The Music of Hindostan c9.s1.17

c9.s1.17

*Vādī, samvādī, anuvādī, vivādī* (translated ‘sonant’, ‘consonant’, ‘assonant’, ‘dissonant’) are survivals of a theory of consonance (*samvāditva*) now forgotten. *Samvādī* definitely means the consonance of Fourth or Fifth, as we should say ‘Perfect consonance’. *Vādī* is the note to which it is so related. *Vivādī* is applied by Bharata to the Semitone. He speaks (verse 24) of notes being *vivādī* to one another when they are at the distance of twenty *śrutis*. This is the same thing as two *śrutis* (22–20), which reading actually appears in another manuscript. *Anuvādī* is the name for ‘all other relations which are not *vādī, samvādī,* and *vivādī*’. These three relationships belong to the tetrachord, and presumably *anuvādī* does too. Current tradition makes *anuvādī* the major Third. But Bharata says ‘all other’ (*śeṣa*), as if more than one relationship was *anuvādī*. If it is possible to suppose that in the term *anuvādī* he included the major and minor Tone (which together make up the major Third) all the determining elements of Bharata’s scale (see below) would be accounted for.