INDIAN MUSIC. 183

"The Vedie chant, composed in the simple Sanskrit spoken
three thousand years ago and handed doi*n from generation to

generation for more than thirty centuries,......is to Hindus what

plain song is to us. For this ancient chant, like plain song, is
bound up with the sacred ceremonials and is wedded to language
alike sonorous and dignified. And the place where it is heard,
for it is heard only in the temple, is considered so holy, and the
strain itself is so simple and devotional that all who hear it
cannot fail to be impressed. "

The form of the "Vedic chants is fixed, and constant
throughout India, but this is not the case with other
hymns such as those of the Southern Saivites, which are
sung to many airs in the homes and temples of the South.
Manikka Vachagar's hymns are familiar to all and are sung
with tears of rapture ; there is a saying that c he whose
heart is not melted by the Tlruvachagam must have a
stone for a heart.?

Of dramatic music there is no lack. Certain classica
dramas, Rama Charitam, Harischandra, and the like, are
known to the whole people, lettered or illiterate, and appeal
equally to both. The South Indian drama is of much im-
portance in the life of the people, just as miracle and
mystery plays in the life of Mediaeval Europe. But
these representations are now often degraded by the
use of cheap harmoniums, called in the South * Lily-flutes',
and by the use of unsuitable and tawdry European scenery
and costume, imitations of those tenth-rate travelling
companies.

Of special interest are the songs of agriculture and
the crafts. By these I mean all music serving to lighten
heavy labour, such as the songs of husbandmen, carters and
boatmen ; songs embodying technical recipes and serving
as craft mnemonics; songs of invocation of craft or agri-
cultural divinities, or expressing a sacramental conception
of a craft; and religioxxs songs,—such as used to be sung