Pavan or Pan, is the author of a most popular mode of music. Sir William Jones, in his Essay on the musical modes of the Hindûs, quotes several treatises, particularly the Damodar, Narayan, Bhagavi bodha, and Retnacara. These describe particularly four matas or systems of music, by Iswara or Siva (perhaps Osiris) Bherat, Hanumân, and Callinath, an Indian philosopher: there are, however, different systems peculiar to almost each province of Hindustan. Some of the sweetest of these seem to have prevailed in the Panjâb, and in the neighbourhood of Mathura, the pastoral people of which, delighted in singing the loves and adventures of their hero Crishna, who was himself the patron of music, and is often represented dancing while he plays on a reed. The scale of the Hindûs comprehends seven sounds, called sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, and in the octave they reckon twenty-two quarters and thirds. They also count eighty-four modes, formed by subdividing the seven natural sounds; these modes are called ragas, a word which properly signifies passion, each mode being intended to move one or other of our affections. Hence the fabulists have sometimes imagined them so various, as to make up the number of sixteen thousand ; more temperate writers, though they admit almost as many possible. modes, only reckon twenty-three as applicable to practice. The Indian poets seem to have employed the utmost elegance and richness of their talents to adorn the fables connected with this divine art. The six chief modes are personified as beautiful youths, the genii of music, and presiding over the six seasons. Bhairava is lord of the cheerful, dry, or autumnal season, and his strains invite the dancer to accompany them. Malava rules the cold and melancholy months, and with his attendant Ragnis, complains of slighted love, or bewails the pains of absence. Sriraga patronizes the dewy season, which is the time of delight, that ushers in the spring, the fragrant and the flowery time over which Hindola or Vasanta presides. When the oppressive heat comes on, the soft and languid melody of Dipaca sympathises with the fevered feelings, while the refreshing season of the new rains bestows a double pleasure, when accompanied by the sweet strains of Megha*. To aid the Ragas come their faithful spouses, the thirty Raginis, five of which attend each youth, presenting to him eight little genii, *The names of the seasons are as follows:-Sarad, the autumnal season; Hemanta, the frosty; Sisira, the dewy; Vasanta, the spring, called also Surabhi, fragrant, and Prispasamaya, flowery; Grishma, heat; and Versha, rain. their sons, whose lovely voices aid and vary the melodies of their sires. Such is the outline of the beautiful picture drawn by the poets, and which is also a favourite subject with the Indian painters; but their works, like the music of modern Hindostan, do not furnish materials by which to judge of the state of the art, when India was in the zenith of her glory. Of the ancient music, indeed, the history has been preserved in elaborate scientific treatises and poetical tales; but ancient pictures must long ago have perished; and it is only by a detached hint, scattered here and there, in writings on other subjects, that we can guess that painting was once highly cultivated. The specimens of Hindû art I have seen, are minute imitations of nature, on a scale in general more diminutive than our common miniatures; but there is a delicacy of handling about them, that seems like the remains of a more perfect art, which survives only in its mechanical part, while the soul and genius that once guided it are long since fled. Sculpture had made considerable progress in Hindostan at an early period; and however rude the first attempts at hewing a stone, and polishing it into the resemblance of the human figure, still it serves as a model which other artists may improve. |