With this people, and the Egyptians we find proofs of the existence of a musical system at a time which far antedates the earliest reliable Scriptural records.
Among the Hindoos especially, as far back as history extends, music has been treated not only as a fine art, but philosophically and mathematically. According to the oldest Brahminical records, in their all-embracing “Temple of Science,” it belongs to the 2d chief division of Lesser Sciences, but its natural and philosophic elements, are, with a nice distinction, admitted into their holiest and oldest book, the Veda.[1] Of course it has a divine origin ascribed to it, in fact the entire realm of Indian music is one tale of Mythology.
According to Brahminical accounts, when Brahma had lain in the egg three thousand billion, four hundred million of years (3,000,400,000,000) he split it by the force of his thought and made Heaven and Earth from the two pieces; then Manu brought forth ten great forces, which made Gods, Goddesses, good and evil spirits and Gandharbas (Genii of music), and Apsarasas (Genii of Dance), and these became the musicians of the Gods, before man knew of the art. Then Sarisvati, Goddess of Speech and Oratory, consort of Brahma, at Brahma’s command brought the art to man and gave him also his finest musical instrument, the Vina, of which hereafter. Music then found a protector in the demi-god Nared, one of the chief Indian musical deities, while Maheda Chrishna helped it along by allowing five keys, or modes, to spring from his head (a la Minerva) in the shape of Nymphs, and his wife Parbuti, added one more; then Brahma added thirty lesser keys, or modes, and all these modes were also Nymphs.
The Hindoo scale has seven chief tones and these tones are represented as so many heavenly sisters.
In the Indian legends, music is represented as of immense might. All men, all animals, all inanimate nature listened to the singing of Maheda and Parbuti with ecstasy.
Some modes were never to be sung by mortals, as they were so fiery that the singer would be consumed by them. In the time of Akber, it is related, that ruler commanded Naik Gobaul, a famous singer, to sing the Raagni[2] of Fire; the poor singer entreated in vain, to be allowed to sing a less dangerous strain; then he plunged up to his neck in the river Djumna, and began: he had not finished more than half of his lay when the water around him began to boil; he paused (at boiling point) but the relentless, or curious Akber, demanded the rest, and with the end of the song the singer burst into flames and was consumed. Another melody caused clouds to rise and rain to fall; a female singer is said once to have saved Bengal from famine and drought in this manner. Another lay caused the sun to disappear and night to come at midday, or another could change winter to spring or rain to sunshine. All these typify beautifully the might of music with this race. Of the four chief tone systems, two also have divine origin, from Iswara and from Hanuman (the Indian Pan), the others come from Bharata Muni who invented the drama with music and dance, and from Calinath.
When Chrishna was upon the earth as a shepherd, there were sixteen thousand pastoral Nymphs or Shepherdesses who fell in love with him.—They all tried to win his heart by music, and each one sang him a song, and each one sang in a different key, (let us hope not all at once). Thence sprang the sixteen thousand keys, which according to tradition once existed in India.
In order that the full extent of Hindoo Musical Mythology may be conceived, we will now sketch the tones which are employed.
We have stated that there are seven chief tones; these tones have short monosyllabic names; as we give to our notes the syllables, do, re, mi, etc., the Hindoos call their scale tones sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa, which are certainly as easy to vocalise upon as our solfeggi; in fact the language is very well adapted to music, as it has all the softness, elegance and clearness of the Italian. Von Dalberg says that Sanscrit unites the splendor of the Spanish, the strength of the German, and the singableness of the Italian.
With the resemblance of seven chief tones, however, the similarity ends, for while our scale has only half tones as smallest interval, the Hindoos have quarter tones, and not equally distributed either; thus: