The Music of Hindostan c15.s1.14

c15.s1.14

It is clear also that the scale consisted normally of only five notes for a considerable time. In the *Puṣpasūtra* (9. 26) we find that ‘the Kauthumas sing the majority of their chants to five tones, a few to six, and two of them to seven tones’. In line 12 we find Sol-fa names for five notes only. That no more than five were contemplated may be seen from the choice of consonants. They are the medials of the five classes of consonant (guttural, palatal, cerebral, dental, and labial) proceeding in regular order from throat to lips. Lines 17 and 25 are a further indication that the normal scale consisted of five notes. All this lends some support to the interpretation given above of line 1.