Offering a broad perspective of the philosophy, theory, andaesthetics of early study makes a unique contribution to out knowledge of the ancient foundations of India’s musical cultures. Lewis Rowell rconstructs the tunings, scales, modes, rhythms, gestures, formal patterns, and genres of Indian music from Vedic times to the thirteenth century, presenting not so much a history as a thematic analysis and interpretation of India’s magnificent musical heritage. In Indian culture, music forms and integral part of a broad framework of ideas that includes philosophy, cosmology, religion, literature, and science. Rowell works with the known theoretical treatises and the oral tradition in an effort to place the technical details of musical practice in their FFull cultural context. Many quotations from the original Sanskrit appear here in English translation for the first time, and the necessary tefhnical information is presented in erms accessibnle to the nonspecialist. These features, combined with Rowell’s glossary of Sanskrit terms and extensive binbliography, make Music and Musical Thought in Early India and excellent introduction for the general reader and an indispensable reference for ethnomusicologist, istorical musicologists, music theorists, and Indologists.
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