The Music of Hindostan c15.s1.23

c15.s1.23

and it is possible that the Sāman scale may throw some light upon it. That scale is reckoned downwards, and therefore the note E is called R(i); but the grāmas are reckoned upwards, and therefore E is G(a). If the Ga-grāma begins on E, it has for its upward tetrachord E, F, G, A, that is, a semitone and two major tones. These make more than a Fourth, therefore either the semitone is the Pythagorean comma (256/243, 90 cents), or one of the tones is a minor tone, as in the lower tetrachord, E, D, C, B. The upper tetrachord would in the first case be the same as the early Greek Doric, and would contain the ditone, instead of the major Third. It seems likely that in some way of which we cannot now trace the history, the gāndhāra-grāma is a relic of this old tuning. The Comma of Didymus (81/80) has to be negotiated somewhere in the scale. We, in Europe, put it between the A and the D (major tone, semitone, major tone), the Indians between the E and the A (semitone, major tone, major tone). In so placing it, it is possible that they reduced an original E 256/243, F 9/8, G 9/8, A to a later E 16/15, F 9/8, G 9/8, A.