The Music of Hindostan c9.s1.9

c9.s1.9

*Mūrchana* (Sanskrit), *murchhana* (Hindostani), from a root *mūrch*, ‘to increase’, means primarily the ‘swelling of sound’ and seems to have been applied originally to high and low pitch and to have meant the rise and fall of the voice in song. Then it came to have the technical sense of (1) a rise and fall from and to a particular note of a specific scale, and in this sense is accurately translated by ‘mode’. (It may be worth mentioning that the *mūrchanas* are always given as a descending series.) But since the note on which they started was the most important and was generally ornamented with a grace note, *murchhana* has come to mean (2) grace note as applied to a particular *Rāg*. When grace is otherwise applied, i. e. not to single out the predominant note of a *Rāg*, it has either the general name *Gamak* or the particular names *Miṇḍ* or *Ghasīt*. These are treated of in a later chapter. In the old sense of the word the ‘mode’ consisted of seven notes, i. e. two tetrachords, so that mūrchana may (3) be held also to translate the Greek *harmoniā* (heptachord).