Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 259

NOVEMBER, 1912.]
ANCIENT HINDU MUSIC
255
usage. But it is easy to see that no note but the malhya na yould have been the keynote in the days of the Bh. For, if we examine the hexatonic and pentatonio jatis or modes, we shall find that they are produced by the omission of one or two notes respectively from the complete scale ; and all notes are in turn chus omitted except the madhyama." The omission of all notes [in turn) is allowed in the jdtis (modes), but the madhyami should never be omitted. For, in the ordinance of music and also in the sana ens the midhyanı is said to be the chief of all notes and non-omissible." But it is just possible that this may only be a repetition of an old rule which had really fallen into desuetude for we meet with such instances in Sanskrit works on music, as will be seen hereafter. We may also consider it possible that though the madhyama might have been the keynote in the madhyamagrana, the shadja might have been the keynote of the shadjagrama. But on a careful examination of the jatis we find that even in the shadjagrli ma the shadja is at times omitted to obtain the hexatonic and pentatonic varieties. It is thus certain that the madhyama, which is in no case omitted, must have been the keynote of both gråmas, exactly as at the present time the shadja, which is omitted from none of the ragas, is the keynote of the scale in use. This fact of primary importance being once grasped, we can proceed to discuss the two gramas in succession.
For the sake of comparison with modern scales, which are made to begin with the keynote, let the shadjagrama be re-arranged with its keynote, the madhyama, as the lowest, and we have the shadjagrama commencing with its keynote.
Table I. ma padha ni 88 rigama
Cents 0 218 382 491 709 873 982 1200 It becomes immediately ovident that this scale is practically the same as
c d e f 9 abbc
5 4 3 5 16 Ratios 0
Cents 0 204 386 498 702 884 996 1200 which is the European major mode with the exception of the leading note by, instead of which we have 66.60 The differences between the correspouding notes are 14, 4, 7, 7, 11, and 14 cents, the greatest being 14 cents or two-thirds of a comma, affecting the second note, which is sharper by this amount in the classical Hindu scale. But the fifth is sharp only by 7 Oents or one-third of a comma, the fourth is flat by the same amount, and the major third is flat by 4 cents or one-fifth of a comma nearly. Oriticising this scale Mr. BoBanquet say861 -The system of 22 possesses, then, remarkable properties; it has both fifths and thirds considerably better than any other cyclical system having so low a number of notes. The only objection, as far as the concords go, to its practical employment for our own purposes, lies in the fifths; these lie just beyond the limit of what is tolerable in the case of instruments with coatinuous tones. (The mean tone system is regarded as the extreme limit; this has fifths o& coma Hati. For the purposes of the Hindus where no stress is laid on the barmony, the system is already so perfect that improvement could hardly be expected.' He then proceeds to point out the deviations of other intervals, some of which, as noticed above, are large. But it is incorrect to look upon the 22-srutis system as exactly reprexenting the Hindu scale. The Earopean scale is described as consisting of twelve Bh p. 310, Slokas 72-73. a terror retariau sfag i HRITTE
RII ETCIT Tre garai #TUTA: I Ty s fare: TETT FY: 113 Il The last half bloka is the reading of the Doocan College Me. # For the notation used Vide Helmholtx's Sensations of Tone, Engl. Transl., 2nd edn.
On the Hindu divison of the Ootava (Pros. of the E. S. of London), reprinted in Rajk S. M. Tegoro's Hindu Music from Parimus Authors, 2nd edition.