The Music of Hindostan c8.s1.7

c8.s1.7

The musical inhabitants of Indra’s heaven were Gāndharvas,¹ Apsarāsas, Kinnaras, and Nāras. The original Gāndharva, in the singular, dwelt in the fathomless space of air and stood erect on the vault of heaven. He was the guardian of the nectar of the gods (soma). In later Vedic books the Gāndharvas² are many, and espouse the Apsarāsas, whose name describes them as ‘moving in the waters’ (sc. of the clouds). In still later Vedas these frequent the earth, and inhabit especially trees; their mission from Indra is to blunt the edge of human virtue which else, through abstinence and prayer, had grown too overweening; and one of them, Urvaśī, who hovers thus between earth and heaven, is the heroine of Kalidāsa’s Vikramorvaśī (fifth century). The Kinnaras and Nāras, possibly the same, are classed with the Gāndharvas as celestial musicians. Their name³ implies a superhuman form, said to have been a man’s body with a horse’s head. In company with them appear, in the Gāndhāra sculptures and elsewhere, Nāgas (snakes) with musical instruments, whose melodies are represented as coiling themselves about the hearts of men.