The Music of Hindostan c15.s1.6

c15.s1.6

Mandra, low. This is the usual name for the sixth note; it is once (No. IV) called pañcama, in continuation of the ordinals. That it was a substantive note of the scale we see perhaps in No. I, where it appears even though the tṛtīya is omitted. But that it was on a different footing from the five notes above it is indicated in line 4, where they are all head-notes as opposed to the mandra, a chest-note. It gave its name also to the lower octave in the secular scale as opposed to the middle octave (madhya, or madhyama) and the upper (tāra, or uttama).