The Music of Hindostan c8.s1.14

c8.s1.14

In Hindu legend other instruments can scarcely be heard for the din of the drum. It beats the night watches, heralds proclamations, and preludes the sentence of death. Porus (Purusha) posts the drummers with the infantry and archers behind the elephants, who are accustomed to the sound and not in the least alarmed by it¹; and Dionysos in his turn uses cymbals and drums instead of trumpets in making signals, in order to deceive the Indians.² A king of Kanauj progresses accompanied by several hundred men with golden drums, called ‘music-pace-drums’, beating one stroke to each step.³ Of another it is said ‘When king Devānāmpriya practises righteousness the call of his drum (bheri) has become a summons not to war but to righteousness.’⁴ There are many allusions to the ‘five great sounds’ (pañca mahā śabdā), an honour conferred by kings on the greatest of their servants, in which the drum (nāgara, tammaṭa, ḍamaruka) is associated with various forms of horn, gong, and cymbal. These were ‘sounded in front of a chariot which is occupied, but behind one which contains no occupant. The car went solemnly round the palace and up the kettledrum road. They sounded the hundreds of instruments—it was like the noise of the sea.’⁵ Brahmadatta finds a mountain hermit who is annoyed by elephants, and presents him with a drum: ‘if you beat upon this side your enemies will run away, if upon that they will become your firm friends.’⁶ The following remunerations are interesting :—‘One mattar for the sacrificial vessel, two to the horn-blower, four to each of the five courtesans of the temple, twelve to the skilful Pollama who built the temple, and fourteen to the drummer.’⁷