The Music of Hindostan c8.s2.1

c8.s2.1

And now, leaving legend, the first musician we meet with who is anything more than a name is Jayadeva (circ. A. D. 1100) the author of the *Gita Govinda*. He was a native of Kindavilva in Bengal. He assigns to each of his poems a definite *Rāg* and *Tāl*,¹ which are named after the Bengālī fashion. There is no musical notation; and it is open to any musician, now as then, to make or mar them by his treatment. In a poem of such delicate texture as the *Gita Govinda* the musical scheme could hardly fail to be a thoughtful one. The names of *Rāg* and *Tāl* which would be full of association to a Bengālī may connote little to us; but we may see from the mere titles how they have been used as an element in the design. The song of ‘one of Rādhā’s maidens’ in praise of love with which the *Gīta* begins is echoed by the ‘Hymen o Hymenaee’ at the close; both are in *Rāg Vasanta* and *Tāl Yati*. The voice of one ‘fair, but not so fair as Radha’ consoles and breathes hope which finds its fulfilment in Rādhā’s triumphant song of reconciliation (*Ramagiri*; *Yati*). The slighted Rādhā and the flouted Kṛṣṇa utter their sorrows in the same accents, and in these accents they afterwards forget them (*Gurjjari*; *Yati*). Kṛṣṇa’s assuring message is met by Rādhā’s jealousy; and the messenger, who is persuading her to relent, draws forth only a pitiful plaint over his neglect, to which the ‘chorus’ gives a new turn after Kṛṣṇa’s home coming (*Deshivarāḍi*; *Rūpaka*). Again, Rādhā rebukes Kṛṣṇa in the moving tones of *Bhairavi*, and his answer, when she has yielded, is in the ecstasy of *Bibhās*.