Ragas and Raginis: A Pictorial and Iconographic Study of Indian Musical Modes Based on Original Sources c6.254

c6.254

tory. At the head of the new development under Akbar was the famous singer Miyān Tān Sen, who was a close associate of Sūr Dās, the great poet-saint, and who received his musical education at Gwalior under the discipleship of a great musician Rām Dās Svāmī. It is generally believed in conservative musical circles, that Tān Sen was principally responsible for abjuring many old traditions and for introducing innovations and questionable novelties which lead to the deterioration of the old Hindu system. "He is said to have falsified the rāgas and it is stated that two, Hindola and Megha, of the original six have disappeared since his time."¹ There is no doubt that Tān Sen introduced new rāgas and new versions, or unconventional variations of old forms. It is well-known that Tān Sen was the first to introduce the E-Flat (Komala gāndhāra) and both varieties of Niṣāda (B flat and sharp) into the rāga mallār which came to be known as "Miyān-ki-mallār." Similarly, he is the inventor of a new type of Toḍī known as Miyān-ki-Toḍī. The modified forms of Kānarā known as Darbārī Kānarā are attributed to him. Nevertheless, our innovator was not tardy in paying his respects to the rāgas of hoary antiquity. In a Hindi treatise on music, called Rāg-mālā,² he accepts the six rāgas (ṣaṭ-rāg) enumerated by the school of Hanumān and analyses them into their component parts. He claims to have examined the schools (mats) of Śiva, Bharata, and Hanumāna and describes his own views, set forth in the work as the School of Tān Sen' (Tānseni mat),³ based on the authorities of Matangamuni and Bharata. The author claims to analyse the six principal rāgas and to give their component