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Scan 5
Catalogue of the musical instruments exhibited in the Government Museum, Madras, 1931
16 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1INDIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
3I.—INTRODUCTION.
5India is one of the few countries in the world presenting a rich variety of musical instruments. The varieties that have been evolved in the course of her long history are thoroughly representative of the stringed, wind and percussion groups. There are at least five hundred of them, each with a distinct name, shape, construction, technique and quality of tone. The instruments of the key-board type, however, did not find favour with the musical genius of the country and they fell into disuse long ago. It was not possible by any amount of skill on the part of the performer to produce the gamakas (the graces and embellishments) with the key-board instruments, which gave only notes of fixed pitch. The gamakas are the life and soul of Indian music and in the words of a classic* writer "Music without gamaka is like a moonless night, a river without water and a creeper without flowers." The practical disappearance of the Swaramandala and the harp† is to be attributed to the same cause. These two instruments were played on open strings and there was no provision to stop them, which is a necessary condition for the production of gamakas. The Saptaghantika and the Nallatarang are the two modern survivals of the key-board type of instruments in India.
7The materials of which the instruments are made, are for the most part those that are easily procurable in the country. Large gourds, bamboo canes, reeds, jackwood, blackwood, earthenware and the skin of calf, sheep, buffalo and monitor (varanus) lizard are employed. The gourds are trained in their growth to the required shape. Silver, bronze, brass, copper and iron are amongst the materials used in the manufacture of musical instruments.
9One characteristic feature of Indian musical instruments is that in both the stringed and the wind group, the fingers stop the strings and the finger-holes directly and there is no intervening mechanism like a key. The great advantage of this system is that the playing of the most subtle gamakas becomes easy.‡ Complexities in the construction of the instruments are also avoided.
11Every instrument has its own technique in playing. Ample provision is made for the accurate tuning of the several instruments. The concert-drum in Indian music plays a far more important part than in European music. It is played continuously and it also
13* Somanatha in his "Raga Vibodha."
14† There are three Buddhist sculptures from Amaravati (belonging to the 2nd century A.D.) preserved in the Archaeological Gallery of the Madras Museum in which the harp figures. The best is a fragment of the left hand side of a medallion showing several women, one of whom is playing the harp. In the renunciation scene above the most complete of the Chaitya slabs (Burgess, The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, pl. I.) a similar harp is resting against one of the women sleeping in the foreground. In the sculpture on the coping of the railing showing the Malla women celebrating the division of the Buddha's relics (Ibid. pl. XXV, fig. 2) one of the women is holding a harp.
15‡ In the gotuvadyam a piece of wood is used to stop the strings, but as it is held firmly by the left hand fingers effective direct manipulation takes place so that it is as good as the fingers themselves stopping the strings.
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