The Music Of Hindostan

Music has been called a universal language. These days cheap music is heard and appreciated not only at special functions or festivals, organised so frequently by music lovers in our cities but even our private homes are being converted into mini auditoriums by glut of music over electric media like T.V. and Films. But can you cal the present day film music as real as was understood and appreciated by our ancestors? The present Volume will serve as an eye-opener to present generation of India who have alas forgotten their heritage of great music. They must read it and feel ashamed that a foreigner has discovered for them the graceful excellence and lasting beauty of the musical lore of ancient India which occupies a place of pride through Sam Veda and through the efforts of great exponents like Bharat Muni and Tumburu. He quotes the legend of recluse Narada, the legendary ministrel, who travels from heaven to earth and chants devotional ragas before courts and commoners over his Vina. He once thought that he had mastered the whole art of science of music. Lord Vishnu wanted to humble his pride and took him to the abode of gods. They entered a spacious building where its inmates were weeping over their broken limbs. On being asked for the cause of their lamentation, they answered that they were the ragas and raginis of music created by great God, Mahadeva, but the anchorite Narada, ignorant of true knowledge of music had sung them recklessly and their features were distorted and their limbs broken. Unless Mahadeva or some other more skilful person sings them properly, they can never be restored to their former state of body. Narada, ashamed, Knelt before Vishnu and asked to be forgiven. The author has shown that study of Indian music is of great interest to all who care for song. Music in India, as elsewhere, is of varying excellence and it is as rare to hear the best as it is in Europe. The author records his musical experiences during his six months tour of India during 1910-11 to hear the melodies of Indian music from all possible sources. His route lay through the whole of India during which he met well-known court musicians and dances. The most lasting of his experiences is when he met poet Rabindranath Tagore himself singing songs composed by him. This Volume, which is a veritable mine of wealth of Ancient Indian musical lore, will prove a source of lasting pleasure by all lovers of the oldest and noblest and sciences with its most ennobling effect on every mind, specially the lovers of Music.