Indian Music–Its Origin, History and Characteristics is a rare work of pre-independence days. The purpose of the book, according to the scholar, is to introduce the educate the students of music to Indian music. The author says–"It is a supplement to the existing Indian literature on the subject (music) and not a substitute," As such the book is not a comprehensive work on music, it does provide an introduction to the subject by defining the essential basic terms of music in simple and easy language. The short definition offered by the author will be much useful for the non-Indian music students and music lovers of India as well. The terms of Margi Deshi, sound, shruti, svara, grama, murchana, tana kuta tanas, gamaka, alankara etc,’ are some of them which are described. The ancient terms like graha, amsha and nyasa are also included in the list of term definition. The author has mentioned the names of various ancient authors viz., Sharngadeva, Damodara, Pandit, Ahobala and the latest scholar of his time V.S. Bhatkhande. Yet he has followed the Hanuman-Mata or school of music in his work which according to him is popularly known and current at that time. He has adopted the raga-ragini classification of Hanuman-Mata. In this first volume, after defining melody types in general with the four types of notes vadi, samvadi, vivadi and anuvadi he has taken the first raga-Bhairava with its five female raginis. The first volume was supposed to be allowed by five more volumes, comprising five raga and their raginis.
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