The Music of Hindostan c8.8

c8.8

For such reasons as these, and possibly others, the one conspicuous gap in an Indian library is the history shelf. We find it natural, therefore, in the Hindu to ascribe remote antiquity—in point of fact, eternity—to his earliest memories. He does not know any author for his Vedas, but speaks of such and such a *Rishi* as being allowed to ‘hear’ them the last time they were revealed. He does not discriminate between one antiquity and another, or take much interest in the development of ideas, for all development is potentially included in the original revelation, which was either ‘heard’ (*śruti*) or ‘remembered’ (*smṛti*) by the human agency to whom its record was entrusted. Thus he holds that four Vedas have existed from all time, although the Buddhist *Jātakas*¹ never speak of more than three. And what concerns us more particularly here, the *Nāṭyaśāstra* (circ. A. D. 500), the *Ratnākara* (1220?), the *Rāgavibodha* (1609), the *Saṅgīta Darpaṇa* (1625?), and *Parijāta* (early eighteenth century) are all quoted as ‘scriptures’ of practically equal value; while the undated *Nāradaśikṣā*, whose system shows a considerable advance on that of the *Nāṭyaśāstra*, is held, apparently on the strength of its name alone, to have been put forth by that mythical sage himself.