The Music of Hindostan c9.s1.49

c9.s1.49

But a much more important passage is to be found in the *Ṛkprātiśākhya*, which is probably not later than 400 B. C. It is there said that there are twenty-one notes in all, seven for each voice register (*sthāna*)—the lower (*mandra*), the middle (*madhya*), and the upper (*uttama*).¹ These seven notes (of the octave, or of course twenty-one of the three octaves of the gamut) are described as twins (*yama*). ‘Each twin is separated from its fellow by such a small distinction that from one point of view the difference is hardly perceptible; yet, from another, the two are distinct things.’ The metaphor of ‘twins’ describes so accurately the pairs of scales we have been discussing, which are identical in six notes and differ in the seventh by an almost imperceptible interval, and puts the finger so unerringly upon the salient point of the system, that there can be little doubt as to the reference. This highly elaborate system may, then, be dated back beyond the time of Aristoxenus, to the fifth century B. C., and, like his, points to a long antecedent period of development.²