ the