sharp notes.

This fact is to be borne in mind as a very important one, as the distribution of the twenty-two Srutis amongst the seven notes, and the fixing of them, hinges mainly on this.

To anticipate possible misunderstanding, I must, at once, state that the word "scale" is used throughout this article in the sense of a complete set of serial notes from to, arranged at fixed intervals, and not, as some may imagine, in the sense of what Indian music calls (thath), i.e., a special set of notes forming a common mould in which a certain group of ragas is cast.

(2) The Indian scale of twelve notes, ancient and modern, consists of the following:

(C) and (G)—fana, i.e., unchanged,

natural;

the remaining five being and fana, i.e., sharp, flat, and natural, as under, ग and नि ( E and B ) being शुद्ध and तीव्र according to the ancients, and and according to the moderns (the notes being the same but the relative nomenclature being different; thus modern

ग-नि were ancient शुद्ध ग-नि and modern शुद्ध गनि were ancient तीव्र ग-नि), रि-ध ( D and A) being कोमल and शुद्ध (fat and natural); and म being natural () and sharp (ata).

Note:—This तौव्र म was called तीव्रतम म by the author of सगौतपारिजात ; and this another important fact to be noted as helpful in fixing the missing 22nd Sruti, as I shall show later on.

un

(3) This Indian scale of twelve notes knew of no temperament, equal or equal.* It consisted of the seven natural notes (in which and fЯ are the modern notes) and the five others which are related, each to its next door higher note, by the ratio recognised in the untempered scale known to acoustics.

The a' f has a chapter on fixing, on the stem of a Vina, the respective positions of the twelve notes. Correctly interpreted,

By 'modern' I mean the present day music, and by 'ancient' I mean music treated in works up to the time of Sangita-parijata.

It is difficult to understand why Mr. A. H. Fox Strangways, in reviewing Mr. Deval's work, asserts that the present day Indian Scale is what is known as "Just" temperament. No indigenous Indian instrument requires a tempered scale, and if Indian harmoniums are what Mr. Strangways has in view, they are entirely misleading.

the directions, therein given, locate the 12 notes at places which, when reduced to vibration ratios (according to the rule in acoustics about the inverse the inverse proportion between the number of vibrations per second, and the length of the string,) indicate the 12 notes above mentioned.

(4) The remaining ten notes, making up the 22 Srutis in all, are not definitely located in this chapter of a fa; and, therefore, we are left to shift for ourselves in this matter. However, some guidance is furnished by the well known allotment of a certain fixed number of Srutis to the seven main notes, by Sanskrit writers on music, and by the principles known amongst them as समश्रुतिकत्व and स प स बन्ध. It is necessary to briefly explain these. If you sound the first four notes of the Octave, viz., f and then sound the succeeding four notes

f, you will observe that the four latter bear the same inter-relation as the former four; in other words, if i were started with as, then and would exactly sound as in relation to that q This is due to the fact that if = 1, q= and the notes in each set of four correspond to each other in that relation, i.e., is of ft, fa of a and of 't There is only a small exception to this:- while =; thus the ratio between the two is not exactly (which it would be if were equal to 3) but varies by an interval of 8, an interval known as comma. This difference is to be neglected because by accepting as the harmony of the major triads is secured.

This relation of between each pair of notes, fi-, -, and -' is called -. Now to come to fa, it will be seen in the relation above shown, that, and are co-ordinate with one another, so are f and with each other and and f mutually. Thus the ancients grouped these three sets severally, giving them separate group names,, and being called af, f and अनुदात्त, and and नि उदात्त. ग

included in each

To the notes of these sets equal

*The sign I on indicates the H of the higher octave, or double the original ☎.

†There is no such exception. It is absolutely inadmissible to overrule the old Sanskrit writers in this way. To do so is to question their competency and lay the entire theory of Srutis open to doubt. It is in fact very much worse than saying that the Srutis are indefinite.-U. Roy

VOL. XI

No. 4

WHOLE No. 64

FROM

ROM the evidence of competent witnesses like Marshman, Trevelyan and others before the Select Committees of the two Houses of Parliament appointed to enquire into the affairs of the East India Company on the occasion of the renewal of their Charter in 1853, the authorities were convinced that it was not politically inexpedient to educate the inhabitants of India--nay, on the contrary, the more the diffusion of education took place in India, the greater would be the security of their dominions; that educated Indians instead of being any source of danger would be towers of strength to the rulers of British India. It was after nearly century's discussion then that the British authorities, partly, at any rate, from considerations of political expediency, determined to impart education to Indian fellow-subjects. With that object

a

their

in view was framed the famous Educational Despatch of 1854, commonly known as "the Intellectual Charter of India" or as Wood's Despatch, for Sir Charles Wood was then President of the Board of Control of the East India Company, a situation corresponding at present to that of the Secretary of State for India. This document attributed to the pen of Mr. John Stuart Mill, the well-known English thinker and philosopher, who was at that time a clerk in the India Office. But we think we are right in saying that it was prepared by Lord Northbrook.

1S

This despatch consisted of a hundred paragraphs and was addressed by the Court

of Directors of the East India Company to the Governor General of India in Council, dated July 19th, 1854, No. 49. The open

ing paragraphs breathe lofty philanthropy and altruism ;

I. "It appears to us that the present time, when by an Act of the Imperial Legislature the responsible trust of the Government of India has again been placed in our hands, is peculiarly suitable for the review of the progress which has already been made, the supply of existing deficiencies, and the adoption of such improvements as may be best calculated to secure the ultimate benefit of the people committed to our charge.

2.

Among many subjects of importance, none can have a stronger claim to our attention than that of education. It is one of our most sacred duties to be the means, as far as in us lies, of conferring upon the natives of India those vast moral and material blessings which flow from the general diffusion of useful knowledge, and which India may, under Providence, derive from her connection with England. For, although British influence has already, in many remarkable instances, been applied with great energy and success to uproot demoralising practices, and even crimes of a deeper dye, which for ages had prevailed among the natives of India, the good results of those efforts must, in order to be permanent, possess the further sanction of a general sympathy in the native mind, which the advance of education alone can secure.'

The concluding paragraph of the despatch ran as follows:

"As a Government, we can do no more than direct the efforts of the people, and aid them wherever they appear to require most assistance. The result depends more upon them than upon us; and although we are fully aware that the measures we have now adopted will involve in the end a much larger expenditure upon education from the revenues of India, or, in other words, from the taxation of the people of India, than is at present so applied, we are convinced, with Sir Thomas Munro, in words used many

numbers of fas are assigned-four four to and each, three to ft and each, and two each to and f This is known as fi.e., the feature of possessing an equal numbers of afas by notes included in each of the three groups named just above.

Knowing this we have some guidance as to how many sub-tones are to be placed between each of the notes in the scale of 12 notes already fixed by सागौत पारिजात. This scale, as deduced by the distance test fixed in that work, comes to the following:

...

(Note: The natural () is and natural f is here according to the ancients. These, it will be observed, are the notes found in the minor triads shown in acoustics.)

Now if we look up any authoritative work on acoustics, e.g., the chapter on 'Sound' in Ganot's Physics, we shall find that taking flat and sharp notes on each side of the seven natural notes, preserving the ratio between flat and natural and sharp at (which is the interval between the varying notes in the major and minor triads (viz.,,, and f--E, A and B) we evolve a full scale of 21 notes authorized

Now, a glance at this scale will show that the numbers of sub-tones preceding each of the seven principal notes, with the main note added on, correspond, except in one case, to the numbers of Srutis allotted to each note by Indian writers on Music. The four Srutis for will be halves of the four from 1 to 2 ('), as the scale will stop at f (the ancient f); in other words, I will have three Srutis out of the lower scale, which next precede it.

The exception hinted at just above is in the case of which has three Srutis in the scale given here, viz., 8, 8, and, and not four as assigned by our Indian Music. Here, then, we have, a full scale as evolved by European acoustics in its relation to music, which curiously enough coincides with the distribution of Srutis as given by our Indian writers, with the exception of only one Sruti. Is it not extremely probable, then, that if we only find the one missing Sruti for and locate it properly, this ready made scale of 21 Srutis (which answers to our scheme of Srutis, but for this missing subnote), with this one added in, will furnish us with the Indian scale of 22 Srutis? To my mind, the balance is entirely in favour of this theory. Two reasons are obvious: (1) The scale of 12 notes deduced from the स गौत पारिजात corresponds to the Western * ग and fa are placed against and respectively, because the ancients took the minor (present day a) and f as natural notes and the allotment of Srutis was made on that basis. For the purpose of the arrangement in Ganot based on the interval of on each side of the natural notes, must be taken as and fas

untempered scale of 12 notes, which are found in this one of 21 notes; and

(2) The allotment of Srutis to each of the seven notes, as given in the Indian scheme, finds an exact correspondence in this scale of 21 notes (barring the deficiency of one Sruti for q). I shall indicate additional reasons soon below.

Which, then, is the missing Sruti? After weighing several considerations, I arrive at the solution that the missing Sruti must lie somewhere between the two Srutis g and, and this should be t some recognized acoustic interval; the interval be tween these two Srutis being smaller than

, the next recognised interval would be the comma, viz., ; thus the missing Sruti should be either of --i.e.,, or f of -i.e., $t.

Which of these two should be accepted is a question which I shall presently answer. But the soundness of this procedure is apparent from the facts

(1) That by adopting this plan the general scheme of the scale of 21 notes, which has sub-notes at intervals of on each side of the seven main notes, remains quite undisturbed;

(2. The interpolated Sruti is placed at a recognized acoustic interval, and not at an arbitrary one which would result in want of harmony;

(3) The disturbance caused in the whole scale is reduced to a minimum.

These three reasons justify the interpolation of the Sruti at an interval (between and ) which is considerably smaller than 14.

Now which of the two Srutis, and tt, should be accepted? Everything considered, I select as most probably, the correct Sruti. I cannot go, at great length, into the merits, briefly indicate the reasons in They are:

but may favour of 5.

s, we find this Sruti of in some form or other. Thus :

प

:

(a) Taking f (1) as the starting note (), its would be x, i.e., the in the higher (double) scale; or, better still, in the practical ग्राम called गान्धार ग्राम, ग (2) being the starting note () its fr would be X, this very Sruti.

Thus this is not an imaginary Sruti ; though deduced by me by a priori considerations, it exactly hits the practically correct point.

These, then, are the grounds on which I fix as the missing Sruti, its location being between and * at an interval of

upwards from §. I have also indicated above some of my reasons for accepting the scale of 21 notes as given in European Physics, and adding one Sruti as above to make up the Indian scale of 22 Srutis. The other reasons, then promised, may now be mentioned. They are:

(1) As already stated, this scale preserves theas far as possible between the corresponding notes; this results from the fact that this relation exists in the scale of seven notes in the three groups of afta, अनुदात्त and notes, and that the other notes stand in the relation of to these central notes severally.

(2) The scale being accepted on the basis fixed by physical science, it is acoustically correct; and

(3) When the are altered, the cases in which the resulting notes fürnish deviations from those already existing in this acoustical scale of 21 plus I notes, are numerically the least, and the error of deviation is always that of a comma (3).† Other scales

* I may note one incidental fact which goes to give indirect support to my theory about this location of the missing Sruti. In Sangita Parijata, according to the readings in the Poona and Calcutta manuscripts, the popularly known in the scale of 12 notes is called तीव्रतम म ( not even तीव्रतर ). This would be the note, if is interpolated before it; thus:— म = 3, तौत्र म = i8, तीव्रतर म 32 and तीव्रतम म 8 8. The location of this in the stem of the Vina according to the Sangita Parijata is at 25 inches on a stem of 36 inches, and would thus give the ratio. For instance,—in the the scale of seven