Indian Antiquary Vol 41

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

Page 265

NOVEMBER, 1912.]
ANCIENT HINDU MUSIC
261
consistently flatter by 7 cents and the just Fifth as consistently sharper by the same amount. When we further note that the values of the Fourth and the Fifth as given in the S. P. are exact, we must make the additional admission that this peculiarity of the Hinda ear had disappeared by the time that that work was written. I think this to be beyond belief, and consider that when the Hindu musicians declared that there was consonance be.ween two notes it was exact consonance as given in the S. P. and as understood at present. The necessary result of this view is that we must look upon the experiment in question as only a paper or imaginary experiment, based on the excusable error pointed out above, viz., that the amount of flattening necessary to make the pañchama consonant with the rishabha was taken to be really equal to one áruli, whereas it was so only in name, one being forced to call it a sruti owing to the exigencies of the cycle adopted, viz., that of 22. In confirmation of the imaginary nature of the experiment I may draw the attention of the reader to the fact that in the Bh. we are askel to take two vinds tuned to the same mûrchhand and having strings and danda (the wooden bar proceeding from the body) of the same dimensions. It is easy to see that a real experimenter ought to perceive that it is not essential to have the strings and danda of the same dimensions. Varther, since there are only seven strings in the vind, tae taning of which is kept fixed, a real experimenter would have discovered that as be proceeded with the successive lowerings of the strings of the other vind, there would be no strings in the fixed vind with which some of the lowered strings could be in unison. As an illustration, suppose that the two vinds were taned to the first mirchhand, viz., sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha ni, and the procedure of lowering the second vind by a sruti was repeated four times, then the ma and pa strings of this viņá would be in unison with the ga and ma strings of the fixed vina; but the sa string of the second vind could not be in unison with the ni string of the first, as stated in the Bh., the latter being an octave higher. A real experimenter would have certainly noticed this.
Having thus disposed of the only objection of some real importance, we must now try to find out why the Hindu musicians did not employ a cycle like that of 53 so as to be able to give an accurate expression to their scale, if it had the constitution which we have found for it. And the reason is not far to seek, if we keep in mind how the aruti interval was determined. Mr. A. J. Hipking67 confidently says that "There can be no doubt about the origin of the Sruti in the measurement of a stretched string,' but has omitted to give the grounds for his assertion. At first sight this assertion does look plausible. For, if we divide a stretched string into two, and subdivide one of the halves into two again and continue the subdivision in this manner, we shall come in due course to the fractions; and if the string be damped at this distance from the nut the remaining portion of the string = #tought theoretically to give a note which is 55 cents higher tban that of the whole string; and 55 centa is almost exactly one sruti ( = 54 r cents). Bat if the experiment be actually performed, it would be found that the result is far from accurate. It is improbable, therefore, that the śruti interval was arrived at by the measurement of a stretched string. There are other considerations also which go against this notion. In the Bh., whicb mentions the brutis, there is no reference to the production of higher notes by stopping a string. The Hindu viņd in its oldest form had no finger-board which occurs only in more recent forms, and the frets were added at a still later period. Even in the S.R., though fretted instruments were in existence at the time, the 22 árutis are demonstrated not by means of subdivision of string, but by means of a rulivind with 22 strings, each having pitch slightly higher than that
# Capt. Day'. The Music of Southern India, Introduction, p. xi.