The Music of Hindostan c8.s1.49

c8.s1.49

Pedants are dealt with in the Pañcatantra (fifth century) in the story of the musical ass, who gets out at night into the cucumber fields and joins the jackal in hedge breaking and other delights. Waxing fat and kicking, his joy takes a vocal form, and he asks the jackal in what Rāg he shall sing. ‘Why sing at all?’ said the jackal; ‘people with coughs don’t steal. Besides, your voice is about as good as ——’. ‘What? I don’t know how to sing? Listen to the theory of it. There are seven notes (svara), three scales (grāma), twenty-one modes (mūrcchana), forty-nine melodic figures (tāna), three time units (mātrā), three tempi (laya), three voice registers (sthāna), six ways of singing (āsyāni, lit. mouths), nine emotions (rasa), thirty-six rāgs (varṣma), forty languages (bhāṣa). This sort of singing when well performed embraces all the 185 (?) parts of song.’ ‘My friend,’ said the jackal, ‘if you must have your way I will take up my position at the gate and look out for the farmer and his boy.’ They were not long in coming, and the musician learnt what it was to be an ass.