A Historical Study of Indian Music covers a wide range from the earliest historical traces of our music to the present day. At a time most historical studies degenerated into a mixture of pseudo-legendary and mythology with large doses of sentimentality and platitudes, but Swami Prajnanananda’s scholarly approach is like a breath of fresh air. The learned author starts with the Vedic music, Gandharva music and ends with the Rabindra Samgita and Rabindranath Tagore’s own theories. And apart form detailed and scientific analysis of music of every type of every age, he has explored practically every relevant field—ancient musical instruments, the nature of Indian and western orchestra, and the chorus in ancient India, the Saptatantri Vina in the Buddhist caves, the concept of raga, Aryan and non-Aryan theories, the origin and developments of Dhrupad, Khayal, Bengali songs along with other musical types. The author has examined the close relationship that exists between music and dance and has thrown sufficient light on the problems of acoustics, aesthetics, both Indian and western psychology, philosophy and iconography of Indian music. The learned author has added four informative appendices which will solve many knotty problems of music, both Indian and western. The book is, therefore, a compendium and indispensable volume for the seekers of knowledge and experience.
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