Imatges de pàgina
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of sounding-boards; and I once saw a kind of triangular harp or lyre, the tones of which were charming. There is also an instrument played with a bow, which put me a good deal in mind of a dancing-master's kit. The strings of all these being of iron or brass wire, and in general the fingers used for fretting the strings being armed with thimbles of metal, the tones produced have not that mellowness which we admire in Europe.

That the ancient music of Hindostan was infinitely superior to the modern, we may reasonably infer from the treatises concerning it in the Sanscrit language, and from the effects ascribed to it by the poets, which seem not inferior to those produced by the lyre of Orpheus. It was natural that the invention of so enchanting an art should have been ascribed to the gods; accordingly, the Bramins suppose it to have been communicated to man by Brahma himself, or his consort Seraswati, the goddess of speech; and fable, that Nareda, an ancient lawgiver, who was the inventor of the vina (a kind of guitar) and the cach'hapi or testudo, was the son of Brahma and the same goddess. Bherat, the inventor of natucs or dramas represented with songs and dances, or what we term operas, was considered as inspired; and Hanumân, the friend of Rama, who is also

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Pavan or Pan, is the author of a most popular mode of music. Sir William Jones, in his Essay on the musical modes of the Hindûs, quotes several treatises, particularly the Damodar, Narayan, Bhagavi bodha, and Retnacara. These describe particularly four matas or systems of music, by Iswara or Siva (perhaps Osiris) Bherat, Hanumân, and Callinath, an Indian philosopher: there are, however, different systems peculiar to almost each province of Hindustan. Some of the sweetest of these seem to have prevailed in the Panjâb, and in the neighbourhood of Mathura, the pastoral people of which, delighted in singing the loves and adventures of their hero Crishna, who was himself the patron of music, and is often represented dancing while he plays on a reed. The scale of the Hindûs comprehends seven sounds, called sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, and in the octave they reckon twenty-two quarters and thirds. They also count eighty-four modes, formed by subdividing the seven natural sounds; these modes are called ragas, a word which properly signifies passion, each mode being intended to move one or other of our affections. Hence the fabulists have sometimes imagined them so various, as to make up the number of sixteen thousand ; more temperate writers, though they admit almost as many possible.

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modes, only reckon twenty-three as applicable to practice.

The Indian poets seem to have employed the utmost elegance and richness of their talents to adorn the fables connected with this divine art.

The six chief modes are personified as beautiful youths, the genii of music, and presiding over the six seasons. Bhairava is lord of the cheerful, dry, or autumnal season, and his strains invite the dancer to accompany them. Malava rules the cold and melancholy months, and with his attendant Ragnis, complains of slighted love, or bewails the pains of absence. Sriraga patronizes the dewy season, which is the time of delight, that ushers in the spring, the fragrant and the flowery time over which Hindola or Vasanta presides. When the oppressive heat comes on, the soft and languid melody of Dipaca sympathises with the fevered feelings, while the refreshing season of the new rains bestows a double pleasure, when accompanied by the sweet strains of Megha*. To aid the Ragas come their faithful spouses, the thirty Raginis, five of which attend each youth, presenting to him eight little genii,

* The names of the seasons are as follows:-Sarad, the autumnal season; Hemanta, the frosty; Sisira, the dewy; Vasanta, the spring, called also Surabhi, fragrant, and PrisPus pasamaya, flowery; Grishma, heat; and Versha, rain.

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