Getieral exposhhoary musical art, but attaches to that art the highest value in the re-
finement of man and his higher spiritual evolution. The earliest phase
of Indian music, the .raman, meaning concord, harmony and peace, was
first used as accompaniment to ritual acts and later as spiritual exercise.
One of our foremost lawgivers, sage Yajnavalkya, advocates singing,
playing on the lute and the developing of a precise sense of the micro-
tonal variations and the rhythm as an easier part for spiritual realiza-
tion,yga Our musical lore is one of our subsidiary scriptures; not
only were the seven notes and primary rhythms revealed by the Lord,
but the Lord himself in his various forms exemplifies the different
forms of singing and playing. Our temples are our biggest conserva-
tories of music. The bl-ahmnn or the one philosophical absolute which
forms the substratum of all existence has been conceived by our gram-
matical and musical philosophers as sound, mda. As one sits drinking
in the melody and gets absorbed in it, the limitations of finite mundane
existence are transcended, the walls of time and space fall off and the
released spirit swims in the boundless ocean of the ineffable bliss of
the nada-brahman. The power of music to melt the heart and keep it
in attunement had been fully realized, and whatever the form of wor-
ship, music had always been resorted to as an accessory of devotion;
and down the ages, the outstanding makers of our music have at once
been saints and teachers. In the popular tongues of the different regions,
these musician-saints composed large volumes of songs embodying
truths of philosophy, ethical precepts and criticisms of social and moral
failings which, sung or listened to by the masses, continue to this day
to be the most effective means of popular liberal education. The ex-
pansion of education in the recent past has but touched a fraction of
the masses, for most of whom this age-old music tradition, either in
pure recital form or in the still more effective form of the musical dis-
course called the harikatha or kil-tan has been the regular medium of
edification. Such is the role that music has played in India in the sphere
of higher personal evolution and in the sphere of social and popular
adult education; and such are the springs of its inspiration and the
forces that have sustained it down the ages. It is necessary to set this
forth at the outset, as later we will have to evaluate the success of
recent trends in our music and its inculcation in accordance with this
native genius of the art.
As a fine art, music has been, from remote times, included in the
scheme of studies which contributes to one’s accomplishments and
status as a man of culture. The traditional list of the 64 arts in which
men and women were expected to become proficient is headed by