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tāla, the mother of dancing and gestures, beautiful with various changes, suitable for poetry.'18 The mțdangaand paņava-players *14 played each his own instrument; never failing each other, like devoted friends. The singing-men sang many new melodies 616 beautiful with the singing of notes, humiliating Hāhā and Hühū. The dancers danced vigorously, skilled in the lāsya and tāpdava, causing surprise by varied gesticulations and postures. The King saw spectacles of this kind unhindered. Who would hinder powerful lords in anything whatever ? Enjoying worldly pleasures in this way, the Lord of Bharata passed five lacs of pūrvas from the day of the Master's mokşa.
Bharata's omniscience (715–745) One day, when he had taken his bath and had made the oblation to all creatures, when his body had been rubbed with a very fine cloth and his hair garlanded, his body anointed with gośírşa-sandal, wearing priceless divine jeweled-ornaments on his body, attended by courtesans, the way being shown by the door-keeper, he went to the apartment made of mirrors of jewels in the women's quarters. In it, clear as the atmospheric crystal, 416 he saw his whole figure, life-size, reflected. While the Lord of Bharata was looking at his body in it, a ring fell from one finger. The King did not know the ring had fallen from his finger, like a single feather falling from a peacock's
418 Tala is time-measure. It does not say how it was made here, perhaps by hand-clapping. “Musical time in India, more obviously than elsewhere, is a development from the prosody and meters of poetry." Popley, Music of India, p. 71. Chap. V discusses tāla fully.
414 710. Two kinds of drum.
415 711. Jātirāga (?). There āre 18 original jātis and a jātirāga seems to be one made of a combination of jätis. Nātyaśāstra, Chap. 28. 36 ff.
116 718. Either moonstone or sunstone. See Bloomfield, p. 57, . 27.
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