so use his fingers that his playing is comfortable to the rules of the musical science. The technicalities referred to in connection with a vīṇā performance are so subtle that it is difficult to render them in any other language. Of the fourteen pālais or tunes connected with this, skill consists in utilizing the seven tunes or airs at one and the same time. In conformity to these fourteen pālais, the sound was adjusted, four pertaining to the low key, seven equal, viz. neither lowrnor high, and three to the high pitch. From a study of this chapter it would appear that in the days of the śilappadikāram, three kinds of musical performances were distinguished-the flute, the vīṇā and the vocal. These were, served by a large number of accompanying instruments as occasion demanded. VIII. Musical Instruments H, A. POPLET in his Music of India, Y.M.C.A, Publishing House, Calcutta, 1950: has also summarised, the information to, be had in early Tamil literature concerning musical instruments, The reading is taken from pages 10 to, 12. IN THE TAMIL books Puranānūru and Pattupāṭṭu (c. A.D., 100y-200) the drum is referred to as occupying a position of very great, honour. It had a special seat called murasukafṭṭil, and special elephant, and was treated almost as a deity. It is described as 'adorned, with a garland like the rainbow’ One of the poets, tells us marvelling at the mercy of the king, 'how he sat unwittingly upon the drum couch and yet was not punished'. Three kinds of drums are mentioned in these books: the battle, drum, the judgment drum, and the sacrificial drum. The battle drum was regarded with the same veneration that regiments used to bestow upon the regimental flag in the armies of Europe and the capture of the drum, meant the defeat of the army. One poem likens the beating of the drum to the sound of mountain torrent. Another thus celebrates the virtues of the drummer: For my grandsire's grandsire, his grandsire's grandsire
Beat the drum. For my father his father, did the same.
So he for me. From duties of his clan he has not swerved.
Pour forth for him one other cup of palm tree's purest wine.1 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 From Pura-porul Veṇbā mālai, Pope's translation. |