The Music of Hindostan c9.s1.10

c9.s1.10

*Rāga*, from a root *rañj*, ‘to be dyed, to glow’, means ‘colour’; hence colour of mind, i. e. emotion. Its European analogue will therefore be whatever gives colour to a piece of music; and since this may be according to circumstances melody, harmony, counterpoint, or instrumentation, but most of all harmony, we have no real equivalent for a word which applies technically only to melody. *Rāga* is connected with *Rakti*, ‘affection’. *Rāga* is Sanskrit, and is used in this book when the general sense is intended; *Rāg* is North Indian, and *Rāgam* South Indian. The same is the case for *Tāla*, *Tāl*, and *Tālam* (time). Its usual translation is ‘melody-type’, or ‘melody-mould’, or even ‘tune’. If it must be translated, perhaps ‘Mood’ would convey as much as is compressible into one word. Its definition is rather long, and will not mean much until the chapter on *Rāga* has been read:—An arbitrary series of notes characterized as far as possible as individuals, by proximity to or remoteness from the note which marks the tessitura, by a special order in which they are usually taken, by the frequency or the reverse with which they occur, by grace or the absence of it, and by relation to a tonic usually reinforced by a drone. Although Indians never confuse the masculine *Rāg* with the feminine *Rāgiṇī*¹ the attributes of these are indistinguishable.