modern China. Ancient qin were only about one-third the
size of modern ones and were played with open strings. Th e
modern form of the qin is believed to have been invented
during the Han Dynasty. According to myth, the qin was
invented around 3000 b.c.e. by the legendary kings Huang
Di, Fu Xi, and Shennong; the tale says that the fi rst qin had
only fi ve strings and that two more were added later. Actual
historical mentions of the qin date to about 1000 b.c.e., and
archaeologists have found qin in tombs that date to about 500
b.c.e. Other ancient stringed instruments included the pipa, a
four-stringed fretted lute; the ruan, a four-stringed lute with
a round body resembling a banjo; and the konghou, or harp,
invented around 600 b.c.e.
Bowed fi ddles (stringed instruments played with a bow
instead of by plucking) were invented in Persia around 1000
b.c.e., and travelers in central Asia carried them east along
the Silk Road. Th e Mongols developed this design into several
types of bowed instruments called huqin, a name meaning
“barbarian instrument” in Chinese. During the Han Dynasty,
Chinese music was heavily infl uenced by the music of the
Mongols and other peoples of central Asia, and Chinese mu-
sicians adopted some central Asian instruments, such as the
morin khuur, a fi ddle played with a bow of horsehair by Mon-
gol horse herders. During the Song Dynasty (420–479 c.e.)
Chinese musicians began playing the erhu, a two-stringed
bowed fi ddle that was played sitting down as the musician
held the base of the instrument on his knee.
Music was widely performed and sung in India by the
time people began writing down the Vedas, the oldest Hindu
texts, starting between 2000 and 1500 b.c.e. Much of Indian
music had a religious purpose. Th e Vedas were transmitted
orally through chanting. Priests intoned sacred hymns in
a musical style with notes associated with particular syl-
lables and a prescribed rhythm. Oft en groups of priests and
believers would chant mantras (sacred words or phrases)
together; a leader would call out the words and tune, and
the group would repeat the mantra aft er him. According
to Hindu doctrine, singing the correct musical notes was
essential to summoning the spiritual power of the words.
Th is style of vocal music was called Carnatic music and was
the predominant musical form in all of India from about
2000 b.c.e. until the end of the ancient period. Indian peo-
ple also played instruments to accompany vocal chants. Th e
main instruments were the fl ute, temple bells, and several
stringed instruments, such as the sarod, which resembled
the guitar.
Ancient Japanese people developed a complex musical
tradition. To the Japanese, poetry and songs were closely
linked and in some cases indistinguishable. Japanese musi-
cians recited or chanted poems to a musical accompaniment
on a stringed instrument, a fl ute, or a drum. Th e Japanese
divided their music into categories, such as court music, mili-
tary music, and popular music. Listening to a particular style
of music evoked for them the culture from which that music
originated.
Much of what historians know about Japanese music
comes from songs and poems from the later Nara Period
(645–710 c.e.), which scholars have used to reconstruct some
ancient Japanese musical principles. Archaeologists have
found statues of musicians dating to the ancient Jōmon (ca.
13,000–ca. 300 b.c.e.) and Yayoi (ca. 300 b.c.e.–ca. 300 c.e.)
periods, but Japanese musicians of these periods did not write
down any of their musical pieces. Th e Nara Period texts Kojiki
(Records of Ancient Matters) and Nihon shoki (Th e Chroni-
cles of Japan) were the fi rst recorded archives of Japanese his-
tory; these documents contain many songs of ancient origin.
By the time scholars started writing about music, they had a
well-established body of work to describe, which means that
modern historians can surmise a fair amount about ancient
Japanese music that predated the sixth century c.e.
Th e evidence for ancient Korean music is fragmen-
tary and comes mostly from Chinese sources. Korean had
both formal court music, performed at seasonal festivals
and ceremonies, and more casual folk music, played andRed sandstone railing pillar in the form of a fl ute player (second
century c.e.), Mathura, northern India (© Th e Trustees of the British
Museum)music and musical instruments: Asia and the Pacific 767