Table of Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition 1. The Age of Purification 2. Living Tones or Intellectual ". Seeds of Sound #. $escending and Ascending %usic &. The 'eo(etr) of %usic *. %elodies and S)(+honies ,. %usic and Civili-ation otes!

Foreword to the Second Edition The .ebirth of /indu %usic was written in July, 1926, while I was temporarily living in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It followed y a year the writing of a mu!h longer volume, The .ediscover) of %usic, whi!h has remained unpu lished. "or several years efore writing these oo#s, I had een studying what was then availa le of $riental musi! and espe!ially oo#s dealing with it % parti!ularly a few e&!ellent wor#s y "ren!h musi!ologists and historians. ' remar#a le performer of (indu musi! and dan!e, )agini *evi, the wife of a highly !ultured Indian, Mr. Ba+pai, urged me to write down what we had een dis!ussing while I was in ,ew -or# during the winter of 192. and 1926, and I a!!eeded to her wish. /he oo# was pu lished in 1920 y the /heosophi!al Pu lishing (ouse in 'dyar, Madras, India, in oth hard!over and paper a!# editions. /he oo# was never ade1uately distri uted in 'meri!a2 for at the time only a very few people had any interest at all in oriental musi!, whi!h most musi!ians !onsidered 3primitive3 and not worth studying. /he tide egan to turn when the !omposer (enry 4i!hheim traveled to Japan, Java and Bali, and on his return interested 5eopold 6tow#ows#i, who a!!ompanied him on a trip to these !ountries % ut not to India. My first !onta!t with (indu musi! had een in Paris, early in 1917, when I met a young "ren!h !omposer, *elage, who had traveled to India and written a few lovely songs ased on his remem ran!es of the vo!al and instrumental musi! that had fas!inated him. ' out si& years later, my deep interest in the philosophies of India and in /heosophy ena led me to see in what I had read !on!erning (indu musi! and !ulture a vi rant manifestation of the metaphysi!al and o!!ult !on!epts whi!h had fired my youthful mind. In writing The .ebirth of /indu %usic, I had hoped to have at least some slight influen!e among Indian musi!ians having some familiarity with the 8est. I had #nown 9oomaraswamy, the well:#nown author of The $ance of Shiva and, I elieve, the dire!tor of the $riental department in a Boston museum, and he had mentioned the harm done to (indu musi! y the in!reasing use of "ren!h:made harmoniums tuned to our 8estern tonal system. (aving een orn in Paris, I felt a #ind of 3#armi!3 pressure urging me to try to lead (indu musi!ians to a deeper understanding of the philosophi!al and o!!ult asis of the musi! they played % a asis whi!h, I was told, they had forgotten. In 192., I tried to get a s!holarship to go to India in order to study the different musi!al systems of that vast !ountry whi!h, at that time, was not yet freed from British imperialism. But su!h a pro+e!t was +udged too 3far:out3 y the a!ademi! !ommittees in !harge of dispensing grants. "ifty year later, we have witnessed the e&odus of many young 4uropeans and 'meri!ans to India in the hope of finding in that an!ient land what neither a!ademi! intelle!tualism nor the materialisti! and automated usiness:world !ould offer. /he spread of phonograph re!ords ;there were hardly any of 'siati! musi! when I wrote this oo#< has allowed an in!reasing num er of persons to gain at least a superfi!ial a!1uaintan!e with non:4uropean musi!2 and musi! s!hools and universities have gradually egun to feature studies of

$riental musi!. /he (ippie generation dis!overed yoga, meditation and )avi 6han#ar % as well as psy!hedeli!s, whi!h fostered su +e!tive e&perien!es that made them even more sus!epti le to the e1ually su +e!tive moods and feelings radiating from (indu musi!. /his new edition of The .ebirth of /indu %usic is identi!al to the original one. It would have een impossi le for me to modify some paragraphs without !hanging the whole oo#. "ifty years ma#e a great deal of differen!e in the thin#ing and the style of a writer. My view of 8estern musi!, and parti!ularly of what has happened in the field of 'meri!an musi! sin!e 19=>, has undergone some transformation % or rather it has e!ome tempered y the passage of time and y often frustrating e&perien!es in my !onta!ts with other !omposers, !ondu!tors and pianists. /he musi!al situation has !hanged greatly during the last forty years, espe!ially after 8orld 8ar II2 and what I dreamed of as the 336yntoni! )evolution? has ta#en 1uite une&pe!ted forms. 4le!troni! and !omputer musi! are introdu!ing new possi ilities, ut only at the te!hni!al level so far. If there really is a 3revolution,3 it is spreading slowly, and it still does not operate in terms of the deeper, philosophi!al aspe!ts of tone and musi! to whi!h I had attempted to draw musi!ians3 attention. It may e that the new edition of this oo#, and some other writings I am underta#ing, will find more re!eptive minds. 6ome of the 3seed:ideas3 that are eing sown will, I elieve, sooner or later germinate among the men and women who are not only dreaming of a ,ew 'ge, ut ta#ing definitive transformative steps toward the ?regeneration of the individual? I pro!laimed as an inelu!ta le ne!essity in the last paragraph of this oo#. 8hen one is young, one tends to live in a su +e!tive world of !ons!iousness and to follow with enthusiasm paths that too often return to their starting points, e!ause one la!#s o +e!tivity and impersonal understanding. 's I write these introdu!tory notes, I am a out to meet my 07th irthday2 I am still very usy wor#ing on new oo#s and !omposing musi!. My asi! vision of the future has not een altered2 the world has !hanged, yet it is still very mu!h the same, e&!ept that oth the pro!esses of disintegration and potential re irth have moved !loser to what seems to e an unavoida le !risis. In 192., I felt !ertain a new world war would !ome. ,ow I !annot e so youthfully sure of anything % parti!ularly of what will happen to musi! all over the world. Philosophers do not !ause things to happen, ut it should e their tas# to throw the light of meaning upon what is ta#ing pla!e. 5ately, after a !ouple of !enturies of unrestrained and often !atastrophi! adventures in s!ien!e and te!hnology, we are witnessing, the rise of 3philosophers of s!ien!e.3 It may e that after many and !onfusing revolutionary !hanges in the world of musi!, philosophers of musi! may !ome to see, ; eyond the professionalism and !ommer!ialism of so mu!h that today passes for musi!,< the foundations on whi!h all musi! depends for vitality and spiritual effe!tiveness. If my wor# on musi! and !ulture has !ontri uted to the emergen!e of su!h a philosophy of musi! % musi! in oth its !on!rete and its ar!hetypal aspe!ts % I shall !onsider my repeated attempts not to have een in vain.

Palo 'lto, 9alifornia ,ovem er =, 19@0

Cha+ter 0ne The Age of Purification These are the ti(es that call u+on all (en, 4astern or 8estern, high or low, for purifi!ation and re irth. /he stream of the an!ient 'ryanA wisdom and !ulture has nearly dried up in the wastes of modern India. /he ideals whi!h a Pythagoras, a Plato, a Para!elsus tried to impress upon the young 4uropean !iviliBation have een distorted and often efouled. ' ma!hine:into&i!ated world, lost in peripheri! and sensorial a!tivities, has forgotten how to loo# within at the !enter, where Ishwara, the 6elf, a ides for ever, where only may e grasped the true intonation of the musi! of the (eart, the solar tones of the 22 srutis whi!h are the dire!t revelation of /one. 8hen #nowledge de!ays, when dharma is no longer per!eived, !iviliBation e!omes rapidly distorted, then disintegrates, and musi!, whi!h is the !learest mirror of !iviliBation, loses its true intonations, its inner strength of tone, and e!omes a mere repetition of formulas and modes whi!h, have lost their vital meaning and no longer rouse in ,ature and in man powers and visions, ut only please the senses or thrill the intelle!t. "eats of virtuosity are applauded. /he singer, having lost the sense of the real dharma of musi!, !eases to e satisfied with the performan!e of tones or melodies whi!h are true, and wants to produ!e what is original. /he saddest page of all time is written in the history of Indian !ulture, as musi!ians hypnotiBed y the false or in!omplete #nowledge of 4urope, a #nowledge at any rate leading to an entirely different type of musi!al e&pression, ow efore the dreadful harmoniums whi!h are !ursing the land of the )ishis, whi!h no 4uropean musi!ian of the slightest distin!tion would ever tolerate in his home. /here is only one great and universal purifierC spiritual #nowledge. 6ri Drishna pro!laimed this one great truth five thousand years ago, and it is true today as ever. (umanity needs spiritual #nowledge. 9iviliBation !an only e regenerated y spiritual #nowledge. ,o re irth of musi! will e possi le without it. 6piritual #nowledge is /ruth, a solute e!ause !hangeless2 it is Sat)a2 and in our present Dali -uga no purifi!ation !an ta#e pla!e whi!h is not ased on Sat)a, whi!h is not the individual3s or the ra!e3s effort toward the new Sat)a 1uga, or Eolden 'ge, whi!h is to su!!eed our age of dar#ness, our age of !onfusion and de!ay indeed2 ut this is also the time of our motherhood when we may !arry in our own soul the seeds of the !oming era and e purified there y. It is true that during the fall season whi!h is the Dali -uga of the year, the tree after having donned its yellow ro e sheds its leaves whi!h de!ompose and return to the soil as !hemi!al elements, and the !y!le of vegetation is !losed2 ut it is then also that amidst the de!ay of greens and even of fruits, the seeds of the year to !ome, of the new !y!le of vegetation, are sown. $n the surfa!e of the earth seeds and de!ayed leaves mi&2 ut the seeds whi!h are strong are not tou!hed y de!ay. /hey are in Dali, the great Mother:4arth, ut not of Dali -uga. /hey fe!undate the soil, they ta#e from the soil !hemi!als for growth. -et they remain what they always are, the vehi!les of this or that vegeta le spe!ies, the instruments

through whi!h the Eenius of the spe!ies or $eva manifests, as the deva of a rag or tone manifests through the vina. /he seeds are true. /hey are not often eautiful outwardly, as eauty is understood today2 ut they are true and !hangeless. "or the seed of this plant this year and the seed of that other plant of last year are truly one, as the sun of this spring and the sun of any other spring are one. /he form is un!hanged2 the vitality is un!hanged2 the taste is un!hanged. /he seed falling in the soil during Dali -uga and the seed germinating in another yuga are the same2 that whi!h is now was in the eginning. /hat whi!h is the eginning and end of all this is true. Jesus saidC ?I am the alpha and the omega,? the first and the last letter. 5i#ewise the musi! of the ra!ial eginnings and that whi!h is seen as the seed during the last period of the !y!le are true musi!. /hey are made of tones in whi!h the devas may in!arnate2 in other words, of tones whi!h are alive with the power of the 6pirit e!ause they are true. (indu musi! wants to find the seed:tones whi!h it has nearly lost, whi!h it has pra!ti!ally lost as far as the general run of pu li! performan!es is !onsidered. But it will not find them y as#ing the 8est for them2 for the 8est has forgotten for nearly twenty !enturies the e&isten!e of tones whi!h are living seeds and living souls. Musi! to the 8est means something else than what it meant to India in her greatest periods, as we shall see presently2 and to !onfuse the two dhar(as or the two paths of Indian and 8estern musi! is the worst thing whi!h !ould happen to Indian musi!ians, and it has happened already in more ways than one. Euro+ean (usic +ro+er had its source in the great .efor(ation of the si2th centur) 3.C. initiated y Pythagoras, the /ea!her of lonia or Eree!e, 1avanachar)a as India #nows him, or Pita 'uru as his name really was, the "ather of all 8estern tea!hers or gurus. 8ith Pythagoras not only 4uropean musi!, ut what to our present humanity 8estern !iviliBation and musi! represent, egins2 4uropean !iviliBation eing ut the first a!t of the vast drama of 8estern !iviliBation whi!h is now eing !entered in the 'meri!an !ontinent. /his first a!t, li#e many first a!ts, has proven to e really nothing ut a transition, a heterogeneous mi&ture of pseudo:4astern and pseudo:8estern ideals distorted y the "eudal 6tates and an am itious and politi!al 9hur!h. Perversion egan when Pythagoras3 6!hool at 9rotona ;6outhern Italy< ro#e down, was destroyed and Pythagoras3 tea!hings e!ame distorted y students who #new very little of them and !ared still less a out preserving them integrally. 4soteri! groups remained and never disappeared entirely from 4urope. Platonists, ,eoplatonists, Enosti!s, the few true 'l!hemists and )osi!ru!ians and many other groups of so:!alled ?hereti!s? lived throughout the !enturies, ut as more or less se!ret organiBations, hunted down y the 9hur!h, urnt alive, defamed up to the present day2 while offi!ial 4urope lived in wars and hatreds, untrue to the spirit of 9hristianity as Eree# !ulture had een untrue to the Pythagorean spirit. /he Pythagorean system of musi!, misunderstood and perverted, lended with 'siati! reminis!en!es, e!ame the Eree# musi! of !lassi!al times. /he Enosti! !hants and sa!red

melodies of a Bar *aisan, an 'rius, a Mani and many other 6piritual /ea!hers who were also musi!ians, were stolen y the "athers of the 9atholi! 9hur!h and after a few alterations e!ame liturgi!al hymns and mediaeval plain !hant in general. /hey lost their deeper !osmi! signifi!an!e and e!ame mere melodies, patterns of musi!al notes, more and more intelle!tualiBed as !enturies rolled y. In the twelfth and thirteenth !enturies a few great musi!ians, mostly un#nown, !ontemporaries of the e1ually un#nown ar!hite!ts who uilt the wonderful Eothi! !athedrals, egan a definite s!hool of polyphony on Pythagorean prin!iples, a s!hool very mu!h misunderstood so far, the main figure of whi!h was Perotin. But polyphony soon too# another turn whi!h, though it might have een a ne!essity then, yet led musi! toward a !easelessly greater degree of intelle!tualiBation. 8ith 4uropean !lassi!al musi!, with the wor#s of Ba!h, 4uropeanism in musi! !omes to its !ulmination, romanti!ism whi!h followed after Beethoven eing a re ellion against 4uropeanism and in a sense the Dali -uga of 4uropean musi!, a !risis of irth whi!h has led to the first manifestations of a new 8estern musi!, first with the great )ussian !omposer 6!ria in, then with a few young 'meri!an pioneers little #nown as yet. 4uropeanism in musi! typified y Ba!h, y tonalities and the prin!iple of e1ual temperament, y fugues and !ounterpoint, y the development of instrumental musi! and of large or!hestras, et!. fulfilled a mission. /hough it has een ut the intelle!tual shadow of the spiritual reality whi!h would logi!ally grow out of the true Pythagorean ideals and whi!h, we hope, the future will reveal to us in 'meri!a, yet it prepared the way for what may !ome, and great musi!ian souls have !omposed great wor#s in spite of the limitations and !rudity of the materials they had to use. ' ,ew Musi! of the 8est is going to manifest soon, not in a 4urope e!oming more and more artifi!ial, spiritually dead and rea!tionary, ut in the ,ew 8orld where a new !iviliBation is slowly eing uilt, unnoti!ed as yet y the general 'meri!an people at present stultified y !ommer!ialism and !on!entration on material prosperity and material te!hni!al organiBation. But neither musi!al 4uropeanism nor even the new efforts in 'meri!a have any essential message for Indian musi!ians at the present time. /he 8est ought to !on!entrate upon the regeneration of 8estern !iviliBation, and India on the reformation of her own half:forgotten !iviliBation of pre:9hristian !enturies. 9onfusion of duties is dangerous. (owever, the !ase of a 8esterner is different in that he will find that all true spiritual tea!hers of the 8est have studied and een initiated into the ar!hai! 'ryan wisdom of the )ishis, that therefore as soon as he wishes to go to the sour!e of #nowledge dire!tly, he must travel in the spirit, if not in the flesh, to the Mountains wherefrom the 'ryan ra!e, of whi!h he is a part, originatedC he must go to the 6eed, and the 6eed is in 'sia, not in modern India proper. It is not in India proper if we !onsider the greater !y!le of the present humanity2 ut if we restri!t ourselves to the last five thousand years whi!h, in a sense, mar# a new period in human development and !an e !onsidered as a !omplete whole, as the prologue and thesis of this Dali -uga, then we find that in India lived and taught those Ereat Beings who are the 6ouls and $riginal Impulses of the yuga, and from whom the /ruth and /one of the !y!le

emanated, as the form and vital energy of the plant emanates from the seed whi!h is a little sun in!arnated into the earthly soil, the 6pirit in the ody. 8e are spea#ing here of 6ri Drishna, Eautama the Buddha and 6an#ara!harya. /he former died in =1>2 B.9., the latter two lived twenty:five !enturies later eing !ontemporaries with Pythagoras. 'nother, great period we find around the !lose of the fourteenth !entury whi!h mar#s the universal )eformation of modern time, in /i et and India as well as in 4urope, shortly after whi!h a new era egins with the dis!overy or rather redis!overy of 'meri!a in 1792. /hese !y!les and many others less important, !onstitute the framewor# of our re!ent !iviliBation. 9iviliBation !annot e understood without the #nowledge of ra!ial !y!les and of the asi! meaning2 and musi! !annot e understood outside of !iviliBation. /he history of musi! is the history of man and vi!e versa. Man is the tone:produ!er and his deeds are utteran!es2 all these life:utteran!es !onstitute the individual rag of the individual orn out of the ra4ti of his own heart wherein his own soul dwells in silen!e, or rather in the unmanifested /one, the inaudi le 'FM. 6o 6ri Drishna is portrayed as the flute:player improvising in the many rags and dan!ing, the dan!e of life materialiBing the tones. 8hat the flute sym oliBes in the ody, all mysti!s and students of o!!ultism #now. It is said also that the first !ry of a !hild gives out the tone of his own eing, that it is the first manifested 'FM % first the inrushing of the whole universe into the lungs as magneti! air stamping upon the !hild3s lood the vi rations of the stars, then the response of the eing, the first emotion of selfhood, the first assertion of the ?a? in sound, the seed5tone of all hu(an songs. In India the seed:tone of this present era was sounded, and % Indian musi!ians must reawa#en in themselves the memory of it if they want to e true to their souls as Indians, ut still deeper, as individual selves. "or thus only !an they perform their musi!ians3 dharma2 for thus only !an they fulfill in the great 8orld Musi! the part whi!h is theirs y nature and irthright. (ere truly spiritual #nowledge proper as well as musi!al #nowledge is meant. But how !an these two e separated in a musi!ian who is true to his or her higher destinyG (ave not the great Indian singers of the past een men of great spiritual stature, as!eti!s and )ogis or dis!iples of great saintsG *oes not the very term sruti mean divine revelation, the word of the Euru, as well as the very !ells of the musi!al organismG *oes it not indi!ate !learly enough that musi! is a divine revelation2 greater in a sense than that whi!h !an e uttered y words, as it may rea!h eyond words to the very !enter of the (eart *o!trineG /ones originate in the heart2 as the old 9hinese !easelessly repeated2 for in the heart of Man is the little sun, the little lue flame of the real sun, Ishwara, that is the swara or tone of the 6elfC Ich, I. 6piritual #nowledge alone purifies. It urns the dross of generations2 it !larifies the water whi!h traveling far from the mountain sour!e has a!!umulated so mu!h filth. Indian musi!ians !an !ome to the sour!e if they only want to #now and to dare, e!ause this sour!e is at the !enter of their heart. /hey have let the sour!e dry up and now, as they

!ome as#ing other ra!es for water and #nowledge, what they re!eive is the water whi!h on!e was pure at the sour!e, ut now is !orrupted and !an no longer 1uen!h. *ig deep down where the well spouted with the pi!# of !on!entration2 study y the power of life still more than y the mere reading of oo#s, the #ey to whi!h is nearly lost2 and the true In!antation of the eginning will e heard whi!h will reopen the world of tones that are living and thus have the power to regenerate living eings. Eo a!# to the sour!e. It is the eternal )eality, the !hangeless 6u stan!e. It is never far away, only we shut ourselves from it e!ause we are afraid and e!ause we are wea# !hildren of a wea#ened humanity. 8e have neither mus!les nor spiritual will. (ow then !ould we singG "or singing means oth mus!les and spiritual will, in all the many meanings of the terms. /he sour!e of musi! is the 6elf, At(a, the Breath:Motion2 and what is the su stan!e of musi! if not soundG 6piritual #nowledge for a musi!ian means therefore the #nowledge of the 6elf and the #nowledge of sound. $f the latter 8estern s!ientists have learned a small, very small !hapter whi!h they !all the s!ien!e of a!ousti!s. But !uriously enough this s!ien!e of a!ousti!s whi!h deals with sound !annot even tell what is the nature of sound, as we shall soon see. 6ound must e understood in all its aspe!ts, metaphysi!al as well as physi!al. It is the .a5/o5.a4ti of the 4gyptians, the 6un:Eod, +hone with the Eree#, ut also the song of the 6irens who are the Eree# 'andharvas revealing to men the se!rets of wisdom, the Fohat of /i etan wisdom, and in a sense )udra, or .udh5.a, the red Power of the in!arnating soul and of 9osmi! *esire2 the twenty:two srutis eing related to the eleven )udras, and to the eleven:year !y!le of solar magnetism ;sunspots !y!le as it is #nown y 8estern s!ien!e<. 8here is this spiritual #nowledge of sound, this an!ient 'uh)a 6id)a, one of the aspe!ts of the At(a 6id)a, or s!ien!e of the 6elfG /he s!ien!e of sa!red (antra(s is undou tedly preserved in some san!tuaries, ut the s!ien!e of musi! whi!h is the evolutionar) aspe!t of the great Hedi! s!ien!e of invo!ations, where is it to e foundG /he 'andharva 6eda and the 'andhara 'ra(a are lost2 ut is not also the rag *ipa# lostG /he s!ien!e of des!ending musi! and of the in!arnation of the soul is forgotten, as also that of as!ending musi!, the musi! whi!h is "ire, !easelessly rising % forgotten or rather deported out of the rea!h of materialisti! and selfish generations who do not even understand why !ertain rags must e sung at !ertain hours or seasons, and who would li#ely play with fire in a powder fa!tory. /hus the need for purifi!ation ased upon #nowledge, through whi!h only a still deeper #nowledge may !ome together with the power to utter tones whi!h are seeds and to improvise upon modes or rags whi!h are the true images of the !y!li! !hanges in ,ature as in man, and not mere moods. 7hat is the wa) to 4nowledge! 6tudy and meditation2 first the study of laws, then the meditation on that whi!h moves a!!ording to laws, and on the Mover of all things. Be!ause the an!ient (indus gave names to all for!es of ,ature and represented them, or rather the 6pirit manifesting through them, as divine personages, mas!uline or feminine,

the modern musi!ian is more or less afraid or ashamed of elieving what the supposedly wise 8esterners have s!orned as fairy tales. (e !annot go eyond the allegori!al gar to the law whi!h it reveals, and he has no other way save either to depend on handed down #nowledge a!!epted on faith ut neither !riti!iBed nor philosophi!ally understood, or else to swing to the !ult of 4uropean material gods and read the an!ient te&ts in the light of a 4uropeaniBed intelle!t. 8hile the latter may e a le to thin# in terms of laws, yet those laws are not universal, e!ause they rest merely on sense e&perien!e or intelle!tual spe!ulation, e!ause they posit as an evident fa!t a false unity of musi!al su stan!e and #nowledge, a unity rooted in the falla!ies or at est half:truths of 4uropeanism. 8hat 4urope understands as sound is merely the shadow or material shell of the true 6ound, of the 'ryan 6ach. It is godless, soulless and toneless sound, as 4uropean feudal so!iety was, and still is, merely a form, a ody without a soul. It is true that sin!e a !entury or two very fine e&periments have een made in 4urope !on!erning the produ!tion of the +h)sical vi rations of sound. But while a few phenomena have een studied, the interpretations proposed have een mostly inade1uate, not to say naive2 and some of the est a!ousti!ians in 'meri!a today admit the fa!t. (elmholtB, sadly worshipped y several (indu writers on musi!, analyBed fundamentals, overtones and the li#e, ut does he really e&plain satisfa!torily the produ!tion of overtonesG ,ot in the least. (ow !an laws then e dedu!ed from an un#nown somethingI But if the (indu musi!ian would go to his ar!hai! re!ords of 'ryan wisdom, study with a de5 Euro+eani-ed mind what is said of sound, of the 6oma sa!rifi!e, of the nadis, of the various #inds of reaths, of the various !onditions of 6ach % even if these su +e!ts seemed too for idding2 if he would ponder upon the meaning of the srutis, of the three gra(as, des!ending and as!ending2 if he would try to understand the old mythologi!al tales a out gods and devas, espe!ially those related to musi! and the 'andharvas2 if he would only study the root:meaning of musi!al 6ans#rit terms and thus get a glimpse of the mysteries hidden in the names of the elements of musi! % then the real and universal laws of musi! would e revealed to him, and thus the very laws of !osmi! evolution. It is not that the author of this small and very limited wor# !laims to have any e&tensive #nowledge of the a ove:mentioned su +e!ts. ' 4uropean y irth, 'meri!an y self: adoption, he has ut gleaned a few ideas and truths here and there2 ut these have already een su!h an inspiration, not only to his !reative wor# as a !omposer, ut to the wor# of life itself, that he feels most !ertain that, for those who y irth, edu!ation and temperament are so near the ar!hai! do!trines, the harvest whi!h would follow su!h a philosophi!al and s!ientifi! study would e immeasura le. It would open the gates of 6ound within and would release vital powers whi!h, if offered upon the altar of ra!ial and musi!al re irth, would really mean a new life. But the purifi!ation must e threefold, of mind, soul and ody. (indu musi! must e purified of everything whi!h !ame from 8estern invaders, even sin!e the time of 'le&ander. It must e mentally pure from all the a!!retions and deposits of the mediaeval period with its

in!oherent emotionalism. It must free itself from 4uropean trends of thought and spe!ial attitudes to musi!. /he 4uropean sense of musi! is most valua le at least in part. But it is valua le onl) for 8esterners at present. 8e say ?sense of musi!,? e!ause, that is what is at sta#e. /he !rude falla!y of trying to see ma+or s!ales in (indu rags, though amaBingly widespread, is not so dangerous as the su tle insidious turn of mind whi!h seems manifest among a !ertain !lass of (indu musi!ians2 and whi!h !reates a distrust of the an!ient 'ryan do!trines and a more or less !ons!ious feeling that modern 4uropean methods must e followed if real musi!al #nowledge is to e found, that the asi! !lassi!al !on!epts of musi!al note, interval, mode, melody have something a solutely true, true for India as well as for the 8est. /his is not so. 9lassi!al 4uropean musi! is merely 4uropean and nothing else. It stands or falls with 4uropean ideals and !iviliBation. /he very foundations and su stan!e of (indu musi! are a solutely different from those of 4uropean musi!. /here is pra!ti!ally not one prin!iple of 4uropean musi! whi!h !ould e transferred to (indu musi! without poisoning it. /here is, as we shall see later, an a solute of musi!, the law of sound, whi!h is universally true. Pythagoras taught it, as undou tedly the (indu )ishis did. But 4urope has perverted this law, if not altogether forgotten it. ' few 4uropeans, li#e Dathleen 6!hlesinger, whose wor# when finished and !ompleted will e invalua le to (indu musi!ians, are rea!hing toward this musi!al a solute, toward that whi!h is at the root of the true musi! of the 8est ;of whi!h 4uropean musi! as a 8hole was ut the shadow< and of the true musi! of the 4ast:8est and 4ast eing ta#en here as the two a stra!t poles of human !iviliBation. But these are solitary e&!eptions, re els against the false do!trines of 4urope, now e!oming worse than ever in the sphere of musi! under the leadership of the new generation of rea!tionaries, whi!h today are dominating 4uropean musi!, as the neo:feudalisti! system of fas!ism is pervading the sphere of 4uropean politi!s under one name or another. Let us free /indu (usic from the poison of 4uropean intelle!tualism2 ut this must mean to free also the soul of the musi!ian from the fear of eing true to the past of 'ryavarta, from the petty emotions of su!!ess and applause and from !ommer!ialism. )einstate the singer in his or her dignity as the arouser of spiritual for!es. /hereafter odily purifi!ation will follow and the dis!arding of all harmoniums whi!h are li#e !an!erous growths in the ody of (indu, musi!. /hese harmoniums are truly sym oli!. In 4urope or 'meri!a, instruments of the type whi!h is found in India are seen pra!ti!ally nowhere save at !heap out:of:door religious meetings, espe!ially those of the 6alvation 'rmy, an amaBing produ!t of the 'nglo:6a&on ra!e, and in motion pi!ture studios for the sa#e of !onvenien!e. -et 4uropean mer!hants are finding pleasure and wealth in dumping these vile produ!ts into India, as they have dumped al!ohol into all !ountries to whi!h they rought the lessings of so:!alled ?!iviliBation.? /he important point however is not that "ren!h or Eerman traders dis!overed su!h a sad way of ma#ing money, ut that Indian musi!ians have een lind, or rather deaf enough

mentally if not sensorially to tolerate su!h an invasion2 that they have so !ompletely lost the deeper sense of musi!, of the magi! of sound and rags, as to wel!ome the hideous and false intonations of harmoniums. Herily the need for purifi!ation is from within, not from without. 8ar(a wor#s in mysterious ways. 8ho #nows how far (indu musi!ians were responsi le many !enturies ago for the perversion of Eree# Pythagorean musi! or of any other stream of musi! then moving westward. 'nd now the oomerang !omes a!# to him who pro+e!ted it first. /he impure seed of long ago rings its long delayed fruit. /he spiritual failures of the past are neutraliBed y the degeneres!en!e of today. /he reformation therefore must needs first e !omplete purifi!ation. /here is only one true purifierC spiritual #nowledge. /he reformation must therefore e a reformation y #nowledge2 ut not the #nowledge of re!ipes given y some ody to someone else, not even that whi!h is ased on merely repeating a!!urately what one has heard without #nowing the why or the wherefore of the utteran!es or of the song. 8hat the Indian musi!ian needs today more than anything else is the #nowledge of the funda(entals of Tone and Sound, of the true s!ien!e of sound and the true philosophy of musi!. /his will in time lead to the #nowledge of the instrumentC the human ody in relation to the deeper aspe!ts of tone produ!tion, if to the study of the laws of matter or su stan!e is added the !on!entration upon the 6pirit, upon Ishwara dwelling in the human heart, the fountainhead of all human tones.

A 4ditor3s ,oteC /his was written in 1926, efore the word ?'ryan? was a used in the 19=>s and 197>s. /he word ?'ryan? is of an!ient origin. It is used here in referen!e to an!ient Indian tradition, espe!ially that of north India ;?'ryavarta?<. /he !all for purifi!ation )udhyar is addressing here has to do remedying the negative aspe!ts of western influen!e upon of Indian !ulture introdu!ed during British !olonialiBation.

Cha+ter Two Living Tones or Intellectual

otes

Ever) co(+le2 organis( is (ade u+ of a (ultitude of units, a human ody of !ells of various types, the universe of solar systems of various orders. /he many units !onsidered as a whole form the su stan!e of the organism. /he same is true of musi!. 4very ra!e or every great ra!ial !y!le witnesses the growth, maturity and de!ay of a !ertain musi!al !ulture or musi!ality, whi!h is in every way similar to an organism2 that is, it has a !ertain su stan!e and an animating 6pirit or soul. /he soul of the old 'ryan or 9hinese or 4uropean musi!alities is an aspe!t of the )a!e:6oul evolving during these periods, an aspe!t of the 'ryan or 9hinese or 4uropean !iviliBation. Philosophers and musi!ians have at times spe!ulated a out them. But very few are those who have !on!entrated upon the substance of the various musi!alities, upon the units or !ells of the ody of this or that musi!. Be!ause many have failed to understand the spe!ifi! !hara!ter of the musi!al su stan!e, they have een led into mis!on!eptions or superfi!ial spe!ulations as to the 6pirit of the musi!al !ulture fun!tioning through su!h a su stan!e. /o put it in simpler language2 we spea# a out symphonies or !horal wor#s or !y!les of (indu melodies2 we !ontemplate the inspiration whi!h produ!ed them, the spiritual power in the individual !omposer or in the ra!e whi!h manifested through the wor#s, ut we do not give mu!h thought to the musi!al units of whi!h these wor#s are !onstituted. 8e almost ta#e it for granted that these units are sounds used either in melodi! su!!ession or simultaneously in harmoni! and polyphoni! !om inations. 8e do not realiBe that there are sounds and sounds, as there are individuals and individuals2 that e&a!tly as a so!iety fails or triumphs upon the merit of the human individuals who !ompose it, so a musi!al wor#. 4astern or 8estern, is ultimately what its units are, whether we !all these units musi!al notes as in the 8est, or l)us in 9hina, or swaras, surs or whatnot in India. But, one may o +e!t, is not the sound produ!ed y a string instrument of the violin type for instan!e the same whether you !all it $o or Sa, whether played y a 4uropean or a (indu musi!ianG /o whi!h we will answerC what do you mean y eing the sameG 're an un!ultivated peasant and a real yogi the same thing e!ause oth odies appear somewhat ali#e in feature and general ethni! typeG 8as Drishna the same as any plain shepherd oyG -ou !all Drishna an avatar, a manifestation of the 6upreme 6pirit. But for the an!ient (indu musi!ians, and still for a few living ones apparently, the tones they uttered or produ!ed were also avatars of !osmi! deities or for!es of ,ature. 8estern intelle!ts usually s!orn su!h ideasC for them a sound is the result of the impa!t of air vi rations upon the ear. $ viously it is that, and in many !ases indeed nothing ut that2 yet potentially every sound is a tone, as every human $rganism is a god in!arnate and not only a mass of !ells, of tissues and ones, more or less adly managed y a rain: orn intelle!t. But what do 4uropean theorists #now a out a soundG ,early nothing. /hey see that something o!!urs in the air, when you hit a gong and they !an tra!e and follow the

distur an!e thus !aused until it rea!hes the ear and the hearer noti!es a sound. /he only thing they !an analyBe is this distur an!e of air2 ut, as we shall see later, they are at a loss to e&plain what ta#es pla!e when instead of air the sound travels through amass of metal of any length. 's for the sound itself, it does not really e&ist for them. (ardly does it e&ist either for the ma+ority of !omposers or hearers. ' single sound has very little meaning for most 8esterners. 'll that they may say of it is that it has a lovely 1uality or that it is harsh, pleasing to the ear or displeasing. But what really matters to them, and to a vast num er of (indu musi!ians as well we must add, is only the relationship etween this sound and other sounds, in other words a !ertain se1uen!e or group of sounds. Musi! is often !alled the art of ordering sounds. But while mu!h attention is given to the pro!ess of ordering, hardly any stress is laid today upon the sounds themselves, their nature and their inherent power. 4uropean musi! has gone so far in this dire!tion, impelled y various fa!tors ne!essary to its development, as to have e!ome a sort of applied alge ra2 that is, a series of formulas and e1uations, the terms of whi!h, the musi!al notes and s!ales, are !onsidered as mere a stra!tions almost totally devoid of the living 1uality of tone, whi!h is resonan!e. 's a matter of fa!t, 4uropean musi! went one step further. It pra!ti!ally ignored sounds altogether, and !onsidered only the relationship etween sounds. It !eased to e a musi! of intervals, therefore a !om ination of a stra!t patterns % a de!orative art, li#e the art of rug weaving or tapestry. /he 4uropean notes of musi! are merely the edges of intervals. /hey have in theory hardly any su stan!e at allC they are e&a!tly li#e mathemati!al points whi!h have no dimension and therefore are mere a stra!tions. It is true the musi!ian #nows that a sound will e produ!ed !orresponding to the note, ut the mathemati!ian also #nows that a point has dimensions on paper, that every point or line is a surfa!e. -et he does not thin# of it as a surfa!e, ut as a point. 5i#ewise the polyphonist of 4urope, espe!ially during the period of s!holasti!ism in the fourteenth and fifteenth !enturies, does not thin# of musi!al notes as tones whi!h are entities of a !ertain !hara!ter and pit!h ut only as dots in series. /he shapes of the se1uen!es of dots, what they !all melody ut what in fa!t is only a series of a rupt +umps from dot to dot, are the main thing. Musi! of patterns, I said2 therefore 8estern musi! is essentially an art of spa!e, not of time2 an art ased on geometri!al prin!iples and not on the o!!ult s!ien!e of num ers, num ers whi!h are not merely spe!ulative !on!epts ut living realities of the world of pure energy, monads in themselves. In 4urope however this geometry of musi!, whi!h is one of the two great aspe!ts of musi!, has een !on!eived e&a!tly as geometry has een understoodC from a purely intelle!tual point of view. In ar!hai! times the geometry taught in the san!tuaries, and also y Pythagoras, was another thing altogether2 e&a!tly as the Pythagorean monad was different from the num er 1 of modern arithmeti!. It was one of the deepest #eys to the mysteries of 5ife and had to do with the surveying and par!eling of 6pa!e % spa!e eing no mere emptiness as now !on!eived ut the very fullness of eing, what the Enosti!s !alled the Pleroma. $n su!h a #ind of mysti! geometry of 5ife the true and yet unrevealed

musi! of the 8est will some day e founded. $ur 4uropean musi! is nothing of the sort, it is the mere shadow of su!h an ideal reality2 and it is so e!ause its units, the musi!al notes, have no meaning in themselves, are spiritually and in !lassi!al times even emotionally dead. /a#e a note B for instan!e. It !an e anything. It has no pit!h in itself. It !an e a low B or a high B2 any instrument !an produ!e it and in all !ases it will still remain B. Moreover ta#e a wor# of musi!, transpose it a third higher, and few people will noti!e the differen!e2 even if they do, they will not !onsider that the musi! has !hanged, for B will retain its pe!uliar relationship to the notes whi!h !ame efore and after2 the pattern of the musi! will not have een altered in any way % any more than that of a rug !hanges whether you hang it on a high wall or a low wall. In other words B as a musi!al note has no definite !onne!tion with any parti!ular sound or pit!h2 it has not even any sym oli!al meaning, either in relation to the performer or to some general !osmi! harmony. It has no relation to anything save to the other a stra!t notes pre!eding or following it or eing produ!ed at the same time. 4uropean musi! proper is a musi! the a!tual sound of whi!h matters little, and in some !ases not at all2 a musi! of intelle!tual, empiri!al proportions. ' proportion etween whatG 'n interval etween whatG /he answer is a se!ondary matter. It may e one thing or the other. /herefore it !annot e anything living. 'ny living organism has a !ertain #ey:vi ration of its own whi!h may perhaps raise or lower itself under !ertain unusual !onditions, ut the idea of ?transposing? the atomi! vi rations of a !at a fifth higher would !ertainly appear singular. 8ould the !at still remain a !atG $ne might answerC who would noti!e it if the entire universe were #eyed up in the same mannerG 8hi!h may or may not e a satisfa!tory answer, a!!ording as one elieves in a metaphysi!al system or another. But mar# this wellC when a 4uropean musi!ian transposes a musi!al wor# indifferently a third or fifth higher, he does not transpose hi(self a third or fifth higher2 whi!h proves !on!lusively that he does not thin# or feel musi! in terms of life, in terms of su +e!tive, sonorous e&perien!e, ut as an o +e!tive pattern whi!h !an e shifted around at will. /he musi!ian may rea!t sensorially and emotionally to it2 ut, and here is the important point, he will rea!t to it as to a for(, not as a living energy, not as to a soul. 4uropean musi! is an ar!hite!toni! of sound, a y:produ!t of ar!hite!ture. Its notes are li#e stones2 its stru!ture is symmetri!al and rigid li#e a "ren!h garden of the seventeenth !entury. It is 'ristotelean and s!holasti!, rational, alan!ed, well proportioned, ut not alive. Its notes have no individual power of life. /hey do not grow into a fuller life, nor multiply themselves into se!ondary sounds. /hey are !ut and dried figures, ro!#s. /he melody does not flow etween those ro!#s, ut +umps me!hanisti!ally from the one to the other, fearful lest it should fall into the dar# a yss of ?wrong notes?. "or etween 4uropean notes there is ut musi!al emptiness. 8hereas (indu melodies glide etween tones whi!h are li#e pulsating hearts, 4uropean melodies follow the motion of a man3s wal#, whi!h is essentially a su!!ession of arrested falls. /here is no !ontinuity to e

found, only automatism. Melodies do not grow li#e trees, or flow li#e the lood uniting the !ells and organs of the ody. /here is no !ir!ulation of sound, no flesh2 only a s#eleton. 4uropean musi! is li#e an J:ray photograph. It shows only ones. It is a musi! of holes, some larger, some smaller, yet all e1ually empty, li#e are rooms where no one is living % soulless, as far as its su stan!e is !on!erned at any rate. Mind ere!ted the ma+esti! walls of its stru!tures, ut no woman !ame to dwell therein and to transfigure the emptiness of its holes into a home effulgent with love. 't one time the stru!ture shone with some inner and !alm light as if it were some great !onvent filled with !ells physi!ally are in their austerity yet devotionally alive % at the time of Palestrina, Hittoria2 ut this was only for a short while, a foreshadowing of the greater realiBations of a future !iviliBation when religion will not soothe and appease, ut rather transfigure man into a living god. ' sensorial intelle!t transfigured into a divine mind2 a ta(asic or ra9asic personality transformed into a living god2 a 4uropean note of musi! transmuted into a real swara in whi!h dwelleth Ishwara, the 6elf, or from whi!h at least radiates the power of 8ill, Ichcha, of some !osmi! Intelligen!e2 % these are asi!ally one and the same pro!ess. But how many modern (indu singers #now the mystery of /oneG A tone is a living cell. It is !omposed of organi! matter. It has the power of assimilation, of reprodu!tion, of ma#ing e&!hanges, of growing. It is a mi!ro!osmos refle!ting faithfully the ma!ro!osmos, its laws, its !y!les, its !entre. 9on!entrate on a !ell, and the mysteries of the universe may e revealed to you therein. 9on!entrate on a tone, and in it you may dis!over the se!ret of eing and find Ishwara, the 9hrist within. ' tone is a solar system. It is !omposed, as we will see later, of a !entral sun, of planets, and of a magneti! su stan!e whi!h !ir!ulates rhythmi!ally within the limits of the system and relates itself to the magneti! su stan!e of some vaster system. Be!ause of this, a tone is not a mere mathemati!al point without dimensions or density, ut it is a living reality, a sound. It is defined y various sets of !hara!teristi!s, pit!h and 1uality eing only the outer one. It is situated in time and spa!e, related to the entire universe, affe!ted y season, day, hour, y the magneti! !ondition of the solar system at the time it is orn ;i.e., produ!ed y the musi!ian<. 'll these elements are either glorified, essentialiBed and made patent y the will power or emotional energy of the singer or instrumentalist, or else remain as unrevealed potentialities if the tone:produ!er does not energiBe them into a!tivity. "or the self within the tone !an only e!ome fully a!tive when the 6elf within the tone:produ!er is also a!tive. /hus a tone is not only a living energy ut also a sym ol, e!ause of its having an inherent meaning. /he note B to the 4uropean is a sym ol, ut in the stri!tly mathemati!al and a stra!t sense of the term2 it has no spiritual or universal !ontent, only a !onventional signifi!an!e. But the tones of the (indu gra(a have really universal meaning or at least they had universal meaning. It is not a mere fan!iful imagination whi!h attri uted ea!h swara to a god or goddess, whi!h gave it a !orresponding !olor, spe!ifi! temperament, a planet, !limate, day, hour2 nor !an we !all a fairy tale the tradition whi!h relates every tone

to an animal spe!ies, as we shall see presently. 'll these !orresponden!es % if the ar!hai! and true ones are !onsidered and not, as usual, their various perverted su stitutes % were real2 they were ased on the #nowledge of !osmi! laws, on the laws of tone and sound, as well as of the o!!ult physiologi!al nature of the human ody. /hese !osmi! !orresponden!es are not to e found only in India as every one #nows. In 9hina, musi! was uilt also on real tones2 ut these were somewhat different from (indu tones2 or at least they e!ame so after the musi!al reformation whi!h too# pla!e around the third !entury B.9. and after whi!h we see the !lassi!al system of the C)cle of L)us fully operative. 4a!h of these twelve lyus had a definite !osmi! signifi!an!e and was related to modifi!ations of the two great prin!iples, )ang and )in, positive and negative, mas!uline and feminine2 as also to seasons, months, days, hours, et!. But 9hinese musi! was founded upon the prin!iple of duality and most pro a ly was the out!ome of a dire!t Pythagorean influen!e, whereas 'ryan:(indu musi! rests upon the prin!iple of unity, of the 6elf2 sound or tone eing the power, or sa4ti, of the 6elf, i.e., Swa5ra, ra eing always !onne!ted with the !reative power of 8ill or !osmi! desire. But even 8estern musi! originally #new of su!h !osmi! !orresponden!es and had its real modes, very mu!h similar to the 9hinese in their origin and fun!tion, and essentially ased on spiritual 'l!hemy. It was so at least in 6yrian musi! whi!h is the very sour!e of all 9hristian mediaeval hymns and !hants. $ne of the greatest minds of 6yria, Bar:(e raeus, a man of en!y!lopaedi!al #nowledge and great power who lived during the thirteenth !entury, in his oo# Ethicon ;?$n the natural !ause of modes?< states that all e!!lesiasti!al modes were uilt at first upon the various !om inations of the ?four 1ualities whi!h areC !old, hot, humid, dry?. By relating these four 1ualities two y two we get four dualities2 ut y !onsidering that in ea!h duality one of the elements predominates in turn, we get eight modes % the original eight modes of plain !hant. If moreover we add to these, four more !om inations in whi!h the two elements are perfe!tly alan!ed we get in all twelve modes, whi!h Bar:(e raeus tells us were used y the ?Persian musi!ians? ;pro a ly of the old Magian:9haldean tradition<. 4very one of the eight e!!lesiasti!al modes was espe!ially adapted to the great feasts of the 9atholi! ritual throughout the year. "or instan!e it is saidC ?Be!ause the iting hot element is to e sensed in the fifth mode, the 9anon of the 's!ension has een !omposed in that mode, for, that very day when our 5ord parted from (is dis!iples and as!ended into (eaven, they e!ame en#indled with the fire of love, urning with the desire of (im and !onsumed with love for (im, and without the weight of their odies they would have fled through the air with (im.? (e !on!ludes with these illuminating wordsC ?6u!h are the foundations upon whi!h the artful an!ients uilt the modes. But those who followed after them did not rea!h to the height of their #nowledge. /hey have desired to attain fame while developing this art and they have !omposed 9anons on any mode whatsoever, even if they did not !orrespond.? 8ords of universal appli!ation these areI /he same !ould e said of 9hinese or (indu

musi!ians. 5a!# of #nowledge and desire for personal fame rought degenera!y in all epo!hs and in all lands. 9hristian musi! e!ame degraded with 9hristian tea!hings in general. Its !osmi!, al!hemi!al foundation eing destroyed, it soon grew more and more intelle!tual and sensorially inspired, till tones of power e!ame mere musi!al notes, as the magi!al in!antations of old were turned into empty formulas repeated me!hani!ally y an ignorant priesthood, with very few e&!eptions. (ere again we !ome against this duality of #nowledge and selflessness. 8here #nowledge is la!#ing and am ition or vanity prevails degeneration ne!essarily sets in. Musi! falls into the personal art of ordering in stri#ing, pleasant and original ways devitaliBed tones % very mu!h in the way in whi!h the art of !oo#ing is today ased on !om inations of devitaliBed food produ!ts. /he toni! power of food is lost as well as the toni! power of sounds. In order to have foods, whi!h !an e used at any time, in and out of season, whi!h !an e indulged in a undantly, whi!h ti!#le the sense of taste, the wholesale denaturation of !ereals, of fruits, of vegeta les, ta#es pla!e, and meat is served to !oarsened appetites % as well as strident and latant rass ands whi!h delight not only 8estern patriots !ele rating wars and festivities, ut also 4astern potentates. Purifi!ation means to free one3s aestheti! or physi!al diet from su!h perversions, to go a!# to ,ature and ,ature3s laws % metaphysi!al as well as physi!al ,ature. )egeneration means that the toni! power of that whi!h feeds the spiritual, moral and physi!al nature of man is a sor ed, so that the 6elf and life may sing again in the tones we hear and in the things we eat, or read, or love % in all that we assimilate, in all, therefore, that we e!ome ?similar to?. /o get at the toni! power in all that !omes out of us as well as in all that we put into our ody ;physi!al, emotional or mental< % this is what has een !alled S)ntonis(. $n the re!eptive side 6yntonism deals with "ood in the most universal sense of the term, that is with the law of assimilationC what you assimilate so you e!ome. $n the !reative side the 6yntoni! )eformation finds its most patent and most sym oli!al manifestation in a regeneration of musi!, oth 4astern and 8estern, for the one is the !omplement of the other. Musi! must regain the toni! power whi!h it has lost, or of whi!h it #nows ut a materialisti! emotional shadow2 and this !an e attained only y means of self purifi!ation and #nowledge % very mu!h what Mahatma Eandhi means y Sat)agraha, it we understand him aright % the self:purifying effort toward /ruth, the truth of one3s own selfhood, the tone of one3s own eing. "or the !entre of the 6yntoni! )eformation is the individual2 in the realm of musi!, the musi!ian. 8hat musi!ians of old lost y la!# of suffi!ient #nowledge and e!ause ?they have desired to attain fame,? musi!ians of today must regain y real and selfless study, y a life: !on!entration of /one, on ?Ishwara, the Master, whose magi! power !auseth all things and !reatures to revolve mounted upon the universal wheel of time?. $n these famous words of the 3hagavad5'ita is founded the entire reformation of musi! whi!h the world needs today. "or Ishwara is /one2 (is magi! power is what we !alled 3toni! power3 in all things and in all types of musi! whi!h are real. 's we understand the revolutions of the 3universal

wheel of time,3 that is of the !y!les of 5ife and lives, we at the same time master the laws of musi!al !omposition. 8e e!ome a le to produ!e tone:organisms whi!h are truly organi! and vital, whose toni! power may regenerate our fellowmen and rouse in them the fire. In other words we shall #now how to !all down Ishwara into our songs y the magi! of the lost 'andhara 'ra(a and how to #indle in others the flame of spiritual regeneration y the power of the rag $i+a4, also lost. 8nowledge of the laws of sound: purifi!ation through union with the 6oul of the ar!hai! 'ryan musi!, !on!entration on the /one within. /hese are the three paths to the musi!al regeneration of India, and of the world. $nly while the 6oul of musi! may mean to the (indu, arada, to the 8esterner it means rather Pythagoras, the "ather of 8estern !iviliBation. 5et us ta#e at first the !ase, very simple yet very vast in its impli!ations, of the artisans of old, and even of today in some pla!es, who spent years !asting and fashioning some temple gong so that the tone of the gong might e a revelation to all the devotees who would hear it filling the holy spa!es. In old 4urope, li#ewise, we hear of ell:ma#ers foiling in love and devotion to produ!e the ell that would toll and resound over towns and fields. 8hat made su!h gongs or ells the living things they really wereG 8hat gave them the power to e&alt the hum le farmers, to !on+ure up visions and e!stasy in a Joan of 'r!, to rouse in all the sense of the *ivine, not of a far off *ivine ut the spiritual sense of Eod dwelling in dawns, noons, sunsets, smiling in the daily la or of all menG It was #nowledge first, the #nowledge of the e&a!t proportion of metals to e melted, of those shapes, whi!h would. 8esterners would say, give out the est a!ousti!al resonan!e, some (indus would say, harmoniBe themselves perfe!tly to the ar!hetypal form of the life of the deva who was to in!arnate into the tones. It was #nowledge, ut also the pro+e!tion of spiritual devotion into the wor#, the magnetiBing of the metals y human will and love, the !on!entration upon the messages perhaps whi!h the ell or gong would ring to human souls. 6imple and naKve possi ly as the faith of the artisans might have een, yet a real faith % li#e that of the !arvers of the thousands of Buddhas in ro!#s, in woods, in temples, all very mu!h ali#e some people say, all very marvellously selfless we would answer, prayers of wor#, the only true prayers. 8hy did we mention gongs and ellsG Be!ause in a sense they represent an aspe!t of the highest and most spiritual musi!, that of single tones whi!h are one and many, whi!h thro and live, whi!h are at times the perfe!t dynami! odies of !elestial entities, the cha4ras of the *eity. 6ingle living tonesI $f these there are really two #indsC those uttered y the human eing, audi ly or inaudi ly, the 'FM of ea!h eing2 and those produ!ed y gongs and ells !ast a!!ording to hierati! forms. 's the tone of the individual eing is one and many, so the tone of a gong is one and many. /ou!h it lightly at the !enter, then farther, farther away until you rea!h the outer edge. -ou hear an infinite gradation of su :tones usually within the limit of a fifth or fourth ;Sa5Pa or Sa5%a< all of whi!h !on!ur to form the !ompound tone of the gong. In other words you

have a great hierati! rotherhood of tones, ea!h tone an individual eing yet all ound in a perfe!t metalli! solidarity, all lending their voi!es into the great tone:entity, the 6u!h a tone is the eginning and end of musi!, the seed of all musi!. (ow !ould a singer produ!e su!h living tones unless indeed he himself had e!ome a single living tone, unless he had unified to some e&tent the multitudinous !ries of his lives, !ells and organs into a great, full and vi rant toneG 'll songs to e real, from the old 'ryan point of view, must e ased upon the one fundamental resonan!e of the singer himself or herself2 all swaras must e grasped as modifi!ations, a!!ording to the !y!li! transformations of ,ature within as without, of the Ishwara in the heart. But how !an su!h a resonan!e e produ!ed if not in the same way in whi!h the gong ma#er fashions his gongG /he proper human and emotional metals or su stan!es must e lended in !orre!t proportion, then all melted in the great sea of fire within2 further, the inner Body must ta#e its ar!hetypal form !al!ulated so that the tone, ada, may resound with full power, that is, as a !omplete synthesis of all the little su tones of the rotherhood of the Body. /hus we realiBe the need of a very definite al!hemi!al pro!ess at the sour!e of all living tones. 8e may understand what one should mean y the phrase, the 'l!hemy of Musi!. 4uropean !ulture degraded this !on!eption and elieved that musi!al al!hemy was merely the proper mi&ture of notes in the form of !hords and symphoni! !om inations. /oday 8estern musi!ians are all hypnotiBed y the ideal of or!hestral al!hemy, y the sear!h for new !om inations of instruments2 and solving pro lems of or!hestral te!hni1ue seems to many the supreme tas# of modern musi!. But that is ut the o +e!tive materialisti! shadow of the true al!hemy of tone whi!h ta#es pla!e not without, in a group of instrumentalists who are playing musi! as a usiness in a me!hani!al and soulless way from a printed s!ore whi!h tells them all what to do, ut within the singer himself. /one: al!hemy is not soul:al!hemy, for tone and soul are one. If tone and soul are not one, then we have no real tones, ut mere musi!al notes, sonorous shells. Alche() (eans +urification. It rests upon a asis of ethi!s. /ones must therefore e lived y the individual musi!ian, espe!ially y the singer, whose ody is the very instrument wherein the tones are generated. 9orre!t intonation, a solute pit!h, ought to e understood in terms of life, in terms of firmness, !orre!tness and steadiness of !hara!ter. 8here instruments of fi&ed pit!h are used, there !annot e heard the real 'ryan musi! whi!h is ased on self:intonation and the power of the individual soul. 'ryan musi! is not !osmi! musi!, as in 9hina of old, nor is it group musi!, !ommunal musi!, as in the 8est. It is the musi! of the individual soul, of Ishwara in every eing. 4a!h singer must find therefore, his or her own fundamental, or Sa, and tune the ta(bura a!!ordingly. (appy those whose fundamental is the tone of ,atureI 5i#ewise the use of a musi!al s!ore, as 4urope understands it, !an ut ring a out the degeneration of (indu musi!, for it transfers the dynami! !enter of musi! from the living ada, heard when the !enter is stru!#. In a single lone you have a !omplete organi! symphony.

individual eing to dead intelle!tual formulas. ' musi!al s!ore is nothing more than a dead intelle!tual formula, if it pretends to indi!ate to the instrumentalist the very minute gestures and infle&ions whi!h he must perform. It !an only e used in a !ulture where musi! is ased on a stra!t patterns and not on living tones, where it is !onsidered as something o +e!tive, and not as a su +e!tive e&perien!e. 8estern musi!ians today are worshipping musi!al s!ores, little patterns of la!# dots on paper, as 8estern !iviliBation in general is worshipping other little printed pie!es of paper. 's dollar ills represent no a!tual wealth ut !redit ased on trust, so the musi!al s!ore is not really musi! ut represents only the trust that its signs will eventually turn out to e sounds whi!h you !an hear, therefore musi!. ' s!ore is li#e an ar!hite!tural plan whi!h may materialiBe into a uilding some day, ut whi!h has no life:value in itself. If it has an immediate life:value it is as a drawing perhaps, ut not musi!, for musi! whi!h is not actuall) heard, either y the physi!al or the spiritual ears is no musi!. Musi!ians tell you they hear a s!ore y loo#ing at it. But they really do not. /hey re(e(ber asso!iations of sounds y means of a rain pro!ess whi!h relates !ertain signs to the memory of auditory sensations. 'nd if su!h a remem ran!e seems to them as real as a!tual hearing, then it means only that they do not #now what true hearing is, what a tone e&perien!e is % and many indeed do not. -et 8estern musi! y virtue of its a stra!tness and its la!# of !onne!tion with real sounds is in fa!t well represented y a s!ore. /he s!ore faithfully re!ords the patterns, and supplementary mar#s indi!ate the personal will of the !omposer. ' musi!al wor# eing essentially an o +e!tive thing, the !omposer, as a musi!al artisan, fashions it on!e for all. If you !arve a ri!e owl out of a eautiful tree and give it to a friend telling him that it is a ri!e owl, the properties and use of the o +e!t are settled on!e for all. If you had made a !orre!t drawing of it, indi!ated the #ind of wood whi!h had to e !hosen and the way it had to e used, the plan or des!ription thus given would have entirely defined the o +e!t. ' musi!al s!ore in 4urope is e&a!tly this #ind of des!ription. /he !omposer tells everything whi!h must e done, as the author and owner of the musi!al o +e!t, and either the performer follows his instru!tions and the musi!al o +e!t is well produ!ed, or he does things whi!h he was not told to do and the musi!al o +e!t is !onsidered imperfe!t. /he performer is thus nothing more than a me!hani!. /he musi! produ!ed has really nothing to do with his own self. /he more he e!omes su servient to the auto!rati! will of the !omposer % who yet is ut a !on!eiver and not an a!tualiBer % the etter is his +o done. ,o wonder that instrumentalists lose all initiative and e!ome mere ma!hinesI "or they are !hained to the s!ore and its in+un!tions, as slaves to the oars of some an!ient galley. 6u!h an attitude has e!ome definite to this e&tent only in re!ent years. ' !ouple of !enturies ago in 4urope the s!ore was not the greedy monster it has e!ome now. Musi! e!oming more and more populariBed and in!reasingly !omple&, the need was felt for a still more a solute impersonaliBation of performan!es, and the pro!ess !ulminated in me!hani!al reprodu!ing instruments, in whi!h the human e1uation is totally a sent from the rendition

of the musi!al wor#. Musi!al wor4s, truly they are, for 8estern musi! is ased only on doing and not on eing, li#e the entire 8estern !iviliBation. It !onveys the ideal of mental or emotional a!tivity, of matter mastered, of multipli!ity painsta#ingly resolved into a sort of !horal harmony. It is not something heard within ut something done without. In a very definite manner, the !omposer is li#e an artisan, a gong ma#er, toiling at the !asting and eating of the gong. But in the 8est, the gong is made up of human !ellsC it is a vast !hoir of men and women singing, lowing, owing, hittingC it is the entire or!hestra, the ever elusive mass of sonorous su stan!e to e !ast anew for ea!h performan!e a!!ording to the formula given y the !omposer:al!hemist, the s!ore, under the dire!tion of the toiling leader eating the air with his magi! wand as if he were hammering sounds. /he 8estern or!hestra as a supreme gong2 ut that is only the future. "or a gong is a perfe!t rotherhood of tones perfe!tly united and lended, as a vehi!le, or vahan, for some !osmi! entity. In it the law of !ohesion manifests fully. It is a mass of atoms and mole!ulesC it is a host of tones, of !osmi! lives. It is a !on!entri! and organi! ody, through whi!h the energy of sound flows uninterrupted2 and, in some !ases at least, it has not only an elemental soul orn out of this !ohesive prin!iple, ut a spiritual soul as well rought down into its mass y the !on!entrated devotion of its ma#er. /he ig modern or!hestras are far, very far indeed, from fulfilling all su!h re1uirements. /hey have e!ome wonders of intelle!tual and te!hni!al a ility. Instrumentalists have e!ome perfe!t ma!hines under the dire!tion of master !raftsmen. 8hat is produ!ed is a eautiful o +e!t2 eautiful ut usually only a gorgeous ody, without a spiritual soul. Is it even a odyG (ardly so, e!ause it has no unity, or very little of it. /he sonorous su stan!e does not flow !onsistentlyC neither melodi!ally nor harmoni!ally. 8estern !omposers have not yet fully learnt how to produ!e an organi! ody of sounds, though 8agner and a few re!ent !omposers have !ome very near it, espe!ially 6!ria in. /hey will hardly ever attain to su!h a mastery of sonorous metallurgy as long as 8estern melodies are series of +umps from note to note with sonorous emptiness in etween, as long as they will not use as a foundation to the or!hestral stru!ture, instruments with sustained resonan!e, li#e gongs, ells, et!., or even li#e groups of pianos or harps. 4ven so, this would only ma#e of the or!hestra a perfe!t ody with an elemental soul2 it would not give to the musi! a spiritual soul. In order to give a soul, one must e first a soul. /he (anasa+utras rought (anas to the human )a!e only e!ause they were perfe!t (anasas themselves. /ones e!ome alive in the musi! produ!ed only as the musi!ian3s tone rings them its own spiritual fire. /ones are #indled in every sound uttered y the ?toneful? eing. /hus Ishwara3s ?magi! power !auseth all things and !reatures to revolve mounted upon the universal wheel of time?. /his universal wheel is the great Eong of the universe, the %ahacha4ra of the !osmos. 5ife !ir!ulates within it when its !enter is stru!# y the magi! power of Ishwara. But every man has within himself a repli!a, an image of this (ahacha4ra whi!h is li#e the fiery wheel des!ri ed y the (e rew prophet in the Bi le. 8hat lights the fire and sets the

wheel a laBe and rotatingG %anas, the individual soul, refle!ting the universal 6pirit, At(a. %anas, as said in (indu oo#s, emanates a ray whi!h stri#es at the seat of the odily fire and sets the reath a:whirling through the various !enters of tone:produ!tion. /his reath or (aruta is what I will !all 3sonal energy3. Passing through the musi!al organ of the magneti! ody of man and its nadis, it produ!es nada or tone. /hus tone is e&perien!ed within2 and tones !an e e&perien!ed only within, whether orn dire!tly of the inner self or pro+e!ted y the Ishwari! will of the musi!ian adept. 8e hear sounds with our ears2 we read musi!al s!ore with our eyes2 we e&perien!e tones with our heart. /hus originate the great types of musi!C sensorial, intelle!tual, spiritual2 or in general philosophi! termsC materialism, the eye do!trine, the (eart do!trine %sensualism or animalism, selfishness, divine !ompassion. (indu musi!ians should realiBe these divisions2 they should a ove all understand that there are two #inds of musi!al #nowledgeC eye #nowledge and ear #nowledge. 8hile they have een on the whole saved from the evils of the former #ind whi!h has intelle!tualiBed and devitaliBed 4uropean musi!, they have ut too often stopped at mere ear #nowledge and forgotten that su!h is to e ut the prelude to (eart realiBations2 nay more, they have even allowed the ear #nowledge of the srutis to e!ome perverted. 's the twenty:two srutis are no longer !orre!tly per!eived, the twenty:two nadis are no longer fun!tioning and nada is no longer e&perien!ed. /he divine revelation within, the true Heda, is lost. Musi! as tone e&perien!e. /his is the fundamental do!trine, the !enter, of the 6yntoni! )eformation. /he 8estern world has forgotten tones and worships at the intelle!tual shrine of musi!al notes whi!h !ompose the intri!ate patterns of the musi!al s!ore. /he greatest part of the Indian world ut faintly remem ers tones and repeats almost without real understanding traditional songs, more and more degenerating from !onta!t with 8estern !iviliBation and its deadly weapon, the harmonium. /he 6yntoni! )eformation !an !ome only from withinC y purifi!ation from adhar(a and the return to the true dhar(a of (indu musi! fundamentally different from that of 8estern musi!2 y #nowledge of the laws of sound as of the laws of 6elf2 y fervent devotion to the Ishwara within. "rom the #nowledge of the laws of sa4ti, from real bha4ti whi!h alone ma#es this #nowledge true and spiritual, is orn the !reative power within the heart, ra4ti, the magi! power of living tones.

Cha+ter Three Seeds of Sound In ancient Ar)an boo4s we find (an) s)(bolical references to seeds with the aim of !onveying to the student y the method of analogy great truths !on!erning the origin of all things, of all !y!les. 's we have seen already, the philosophi!al !on!ept of seed is ne!essarily ound to that of !y!le. /here is no !y!le whi!h has not a seed2 there is no manifested life whi!h did not originate in some sort of a seed, that is to say from an initial mass of su stan!e having in itself the potentiality of all future developments, e it !alled egg or seed or whatnot. It is said that in the seed of the lotus a perfe!t though infinitely small model of the full grown plant is to e seen. /he lotus !y!le is found already !ompleted within the prote!tive walls of the seed. Erowth will mean merely the !oming forth of the full potentiality into a !ompleted a!tuality, with the !han!e, however, that e!ause of adverse !onditions ;improper soil or !limate or !are< the development of the potential into the a!tual may e!ome hindered, the growth stunted, and the manifested type inferior to the prototypi!al model within the seed. But we have not only the manifested type, or plant, and the prototype in the seed2 we must re!ogniBe also the e&isten!e of a spiritual ar!hetype whi!h in itself is the refle!tion of a mere a stra!t formula of relationship etween spe!ifi! !hara!teristi!s. 4very vegeta le spe!ies is defined y a set of !ertain !hara!teristi!s as to its form, !olor, modality of growth, et!2 we !ould redu!e all these into a !ertain !omple& formula whi!h would e the a stra!t reality of the spe!ies, one spe!ial thought of Brahma let us say. /he 9reator has a thought2 this thought produ!es an a stra!t form2 this is an ar!hetype. /he ar!hetypal form of the lotus is this image in the 9osmi! Mind whi!h is the ideal plan of all lotus plants, the mental layout of the set of spe!ifi! !hara!teristi!s thought of y the 9reator. /he ne&t !reative operation is the pro+e!tion of the thought:image into a !ertain mass of su stan!e, of +ra4riti, spe!ially fitted to re!eive it. 6u stan!e had een evolving in its own way while the thought image was produ!ed in the mind of Brahma. 8hen the su stan!e is ready to re!eive the thought image, Brahma y means of a twofold yet single, a!t of energy ; y the use of ichchasa4ti or will, and of 4ri)asa4ti or image pro+e!tion< shoots a ray of itself into matter ;as ara)ana<. /his ray is !on+oined with the power of form:ma#ing and thus the thought image is stamped upon the mass of su stan!e whi!h e!omes a fe!undated egg or seed. /his is more or less the universal pro!ess of !reation, and it is only y understanding it with all its impli!ations that the produ!tion and nature of tones !an e fully grasped. /he elements of the pro lem are asi!ally the following2 ;1< 3rah(a or the !reative 6elf % the Eree# $e(iurge % ehind whom we may realiBe 3rah(an or the Fniversal 6elf2 ;2< the urge to manifest ;or !osmi! desire, the 8a(adeva of ar!hai! te&ts<2 ;=< the thought image or ar!hetype ;essentially %ahat<2 ;7< the pro+e!tion of the will ;ichcha<2 ;.< the developing

of the image y means of a !ertain te!hni1ue. 'fter these five a!ts are !ompleted, the seed is fe!undated and therefore !ontains either as an astral potentiality or as an a!tualiBed prototype the image whi!h was in the mind of Brahma. 5et us translate this !osmi! pro!ess into musi!al terms. 8e shall have to !onsider oth the evolution of matter and the involution of spirit. /he former e&presses itself musi!ally in terms of the !onstru!tion of a musi!al instrument. 'n instrument is in all respe!ts similar to a wom . It is a wom of sounds2 if you agitate or tou!h it, it resonates2 the resonan!es produ!ed thus, without the fivefold pro!ess mentioned a ove, are unfe!undated tones, ova. /he strings, if any, are li#e the ovaries2 they have to e tuned up periodi!ally. /hose unfe!undated tones may e full, vital and ri!h, or thin and lifeless. But in oth !ases they are merely resonan!es of matter, produ!ed y the magi! of +ra4riti. /hey are really resonan!es and not tones. /he instrument:ma#er3s tas# is to uild an instrument whose su stan!e will fully resonate when pervaded y the musi!ian % ara)ana. Both the materials and the shape given to them are of !apital importan!e and very sym oli!al in meaning. In 9hina musi!al instruments are !lassified into eight families a!!ording to the type of resonating su stan!e used. /he instrument:ma#er is the mother of tones. Instruments may e foolishly de!orated, as women also, to sedu!e the eye of the spe!tator. /his means sensualism and degenera!y. ' perfe!t instrument is one in whi!h every detail is functionall) ne!essary and true to the fun!tion. ' perfe!t instrument is li#e a Eree# Henus. It is ri!h with the infinite potentiality of perfe!t living tones. It is a perfe!t seed of life. 's the mysti!al 9hristmas ta#es pla!e, as the seed e!omes fe!undated y the 6oul of the spe!ies, its own 9hristos or ara)ana, as the musi!ian pro+e!ts his thought:emotion into the mus!ular a!t;1< whi!h will set the instrument resonating, the real tones are orn. 6u!h fe!undated tones or seed:tones I will designate generi!ally y the term ?instrumental fundamentals,? or merely fundamentals. I will use the same word ut with a !apital ", when referring to the thought image in the mind of the !reative 6elf, to the ar!hetypal tones. 6piritual "undamentals are ar!hetypal tones. Instrumental fundamentals ar! manifested tones, or in a stri!ter sense still, as we shall see presently, prototypi!al tones % that is, really seed:tones efore germination o!!urs. "or tones are li#e plants or trees in many respe!ts2 they are triune2 they are in a sense seed, sap and leaves %that is, fundamental, sonal energ) and overtones. 4very tone !an e said allegori!ally to e the ashvatta tree, the very essen!e and sym ol of ,ature. /o one who understands fully the !omple& nature of a tone the innermost se!rets of our manifested universe are revealed. Fseless to say that 4uropean s!ientists who have studied sound have only analyBed the outer shell of its organi! entity. /hey #now of sound only the rootless and dead trun#2 nay, they fail even to re!ogniBe the unity of trun# and ran!hes, and #now of the tree only the oards whi!h are used to !onstru!t our wooden symphonies. 8hat they !all fundamentals are hardly fundamentals at all, and the e&planation provided to unriddle the mystery of overtone produ!tion are so un:satisfa!tory as to e pra!ti!ally meaningless in many ways2 yet (elmholtB and his theories, whi!h at est tea!h us only

parts of the mere stru!tural anatomy of sound or, let us say, of the s#eleton of manifested tones, seem in great favor with several Indian musi!ians. /his !ause of the failure of 8estern s!ien!e to grasp the real life of sound as a !osmi! energy is a generi! one whi!h affe!ts the entire s!ientifi! stru!ture of 4uropean !iviliBation. It is essentially its ina ility to re!ogniBe the su stantial nature of all !osmi! for!es, and its relian!e upon the vi ratory or undulatory theory a!!ording to whi!h light, heat, sound, et!. are merely rhythmi!al distur an!es of either an hypotheti!al ether or atmosphere. In spite of the !ontradi!tory opinions of numerous great s!ientists, not only at the time of Para!elsus, ut also during the last fifty years, in spite of the new theories of 4instein giving to light rays some sort of a su stantial entity, the general trend of 8estern thought is still toward elieving that oth the sour!es of light and sound, whatever they may e, are not emanating anything su stantial in the form of a light ray or sound ray, ut merely setting their surrounding media in vi ration, su!h vi ration eing transmitted to our senses from mole!ule to mole!ule ;or etheri! parti!le to etheri! parti!le in the !ase of light< in an undulatory motion. If su!h e the !ase the phenomenon of overtones would e une&plaina le. /o say that overtones are se!ondary vi rations due to the fa!t that the resonating su stan!e is not homogeneous, that therefore various parts of it vi rating singly add higher su :sounds to the main sound of the whole is merely egging for the 1uestionC (ow is it that the series of overtones unfolds itself in a regular se1uen!e of sounds a!!ording to a fi&ed arithmeti!al progressionsG /hat whenever overtones are heard in any #ind of su stan!e, they always manifest in the same regular order of intervalsG If there is su!h a definite and universal law of produ!tion of overtones ;modified as the series may e in so far as the relative intensities of overtones and fundamentals are !on!erned<, then su!h a phenomenon must e inherent in the nature of sound itself. In other words the (armoni! 6eries must e something li#e the phenomenon of the growth of sounds, the result of a vital pro!ess ta#ing pla!e in any tone whatever. 4a!h tone has its own modality or morphology of growth, as every seed has2 yet all vital tones, as all vital seeds, do grow. 5et it e said more a!!urately that all instrumental fundamentals grow into fully manifested tones, in!luding primary and se!ondary tones % as all seeds, in a !ertain sense whi!h will e!ome !learer as we progress, grow into plants with stem and leaves. If there is magneti! or organi! growth there must needs e an homogeniBing element and a !ir!ulatory system. /his !ir!ulating and homogeniBing element is asi!ally water in every material organismC water proper ;sea water or snow water< in the telluri! organism of our planet, lood and lymph in the animal #ingdom, sap in the vegeta le #ingdom. 8hen we pass from the realm of organi! matter to that of organi! energy, from tree to tone for instan!e, we find that water e!omes transformed into its dynami! !orresponden!e, #nown for ages in India as a4asha. '#asha has een !alled the ?Ereat 8aters of 6pa!e,? and it is said also that the one essential property of a4asha is sound. /he sap of the tree and the a4asha within the tone

;what I !alled 3sonal energy3< are fulfilling somewhat analogi!al fun!tions. /his sonal energy, as we shall see presently, manifests in several modes. It !an e either des!ending or as!ending energy. 3ut before we stud) these various (odalities of sonal energ) we must give more attention to the single tone and first to the a!t of instrumental tone:produ!tion. In a general and philosophi!al sense every tone originates in the setting in vi ration of an instrument, e this instrument !osmi!, animal or man:made. 8e saw that the instrument ;the vahan of the tone< !ould e !ompared to the wom of tones, to the matri& of spa!e or mysti! !haos. /he instrument must e stru!# in order to produ!e a sound ;either a mere resonan!e or a fe!undated tone<. It is stru!# either y a mus!ular a!tion ;physi!al< or y will power ;magneti!:spiritual<. In the first !ase we have three essential modes of mus!ular a!tionC stri#ing, lowing, ru ing2 whi!h give us the three great !lasses of instrumentsC per!ussion, wind and string instruments.;2< In the se!ond !ase we have what is pro a ly meant y sounds in the (ahata !ondition ;in opposition to sounds produ!ed y sho!#, ahata< or will: produ!ed sounds. /hese elong to the higher forms or types of 6ach or 6ound and have to do apparently with the realm of mysti!al !reation, whi!h may e rea!hed when humanity is fully redeemed or rather has fully regenerated itself from the thralldom of physi!al pro!reation. 9onsidering only physi!al sounds we have seen that tone:produ!tion presupposes an instrument and a mus!ular a!tion. /he latter arouses in the former a sound. But su!h an arousal means really the dematerialiBation or atomi! disso!iation of a fragment of the su stan!e of the instrument. 's the ovum is a portion of the mother3s ody and will grow into a !hild y mole!ular a!!retion from the very lood of the mother, so the sound is the li eration as energy of an infinitesimal fragment of the su stan!e of the instrument. If the sound is a real living tone fe!undated y the will and imagination of the e&e!utant, then it will fully grow as a !omplete (armoni! 6eries toward its own spiritual 6un, towards the 9olor whi!h is the psy!hi! !omplement or soul of the instrumental fundamental. 's demonstrated y the great yet little re!ogniBed "ren!h s!ientist, Eustave 5e Bon ;repeating un!ons!iously the an!ient theories of India<, matter and energy are two manifestations of the same su stan!e, and all for!es are produ!ts of the releasing of intra: atomi! energy !ondensed in and as matter. (e showed that every material su stan!e under the impa!t of light, heat and other agents, egins to dematerialiBe itself, as radium does spontaneouslyC that it shoots off rays of energy whi!h are the very produ!ts of atomi! disasso!iation. 6ound is no e&!eption to the rule. 6onal energy shoots from the vi rating instrument as a ray, or !olle!tion of rays, very mu!h pro a ly as al+ha and beta rays issue from a fragment of radium, and this sonal energy is nothing else, physi!ally spea#ing, ut the produ!t of the disintegration of the very atoms of the instrumental su stan!e ta#ing pla!e under the mus!ular a!tion of the musi!ian. 6ound is one of the many types of su stantial energy. It is matter li erated as energy, in its

manifested aspe!t at any rate % very mu!h as perfume or heat or magnetism are radiations or emanations from some su stantial entity. 'mong the few s!ientists who have !ome to similar !on!lusions may e mentioned J. 8. Deely of Philadelphia, the propheti! dis!overer of a new type of energy, whi!h he tried to harness y means of a motor of his invention, a motor whi!h however !ould only wor# when he energiBed it y his own human magnetism. (e writes ;!f. (.P. Blavats#y, The Secret $octrine, IC616<C I assume that sound, li#e odor, is a real su stan!e of un#nown and wonderful tenuity, emanating from a ody where it has een indu!ed y per!ussion and throwing out a solute !orpus!les of matter, inter:atomi! parti!les, with velo!ity of 1,12> feet per se!ond2 in vacuo 2>,>>>. /he su stan!e whi!h is thus disseminated is a part and par!el of the mass agitated, and, if #ept under this agitation !ontinuously, would, in the !ourse of a !ertain !y!le of time, e!ome thoroughly a sor ed y the atmosphere2 or, more truly, would pass through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity !orresponding to the !ondition of su division that governs its li eration from its parent. . . In my estimation, sound truly defined is the distur an!e of atomi! e1uili rium, rupturing a!tual atomi! !orpus!les2 and the su stan!e thus li erated must !ertainly e a !ertain order of etheri! flow. Fnder these !onditions, is it unreasona le to suppose that, if this flow were #ept up, and the ;sonorous< ody thus ro ed of its elements, it would in time disappear entirelyG In other words, the sound produ!ed y a ell is the result of the disintegration of the very su stan!e of the ell, and if the ell were #ept resonating for millennia theoreti!ally it would entirely disappear. It would have transformed itself into a !ontinuous ?etheri! flow,? a stream or ray of sonal energy % very mu!h in the same way in whi!h a seed transforms itself into a tree. /hat is to say, the !osmi! power in the seed e&pands itself into the magneti! ody of the plant for a !ertain !y!le of time, and on!e this initial power is e&hausted the plant de!ays and is no more. /he same is true of any organism and of any !y!le. /he seed of any !y!le or organism is in a sense a mass of !on!entrated energy whi!h spends itself !ontinuously as the very magneti! su stan!e of the !y!le. It is the never:ending /one whi!h is the eginning and the end, the Drishna or 9hristos, the 'vatar whose will power and energy upholds the entire !y!le from eginning to end. /he 'vatar beco(es the !y!le, and his Personality ;whi!h is the vahan of the spiritual /one, i.e., the instrumental fundamental and at the limit the instrument itself< spends itself vi rating throughout the entire duration of the !y!le. /he Personality is the ell whi!h sa!rifi!es itself and e!omes the etheri! flow of never !easing sonal energy2 while the mus!ular agent whi!h #eeps the ell !onstantly resonating is the 8ill of the 'vatar, who as the eternal 5ogos, or 3rah(a, is the Musi!ian fe!undating spiritually the tone of the !y!le, that is the utteran!es of the Personality. In other words, the musi!al instrument, under the mus!ular impa!t of the musi!ian, produ!es fundamentals whi!h are then multiplied. 4a!h fundamental is li#e a seed, a mass of !ondensed energy, winding itself out as sonal energy, radiating series of sonal offshoots whi!h we per!eive as overtones, and whi!h e&ist in another sense as undertones. /hus as

soon as the tone is heard we !an no longer spea# of its fundamental2 the fundamental has e!ome the tone, the (armoni! 6eries as a whole. It is only represented in the latter y the primary of the 6eries ;e&a!tly as what on!e was the seed is represented in a full:grown tree y a !ertain !enter of vital a!tion<, whi!h is the point of demar!ation etween overtones and undertones. /he level of the earth !orresponds to the diaphragm in man ;thus the importan!e of this mus!ular surfa!e in vo!al tone produ!tion<. 8e have thusC ;1< the ar!hetypal "undamental ;the solar seed< thought of and desired y the !reative soul2 ;2< the musi!al instrument produ!ed y the instrument:ma#er, and its inherent though material !apa!ity for resonan!e. /he !reative soul having sele!ted the instrument whi!h suits his own purpose, i.e., whose resonan!es are fit vehi!les for the tones he has !on!eived, pro+e!ts y an a!t of will and imagination the shadow of the ar!hetypal "undamental into the instrument y means of a !omple& mus!ular a!tion. /he shadow of the ar!hetypal "undamental uniting with the inherent resonan!e of the instrument, oth !onstitute the instrumental fundamental whi!h, as soon as produ!ed, transforms itself into sonal energy of a !ertain type !hara!teriBed y a !ertain formula of relationship etween the !omponent parts of the (armoni! 6eries ;primary, overtones, undertones and other elements<. /his sonal energy e&panding itself through air or through any other su stan!e and !ausing su!h to vi rate in the form of so !alled sound waves rea!hes the ear, then the rains and further than the rains2 a tone is then per!eived y the human !ons!iousness. ' soul has heard the utteran!e of another musi!ian:soul. ' tone:!ir!uit has een !ompleted. I spo#e of sound waves. 5et it e well understood that I do not deny the e&isten!e of os!illations in the air when a sound is produ!ed2 ut these air waves are not sound, only the result of the passage of sonal energy ;an etheri! flow< through the air % +ust as thunder is not the lightning ut the result of it. 6onal energy is in a way li#e an invisi le lightning passing through any su stan!e and sha#ing rhythmi!ally the mole!ules thereof into so: !alled sound waves. But while !ertain su stan!es li#e air are easily sha#en into sound waves, when sonal energy passes through a ig mass of metal, sound waves proper e&ist no longer, at least not in the same way as in the atmosphere, It is indeed a !urious parado& that sound travels more 1ui!#ly through masses of !ompa!t and resistant iron than through plasti! air. Modern a!ousti!ians have no logi!al e&planation to show how a sound travels through a solid ar of iron miles long. /o say that su!h an enormous mass of metal is sha#en y a small sound whi!h finds it easier to pass through it than through air is one of those e&planations whi!h e&plains nothing2 and some of the est a!ousti!ians realiBe it. But they !an offer no other solution and will not e a le to offer any until they re!ogniBe that sound is really an etheri! flow whi!h passes through the mole!ules. The ne2t +roble( which we have to stud) is that of the ver) nature of Funda(entals, of the relation of tones to the living entities uttering them and e&pressing themselves through them2 therefore the pro lem of the !osmi! meaning and

!orresponden!es of tones. /o this end we must differentiate at first etween two great !ategories of tonesC self:e&pressive tones produ!ed y living !reatures, animals and men2 and instrumental tones proper. In order to grasp the meaning of the tones produ!ed y animals, we must first try to understand what the term ?animal? implies not only in its o vious ut in its fullest philosophi!al sense. Ani(a in 5atin means reath and soul. Ani(a (undi is the 8orld 6oul, the great Mother or 8wan)in in 9hina, and in a sense 6ach or Aditi in the Hedas. 'll an!ient ra!es had moreover their 6a!red 'nimals, whi!h were also Bodia!al signs and gods. 6till our physi!al plane animals ar! truly !reatures elow the human ra!e, sym ols of instin!tual emotions, of the desires of the flesh and of passions. (ow !an these two meanings e re!on!iledG 8hy do we use in 4nglish the terms ?animal? and ?animisti!? to des!ri e two 1ualities apparently oppositeG It is e!ause oth terms !an e e&plained in terms of another, i.e., ?animation? or essentially !reative motion. Ani(a means reath, therefore rhythmi!al motion, therefore sounds. 6ound is in ani(a, and the latter is a4asha whose essential property is sound. 5ife e&presses itself in many modes. 4very one of these modes materialiBes into a #ingdom of life. 4very #ingdom has its own spe!ifi! fun!tion or dhar(a. /he mineral #ingdom manifests !ohesion and its fun!tion is to provide a asis for the development of higher types2 the vegeta le #ingdom manifests sensi ility and serves as lin# etween the heat and +rana of the sun and our earth, as the universal food2 the animal #ingdom or mode of life manifests instin!ts and emotions. It provides a asis for the development of the higher type, man the thin#er2 that is, for a fully individualiBed !ons!iousness, also for a life whi!h is self:moving. It provides instin!tual !ries whi!h are to human songs what instrumental resonan!es are to spiritually fe!undated tones. In a very real sense the animal life is the matri& of the human line as the mineral life is the asis of the vegeta le life2 and what the vegeta le life is to the animal life, so is the human: personal life to the higher spiritual modes of life. /he differen!e etween a !rystal and a plant is that while the former grows within the osom of the earth, the latter grows out of it and e!omes transfigured y the sun, into the very avatar of the sun3s energy. 6imilarly the differen!e etween animals and human personalities is that while the former live within the psy!hi! wom of ,ature and are not self:moving ut only ra!ially instin!tively moving, the latter !an grow out of this psy!hi! wom of ,ature, e transfigured y the 6olar Pitris or 'r!hangels, and e!ome the very avatars of the spiritual 6un3s power. /he animal life is thus the instrumental asis of the in!arnation of the human tones. /he !osmi! Builders and )ulers of the animal spe!ies are truly similar to the instrument:ma#ers who provide the musi!ian soul with resonan!es, with the ova of the future tones. /hose uilders are thus form: uilders2 they are the 5unar Pitris, whose nature is water) while the 6olar Pitris LAgnishvattas< are essentially fire. 8ater, as we #now already, is the lood of the earth. Blood is asi!ally sea 8ater. /he 5unar Pitris are the 6pirits in the lood, therefore the ra!ial 'r!hangels of 8estern religions, the ra!ial gods, the many

Jehovahs who rouse in the tri esmen patriotism, war:li#e emotions, religious fervor2 who sound the #ey:notes of ra!es and ra!ial !ultures2 who, e!ause they rule the lood and the mus!ular heart, rule instin!ts and instin!tual emotions, therefore the animal nature of men, and their animal !ries and resonan!es. $n the !ontrary, the 6olar Pitris are the des!ending /ones whi!h in!arnate in the human resonan!es or personalities and transfigure them into the li#eness of the spiritual "undamentals. /hey are the mighty .udras, the eleven solar spirits, ea!h dou le:natured ;nilalohitas, lue and red<, thus produ!ing the twenty:two srutis of Indian musi!. /he animal #ingdom, li#e every #ingdom or mode of life, !an e su divided into seven great types2 as the human #ingdom into seven great ra!ial types % seven eing the num er of manifestation. /hese seven great animal types will e&press themselves in seven fundamental types of resonan!e, or !ries. 4a!h one of these will !hara!teriBe a spe!ial mode of animal life, of ani(a, or reath, or psy!hi! soul, or lood. 't the same time ea!h will !hara!teriBe indu!tively one of those great groups of !osmi! Builders, who are the )ulers of the animal #ingdom, the Eenii of the animal spe!ies, who also are, in a higher aspe!t, the ra!ial gods who !olle!tively !onstitute psy!hi! ,ature, the Ani(a (undi, 6ach, in one of her aspe!ts at any rate. /hus the Bodia!al 6a!red 'nimals % whi!h many ar!hai! ra!es !laimed as their progenitors, whi!h degenerated tri e even today worship under the form of a totem. /he totem is the sym ol of the ra!e:god or tri al god who is in the lood, one of the many lunar an!estors of man#ind. 'nd if we !ould go a!# into the past we would undou tedly find that every ra!e or tri e had its own distin!tive !ry, as every animal spe!ies has its own2 that this ra!ial !ry;"< was the lood:!ry of the ra!e, the resonan!e of the psy!hi! matri& of human 6elves % the ra!e. 's musi!al instruments are wom s of tones, so are the human ra!es wom s of human souls. /he 6a!red 'nimals, whi!h are at the same time !onstellations, are thus sym ols of the various aspe!ts of psy!hi! ,ature. /hey represent fundamental emotions or life:resonan!es, various types of +ra4riti ;!osmi! su stan!e<, various manifestations of the ?magi! of +ra4riti,? various powers of the great Mother % therefore various tones or rather various !osmi! fundamentals of sound, the prin!iples of a4asha. /hese fundamentals num er seven, one for ea!h ra!e and essential mode of psy!hi! and animal life. /hey are the seven swaras whi!h !onstitute the gra(a2 not, however, mere notes of musi! as they have degenerated into, ut fundamental modes of sound, essential life:resonan!es. /hus we find the reason why all ar!hai! ra!es have related the seven fundamentals to various animal spe!ies, why they have !onstantly repeated that those seven tones were virtually the essentialiBed !ries of seven animal spe!ies. /hey egan as animal !ries2 then the animals were turned into !elestial !onstellations as man e!ame more and more material, and the separation etween ?animisti!? and animal in man ;and in ,ature as well, man eing ?the storehouse of all natural and animal types?< e!ame more and more definitive. 5ater, gods made in the li#eness of men are said to have

produ!ed the seven fundamental tones, whi!h thus e!ame the seven aspe!ts of the 8orld 6oul, seven !enters of !osmi! energy, therefore the tones of the seven 6a!red Planets, !onstituting in their totality the Pythagorean musi! of the spheres. /hen a perverted intelle!tual !iviliBation made of them mere lifeless and toneless a stra!tions, mere musi!al notes whi!h are nothing ut !onventional designations, a solutely dis!onne!ted from anything vital, !on!eived only in terms of the patterns whi!h are made with them on our depthless rains. /o e&plain why !ertain fundamentals were !onne!ted with !ertain animal spe!ies, gods and planets would e a long if not an impossi le tas#. /he !orresponden!es given vary with ra!es and with authors trying to re!ord traditions more or less !orrupted or deli erately veiled. 4very (indu musi!ian may try to find for himself whi!h of these re!ords is true, if any, and to grasp the se!ret meaning of the !orresponden!es. 's we have seen already, in a really hu(an sense, these seven fundamentals are not so mu!h tones as !omple& (odes of resonance, and therefore musi!al modes;#< whi!h e!ame in the !ourse of time !hara!teriBed solely y their predominating tone or ha(sa ;usually spelt ;a(sa;<. /he ha(sa was the vahan or vehi!le of the spiritual power of the mode. 6o we see all the great (indu gods provided with a vahan whi!h was some sort of an animal. /he ha(sa is the essential whi!h e&plains further the higher meaning of the animal mode of life as the matri& of spiritual souls. /he !reative power of the solar Pitris, whose essen!e is fire, fe!undates animal nature or animisti! nature whi!h is a watery essen!e, and out of this union !omes the human soul % e&a!tly as out of the union of the spiritual "undamental and the instrumental resonan!e !omes the seed:tone whi!h is the in!arnate 8ord made flesh, Man. The seven tones of the /indu gra(a are thus essentially the seven prin!iples or souls of sound, the seven veils of Isis or Ishtar or Pra4riti, seven layers or spheres of resonan!e. /hey !onstitute a gra(a or villageC a rotherhood. -et perhaps they should e understood rather as a hierar!hy of fun!tions. ' gra(a is an ar!hetypal form, a !ertain t)+e of (usical organi-ation rather than a spe!ifi! sonal su stan!e, as the rags are. /herefore there are only three gra(as whereas there are many rags, whi!h are melodi! !y!les of one evolving tone impulse. /he gra(a is li#e the a stra!t 9hinese 6tate, or in another sense li#e a series of university degrees, these eing no mere a stra!tions ut ea!h representing a definite 1uality of #nowledge, wisdom and power. It is analogi!al in fa!t to the series of initiations mentioned in o!!ult oo#s, to the totality of the seven paths. 4a!h !enter in the gra(a is the eginning of a new world. It is a Portal. /here are seven mysti! Portals as there are seven !enters in the gra(a, the seventh or synthesis eing the 6ound in the 5ight % of whi!h the note i is only a sym ol. ada in Sahasra,

/his, when properly understood, e&plains for instan!e the differen!e etween the seven ? eginnings? ;Ishi chi< and the five or seven ?degrees? of the )u( in 9hinese musi!. /he former !orrespond to the seven prin!iples of sound ;or as it is said to s#y, earth, man and

the four seasons< and are thus or seven fundamentals or Portals2 the latter are !on!eived espe!ially as a s!ale or sliding ladder ;)un<, as an invaria le formula of relationship, as a series of intervals. /he 9hinese )un is in many ways similar to the 4uropean s!ales, and 9hinese 4h)us and l)aos are not unli#e 8estern tonalities. But, whereas in 9hina degrees and l)aos had all a !osmologi!al and so!ial signifi!an!e and were ased on the !y!le of fifths ;as we shall see presently<, in 4urope notes and tonalities e!ame, soon after they left 6yria and even in 6yria ;!f. our former 1uotation of Bar:(e raeus3 words<, entirely dis!onne!ted from their !osmi! and al!hemi!al valuations. In India, e!ause of the essentially individualisti! and su +e!tive nature of musi!, su!h a differentiation etween fundamentals and degrees e!omes the differentiation etween the tones of the gra(as and the tones of a rag, or efore the rags, of a 9ati2 the third element eing the strutis themselves. /he differen!e is a su tle and philosphi!al one and may have lost all its meaning today, yet I elieve that it is intrinsi!ally a very real one, even though it may e the differen!e etween spiritual and emotional realities. 8e should not e surprised to find some day some te&t proving that the tones of the original gra(a were !alled )a(as and that the term swara or sur was !onne!ted with the first prototypes of the rags. /he term )a(a used to mean the higher human soul in the, Hedas, and only later e!ame lin#ed with the idea of death. I elieve that the seven )a(as represented the seven types of human soul, or spiritual )ays from the one 9enter. /hey !onstituted, therefore, !olle!tively a gra(a or rotherhood2 and ea!h opened a path, or mode of resonan!e, a (arga. 't first there was only one gra(a, whi!h was the 'andhara gra(a, or perhaps the 'andharva gra(a,;&< i.e., the path of in!arnation of the 'andharvas ;also the in!arnating egos of men in another aspe!t<. /his gra(a was a des!ending one as we shall see presently2 later, two as!ending gra(as !ame into use, showing the paths of as!ent of the soul out of matter. /he three gra(as !orrespond therefore to the three great (argas of (indu philosophyC 8ar(a (arga, the path of a!tion and therefore of in!arnation2 'nana (arga, the path of #nowledge ;pro a ly !orresponding to the %a5gra(a<2 3ha4ti (arga, the path of devotion ;the original Sagra(a<. 8e will !ome a!# to gra(as and rags in the following !hapters and must return to the !onsideration of the various types of fundamentals !on!eived as seed:tones. 8e saw that animal !ries should e interpreted as eing psy!hi! resonan!es. But there is a lower and a higher +s)che, an animal and an animisti! soul. 6o we have the psy!hi! resonan!es of animal !ries whi!h are the out!ome of a series of organi! pro!esses and emotions in the animal ;i.e., roused y fear, +oy, se&ual desire, hunger, et!.<, and also we have the higher resonan!es of !osmi! entities, the musi! of the spheres, of the planets, whi!h is the out!ome of organi! pro!esses on a universal s!ale. 7hen we sa) that the tone of ature on the Earth is F, or with the 9hinese /wang5

tchong or 8ung, we must realiBe that this tone whi!h is the synthesis of all earthly sounds

is an organi! tone. It is the out!ome of all the fun!tional pro!esses of the planet. It is the syntheti! resonan!e of the +ra4riti. of our planetary system. $n a still higher level we would find the syntheti! resonan!e of the entire !osmos, and this too would e the voi!e of +ra4riti, a tone, single yet multitudinous. -et all these tones, from the ellowing of a !ow to the universal tone of the manifested universe, !onstitute only the 6ai4hari aspe!t of 6ach. But eyond this manifested universe there is the universe of spiritual energies whi!h !olle!tively !onstitute the Ani(a (undi or 8orld 6oul, and serially the many 9elestial (ierar!hies or (osts personified in all mythologies under the name of this or that god. 4a!h of these (osts has also its own psy!hi! resonan!e, whi!h is the syntheti! resonan!e of the rotherhood. /hese !olle!tively !onstitute the %adh)a(a aspe!t of 6ach, !orresponding to the Su4sh(a form of the universe ;!f. 6u a )ow3s 5e!tures on the 3hagavad5'ita.< 6ound, in these two aspe!ts, is to e !on!eived as the resonan!e of +ra4riti. But there are other aspe!ts in whi!h 6ound a!ts as !reative power, as the 5ogos or 3rah(a himself, as the monad involving into matter, as +urusha fe!undating +ra4riti, as ,arayana des!ending into the waters of spa!e and re:emerging from them after the period of in!u ation as Brahma, as "ire. 6ound then manifests, not as syntheti! resonan!e, ut as the des!ending and as!ending )ay, therefore as the harmoni! 6eries, the sour!e of all melodies, as we shall se! presently. ' struse as these matters may seem to many yet they are a solutely ne!essary to the most pra!ti!al understanding of the various types of musi! and tones. /hey ena le one to grasp fully the spe!ifi! dhar(as or natures of 8estern musi! and of (indu musi!C the former eing psy!hi! musi! uilt upon syntheti! resonan!es and the prin!iple of tone: rotherhood, the latter eing melodi! ;des!ending and as!ending< musi! or monadi! musi!, musi! of the individual soul in whi!h manifests the !reative power of the 6elf, i.e., swa5ra. /he differentiation must e understood however really as a differentiation of focus2 for melodies in a sense are !omposed of single tones, and the !reative melodi! )ay or reath, as it e!omes su stantial, wor#s through or in !om ination with the resonan!e of the human ody. 8e may put this in a different way y saying that the twenty:two srutis ;the stages of the melodi! )ay< fo!us themselves into the seven tone:!enters or resonan!es of the gra(a ;the rotherhood of tones<2 that is to say, the energy of the 6elf ;swara< finds itself !entered on seven planes, or +ra4ritic fun!tions, or prin!iples, and e!omes thus identified with the seven )a(as of the gra(a. At(a or reath wor#s through oth the ani(a ;or soul< and the animal nature2 ea!h eing triple, this gives us si& prin!iples or si& tones and a seventh as the sym ol of at(a itself ;the ?leading note? of 4uropean s!ale whi!h represents the upward attra!tion of the tonal flow<. 8e understand now the very !omple& and metaphysi!al essen!e of the seven fundamentals whi!h !onstitute the gra(a. By instrumental fundamental we mean then the manifested resonan!e produ!ed in the instrument under the impa!t of 5ife itself. By ar!hetypal "undamental we mean the higher psy!hi! resonan!e, the !osmi! "orm of the !elestial

(ierar!hy !orresponding to the instrumental vahan, when the latter is an animated, living instrument % animal or man. 8hat then of man:made instrumentsG /hey are !olle!tively the vahan of an aspe!t of the !reative (ind in man, the aspe!t of mind whi!h is !onne!ted with the mastery over and in a sense evolutionary guidan!e of matter. 6u!h a mind eing ound to matter !an evolve ut inorgani! vehi!les made of dead matter2 whereas the higher !reative 6pirits of the universe wor#ing with 5ife itself find their vahan in some organi! living entity. ' musi!al instrument is !omposed of !ertain su stan!es and has a !ertain spe!ifi! form. By the !om ination of these two elements a definite type of resonan!e is produ!ed, whi!h is in a way the released energy of the su stan!e used. 8ood, metals, stone, strings, et!. e&press their elemental souls in the instrument in whi!h they vi rate. /he musi!ian is the arouser of these elemental souls. (e fe!undates them, he gives them his own soul fireC he ensouls them. /he great !osmi! drama of soul irth is repeated on a lower plane. /he two great !reative !enters of mental man, throat and hands ;to whi!h feet are added for some 8estern instruments<, are used to animate the instrumental resonan!es. Breath is !arried forth and differentiated y union with the 1ualities of !ertain su stan!es. /he fashioning power of the ten fingers sets in motion vast resonan!es, deep or strident tones whi!h delineate in their span the sphere of magneti! a!tion of man, the Bodia! of sound to whi!h we shall !ome later. Musi!al instruments e!ome multiplied as spirituality diminishes and intelle!tuality develops in a ra!e, as the vital magneti! for!es of the human ody are less and less understood and man !onsiders himself more and more an entity of matter dealing with sensorial and material realities. 't the same time the voi!es of most men and women lose their vital resonan!e, and e!ome ?!lear? or ?pure? whi!h usually means devitaliBed % li#e white read or polished ri!e. /he fire of the 6elf is gone and nothing is left ut the thin resonan!es of a more or less poorly fun!tioning, demagnetiBed, ody. Men having !eased to e /ones themselves, as human eings they !an no longer ring forth living tones2 and their psy!hi! or even animal resonan!es eing no longer fe!undated y the des!ent of the fire of the 6elf e!ome atrophied. Hoi!es are then !ultivated for ni!ety of e&pression, for deli!a!y of feeling, for virtuosity, in other words, to please the senses and astonish the intelle!t. (ot house tones they produ!e whi!h no sun has energiBed, or rather rain: orn musi!al notes whi!h have no vital power, no ra4ti. Instrumental resonan!es then are needed to !onstitute the ody of a musi! whi!h is ased almost solely on the magi! of +ra4riti, on the resonan!e of matter. It is psy!hi! or unified matter in the !ase of the sa!red gongs or ells whi!h refle!t in the lending of metalli! souls the homogeneous su stan!e of rotherhoods of human or !elestial souls. It is !haoti! and unorganiBed matter in the !ase of many 8estern instruments and of 8estern or!hestras as a whole whi!h almost entirely la!# unity of resonan!e. /he asis of su!h a unity is not yet found or at any rate used, though it was foreseen y 6!ria in, and pro a ly taught y Pythagoras twenty:five !enturies ago. /o produ!e su!h a

unity a new sense of musi! and a new system of harmony and polyphony !onditioned y the sear!h for full and vital resonan!es are needed. 4uropean musi! has een groping toward it2 ut it has een a mi&ture of this thing and the other, and thus it has lost the melodies of the 6elf and not yet found the resonant symphonies of the 8orld 6oul, the seed:tones of future universes as of the future ra!e of Man.

1.

It is !lear that y the term instrument is meant primarily the human ody as a tone:

produ!er. /he singer is the mother of his or her tones, it elongs to him or her to evolve the pure and vi rating odily su stan!e whi!h is re1uired2 thus the importan!e of food to the singer ;of the #ind of food, not only the amount<, the importan!e of developing y mus!ular !ontrol and otherwise the resonant !avities of the odies2 of seeing that the entire ody vi rates, that the strings or pipes are well tuned, the nadis whi!h produ!e the great tone of the 6elf. /he human ody is an instrument a ove all, e!ause it is not made up of dead su stan!e ut of living matter, of matter whi!h is !on+oined with magneti! !enters. In other words it is a mu!h higher type of +ra4riti, as human nature is a mu!h higher type of nature than vegeta le nature or animal nature % if it is really hu(anC that is, if it is made up of fire ;pure fire< and not of water. /hus the relation of nada to 4undalini.
2.

$ne might ma#e these three !lasses !orrespond to the first three !astesC Dshattriya,

Brahmana, Haishya. In the somewhat hy rid instrument, the organ, we see a !om ination of stri#ing and lowing whi!h might !orrespond to the 6udra !aste. "rom the organ !omes its degenerate progeny, the harmonium. /he importation of harmoniums into modern India would ta#e thus a highly sym oli!al meaning. /he three instrument !lasses !orrespond also in a sense to the three $!!ult fires of the PuranasC ele!tri!, solar fires and fire produ!ed y fri!tion. ;6ee also (. P. Blavats#y3s The Secret $octrine, I, p. .6C@.<
".

Pierre 5oti des!ri es for instan!e the e&traordinary !ry of the Bas1ue people in the

Pyrenees, a very an!ient ra!e. /his !ry egins with a high yell arid dies down slowly. It is uttered in a moment of e&altation when the lood tension is high and its effe!t is said to e most stirring.
#.

Mrs. Dathleen 6!hlesinger whose deep studies of ar!hai! musi! are revealing the true and

long forgotten su stan!e of Eree# musi!, and of all pre:Pythagorean musi! gives the following !orresponden!es for the seven Eree# modesC Mi&olydianC Moon, 5ydianC Mer!ury2 PhrygianC Henus2 *orianC 6un2 (ypolydiar Mars2 (ypophrygianC Jupiter2 (ypodorianC 6aturn. In a sense the modes are the mystery:names of the sa4tis of the planetary gods.

&.

l am glad to find that Mr. H. 6. 'iyar has !ome, in his re!ent wor# on Indian musi!, to the

!on!lusion that the true name for the 'andhara gra(a was 'andharvagra(a. /here may e a slight differen!e of meaning etween the two terms, ut the derivation at any rate is the same.

Cha+ter Four $escending and Ascending %usic 7e have studied funda(entals: tones which are li4e unto seeds, either spiritual or instrumental, solar or earthly seeds. 8e have to !onsider now what ta#es pla!e in the seed, or rather the two series of transformations where y the seed e!omes the fully realiBed plant, after germination has o!!urred. Eermination is a magneti! pro!ess. Fnder the impa!t of the solar magneti! waves, heat, will and magi!al power, the seed egins to resonate. /o put it more !orre!tly, as spring, whi!h is the desire of the sun, as the vernal winds, whi!h are its loving reath, stir the earth, as our planet resonates li#e a vast musi!al instrument, seed tones egin to germinate everywhere under the magi!al magneti! fingers of the solar musi!ian. /hese rays of magneti! will stri#ing the earth, the wom of seeds, do not stop at the surfa!e of the soil. /hey rea# through the earth !rust as lightning, penetrate the seeds, and their urge toward the de+ths pulls the matter of the seed downward as roots. /he root is therefore in a sense the materialiBation of the fe!undative solar rayC its immediate progeny or manifestation. It is !rystalliBed will power, the sustainer of the plant !y!le, the first to go forth from the seed, the last to die. 6tem and leaves may e !ut, destroyed in a hundred ways2 ut out of the root 5ife will spring again and again until the !y!li! energy lo!#ed in the seed is e&hausted, the root itself de!ays and vegetation altogether ends. /he root is a tremendously sym oli!al and mysti!al reality2 and the more one grasps the many meanings of the sym ol, the more one will understand the !iviliBation of Ar)avarta: and 'ryan musi!, for they are respe!tively the root !iviliBation and the root musi! of our present humanity. /he root is des!ending energy, the em odiment of the will toward the depths. /he deeper the depths rea!hed, the higher will soar the trun#s2 the more intense the power of the roots, the greater will e the num er of flowers, therefore of seeds. /he roots grasp the salts of the earth2 ut remem er the words of Jesus to (is dis!iplesC ?-e are the salt of the earth.? /he roots a sor the water of the soil, the earthly sea whi!h is Mariah in the soil ri!h with mineral salts ;not sea salt<, Mariah who is not filled with fishes ;and therefore not the mother of the Pis!ean 'vatar< ut who e!omes one with the root2 i.e., Maria Magdalena. 9hrist and Drishna are two aspe!ts of the !osmi! )oot, represented y the vo!al sound, 8ri. /hey are des!ending energies, the very spiritual )oots of their respe!tive !y!les. /he first tone of the ar!hai! des!ending gra(a was also !alled 8rushta. /he roots issuing from the seed tones are thus analogi!al to or sym oliBed y what a few 8estern musi!ians, eginning perhaps with Jean:Philippe )ameau ;1@2.<, have !alled undertones. /he a!tual e&isten!e of undertones has een denied y a great many e&perimenters and theorists however, so that a great mystery reigns !on!erning the matter, whi!h I elieve !an pro a ly never e solved e&!ept on a philosophi!al or o!!ult asis. 6u!h a solution may not e so diffi!ult to grasp mentally if we !onsider the undertones, or let us say the (armoni! 6eries of des!ending tones, as the very roots of the seed tones. "or

thus it e!omes o vious that as the roots are hidden in the soil, li#ewise we !annot normally dete!t undertones y means of our mere physi!al sense of hearing. But this is only half of the truth, for as we saw already there are spiritual seed tones and instrumental earthly seed tones, animisti! and animal resonan!es, the spiritual 6elf and the personal self in man. If, then, we !onsider the tone of the spiritual 6elf % meaning y this really the spiritual %anas, that is the reincarnating Princi+le in man, truly the seed of the !y!les of rein!arnation % we shall understand at on!e that as it sends a ray of itself into the soil of our personally human world, su!h a ray is very similar to a root, or to a group of roots. "or did we not see that human personalities were of the nature of waterG 'nd are not our virtues and good deeds as the earthly salts whi!h the soul at death a sor s unto itselfG Is it not often said that adeptship or the spiritual perfe!tion of the soul is the ?efflores!en!e? of the good deeds of many in!arnationsG 'nd flowers in!rease with the roots and their power of assimilation. In other words what is !alled in an!ient oo#s the sutrat(a or /hread soul is the ideal root of the manas:seed, a sor ing the water and salts of our earthly natures. /his root of the manas:seed is, in its grossest form, the volitional nervous system. Holitional, for the des!ending (anas is ichcha or will and %antri4a, the original impulse of the in!arnation eing either #arma or !osmi! desire ;manifesting universally as heat or light, two aspe!ts of +arasa4ti<. /he essen!e of the root is will power. It is the will of the root whi!h sustains the plant during the entire !y!le of manifestation. /his volitional energy of the involutionary (anas manifests as the des!ending (armoni! 6eries whi!h is !hara!teriBed in a sense y the num er II, whi!h is the num er of the !y!les of solar magnetism. %anas eing the sun of the human system, its rhythm of magneti! emanation is also measured y the same num er, whi!h is the num er of the .udras. /he eleven .udras represent the eleven years of the sunspots3 !y!le, eleven phases of the soul3s !y!le. /herefore it is the num er of the root, of the des!ending musi! of will, of the ar!hai! (antra(sC therefore the asi! num er of (indu:'ryan musi!, the root musi! of our humanity. 8e saw that ea!h .udra eing twofold ;red and lue, positive and negative< we get thus the twenty:two srutis, srutis meaning divine revelation, therefore the in!arnation of the *eity in words, the 8ord made flesh y the power of !ompassion and of will. /his in!arnation of the 6elf into matter means truly the !on1uest of matter, or rather the penetration of su!!essive layers of the soil y the root. /his operation is e&a!tly reprodu!ed and a!!urately measured if we ta#e a string stret!hed over a oard and plu!# ever: in!reasing lengths of the string. 8e get thus a series of des!ending tones. If we in!rease our vi ratory lengths regularlyC say 1 in!h, 2 in!hes, = in!hes, et!., up to 77 in!hes, we o tain a perfe!t des!ending (armoni! 6eries. 6u!h an instrument of tone measurement #nown for millennia is usually !alled from its Eree# name, a mono!hord. /he last words of Pythagoras to his dis!iples are said to have eenC Stud) the %onochord. /hey are the first words whi!h ought to e said to Indian musi!ians today. It is only y studying the natural series of tones given y the string, oth in their physi!al and metaphysi!al meanings and !orrelations, that Indian musi!ians will e a le to re uild the ar!hai! 'ryan musi! from

within. /hat is to re:energiBe y the power of !ompassionate will and #nowledge the ever flowing, yet today nearly dried out, root of musi!, the eternal 6oma +ui!e poured into the !up of li ations y the master sa!rifi!er, 'rghanath, who stands as the in!arnated though mysti!al 8ill of 'ryavarta, on!e !alled Arsha56arsha,;1< the real( of the libations. If then we ta#e our mono!hord with its mova le fret and plu!# su!!essively the lengths of string measured y the series of odd num ers from 1 to 7=, we get twenty:two sounds whi!h are the original twenty:two srutis. (owever for pra!ti!al purposes it is easier to start y plu!#ing 22 in!hes of string, then 2=, 27, 2., 26, et!., up to 77. /his gives us the twenty:two srutis in the more re!ent sense of the term, whi!h however is not really that of musi!al interval, ut of lengths of vi rating string, or in general of units of vi rating matter or su stan!e. Before going any further, we must thoroughly understand one of the most important points in musi!, a point almost !ompletely forgotten today. Musi! !an e ased on one or the other of two fundamental elements or !on!eptionsC that of tone or that of interval. ' tone means always a !ertain mass of vi rating su stan!e and !an therefore e est !hara!teriBed y a unit of length of vi rating string, though of !ourse units of length are only sym ols of measurement presupposing that the width and tension of the string remain !onstant. 6tri!tly spea#ing therefore tones must e measured y units of (ass. /o a !ertain mass !orresponds a !ertain lone. ' tone is therefore something tangi le or rather su stantial, the emanation of a portion of su stan!e, of +ra4riti, however refined or spiritualiBed the resonating su stan!e may e. 'n interval is on the !ontrary entirely disso!iated from su stan!e in itself. It is an a stra!t proportion, a relation etween two num ers whi!h do not even measure the fre1uen!y ;num er of vi rations per se!ond< of two a!tual spe!ified sounds, ut whi!h !an e any num ers at all, i.e., mere alge rai! sym ols. 8e shall !ome a!# to this in a later !hapter, ut it must e definitely stated at present that (indu musi! is not ased on the !on!ept of interval, that the srutis are not units of interval, ut tones measured y units of vi rating su stan!e. 'll ideas to the !ontrary are merely due to the perni!ious influen!e of 8estern thought in India, possi ly as early as the time of 'le&ander. /his is a !apital point, the understanding of whi!h is the first re1uirement for any musi!al reformation in India. The sruti is a tone< as the ar!hai! meaning of the term alone should show, it is a revelation, therefore a new outpouring of the 6pirit !lothing itself in a ?veil of +ra4riti,? a resonan!eC in other words, a god spea#ing through a personality ;whi!h is a +ra4ritic veil<. ' sruti is something alive, an entity2 and +uggling with su!h and disse!ting it in the true fashion of 4uropean tone vivise!tionists li#e (elmholtB is a solutely fatal to the true musi!al revelation. In order to pass from one sruti to the ne&t on the mono!hord, you have to slide the mova le fret, and this very simple and (uscular a!tion shows that one does not +ump from the one to the other, ut that one tone grows into the ne&t, that su stan!e eing homogeneous and !ontinuous, its resonan!es are also organi! parts of a whole. /rue Indian

musi! #nows of no musi!al void etween notes whi!h are edges of intervals, e!ause it is the very soul of +ra4riti, that is everywhere and pervades all spa!e, fe!undated y the will and love of +urusha that is all:em ra!ing, the Ishwara at the heart of ea!h and all. /he result of this is that a sruti is not a fi2ed interval in a gra(a or rag. It is a fi&ed length of vi rating string for any gra(a and we should say for an) singer % it is in fa!t the !hara!teriBing num er of the singer, his individual unit of pit!h % and therefore it does not mean any definite interval. /hree srutis at the eginning of the gra(a and three srutis at the end !onstitute two different intervals in the 4uropean sense of the term. 's a matter of fa!t, unless we discard entirel) an) notion of interval Indian musi! will never e true to its origin and dhar(a. /he singer ought to !on!entrate on the 1uality and life power of the tone2 the preo!!upation of interval a!!ura!y should !ome se!ond, not first. Intervals are always !orre!t when tones are true and generated from within. /his 1uestion of the generation of tone is a solutely !onne!ted with the inner realiBation of the srutis. ' true musi!ian ought to hear the srutis in his own heartC first his own #ey:note or 8rushta, the 9hrist within2 then flowing out of it y s+ontaneous generation one after the other, the twenty:two srutis. ,o one who is not a le to have su!h a tone e&perien!e, or sruti e&perien!e, will ever e an adept singer. /o train real singers, therefore, the first essential ought to e a sort of spiritual training. ,o singer should e taught the mysteries of the true rags or (antra(s who has not mastered the life powers of the srutis, who has not e!ome one with them. $n this initial sruti e&perien!e everything depends2 it is the a solute asis of true Indian musi!ianship. 9al!ulation of intervals and the li#e is mere waste of time, if not mu!h worse, for the Indian musi!ian. /he only outer !he!# he needs to verify his inner sruti sense is a pie!e of string and a rule divided into 77 units, the string eing tuned to his own inner #ey note. /he ta(bura is merely a help to #eep true to this #eynote and its primary derivatives. "or the man or woman in whom the sruti e&perien!e is ever strong and unadultera le there is no need of any outer means. 6u!h a one !ould e !alled a Master of the Srutis. /o this pra!ti!al mastery of the root su stan!e of musi! all that is to e added is the #nowledge of the various !om inations of srutis whi!h !onstitute gra(as, 9atis, rags, et!., of their !osmi! !orrelations and inner meanings. /his is the tas# of the philosophi!al mind2 this is what the guru has to tea!h. But in the real singer the srutis are self: orn2 orn out of will and renun!iation, and !ompassion for man#ind. (e himself is the )oot % or the "lower. /he des!ending energy after having manifested in the root fills the water and salts of the soil and sends them as sap upward to the flower. /he energy of the sap, of manifested growth !onstitutes a new fa!tor, another aspe!t of this innermost life power, on!e in a neutral la)a !ondition in the seed, now released at the !all of spring % first as the des!ending energy of the root, and then as the as!ending energy of the germ and stal# pushing s#yward through the !rust of the soil. /he deep relationship etween these two modes of energy is a fas!inating su +e!t of study, ut eyond the s!ope of this elementary

wor#. In a sense they !orrespond respe!tively to 8ill and Dnowledge. /he trun# and leaves sym oliBe Dnowledge or 8isdom e!ause, among other reasons, their fun!tion is to !apture the solar energy or pure 8isdom2 e!ause also they are the natural food and the one sour!e of heat and fire on our planet. /he interesting point to grasp, however, is that though the flower is physi!ally spea#ing a group of modified leaves, yet it has an immediate relation to the root. /he des!ending will in the root transforms itself into the generative for!e in the flower, /he des!ending )ay of sound issued from the seed:tone after rea!hing its appointed depth, its own (ulacha4ra or root !enter, in time rises again as as!ending fire to the flower in the !enter of whi!h the original seed is re!onstituted. /he !y!le is thus !ompleted, a !y!le whi!h in its universal meanings and appli!ations !onstituted the asis of the ar!hai! Mysteries. "or instan!e, it is sym oliBed in the Promethean myth y the wanderings of the ra!e of lo, its westward ;or downward< +ourney, then its eastward ;or upward< return to the seed:land of humanity wherein will e orn, at the end of this Dali -uga, the Dal#i 'vatar. In other words 8e have a triple flow of energy, y understanding whi!h we get a universal vision of all the (usics of the world, at least in our present millions of years old humanityC the des!ending and as!ending magneti! energy of the (armoni! 6eries, i.e., of the )ay in!arnating and dis!arnating itself % and the as!ending stream of manifested growth whi!h is the result of the !om ination of two for!es, the upward push orn in the root and the upward pull !reated y the su!tion of the sun. /he latter stream !orresponds to what is #nown as the !y!les of fifths or fourths, to what has een !alled the Bodia!s of sound. It manifests outwardly in the spiral:li#e arrangements of the leaves on the stem. In a su se1uent !hapter we shall study this aspe!t of sound. $n it ought to e ased the true musi! of the 8est. Indian (usic was: and alwa)s ought to be b) virtue of its own spe!ifi! dhar(a, the manifestation of this life pilgrimage of the )ay into and out of matter. It is (onadic (usic, the musi! of the $ne. It is the musi! of the individual self, a musi! whi!h finds its ape& and most essential realiBation in the single melody of the single singer, singing his songs of disenthrallment throughout the world. *isenthrallment indeed in this day of ours. "or the ra!e at large is slowly arising out of its +ail of matter and aspiring toward its primal stage of pristine purity. /he )ay is longing to e!ome again the 9olor of its origin. /he )oot is wor#ing toward the "lower. 4very instrumental fundamental !orresponds to a !olor whi!h is its psy!hi! !ounterpart2 e&a!tly as every human soul has its own "ather in (eaven, that is, is a unit in one of the seven great (ierar!hies of $h)an Chohans or 'r!hangels or spiritual Progenitors that are est sym oliBed y the seven 9olors % !olle!tively !onstituting 3rah(a or the 5ogos of the Enosti!s. Be!ause of this upward trend of the ra!e our ears are, at present est attuned to those vi rations or se!ondary resonan!es whi!h !onstitute the many steps of the as!ending Path,

the Path of 5i eration, the as!ending (armoni! 6eries. $vertones are stations on the Path whi!h the as!ending )ay of sound illumines, ;i.e., sets in sympatheti! resonan!e<, as it !omes through them during its !y!le of return. 8e hear these sympatheti! resonan!es e!ause ra!ially we are on this same path. 8e hear ut the first overtones e!ause the ra!e is not yet very far gone in its +ourney. 't the time when the ra!e was in its downward, matter:ward !y!le, what we would !all today undertones were undou tedly heard in the same manner. 9ertain musi!al e&pressions found in Polynesian ra!es show that su!h must have een the !ase. Melodi! tones are mentioned as elow the fundamental harmony. /he des!ending trend of the an!ient grama in India and of the an!ient Eree# modes is an a solutely proven fa!t. It !orresponds to the involutionary period of the ra!es. /he great turning:point in the !y!le of our present humanity !ame a out during the time of Eautama the Buddha, the first 6an#ara!harya, Pythagoras and 9onfu!ius, around 6>> B.9. "or this sense and dire!tion of musi!, as far as the race was concerned, was then definitely reversed. If the foregoing e&planation of what overtones really are is properly grasped it will e seen that it re!on!iles the two main theories !on!erning their e&isten!eC one !laiming this e&isten!e to e merely su +e!tive, that is to say due to some indu!ed sensation within the ear, the other !ontending that overtones are se!ondary vi rations dete!ta le in the vi rating su stan!e itself. It may now e stated, finally and !learly, that overtones are merely stations, signposts, if you will, on the path of the )ay of sonal energy % the only real and su stantial thing. 8hen the )ay of sound ;whi!h is inaudi le to us in our present !onstitution< passes through !ertain states of development it indu!es, either in our ears or in the famous (elmholtB resonators, sympatheti! vi rations. In other words, if the )ay emerges from a fundamental the fre1uen!y of whi!h is 1>>, when the )ay rea!hes the station 2>> it dwells there awhile and illumines it. /he glow of sonal energy there y produ!ed affe!ts any vi rating su stan!e or resonator tuned to this fre1uen!y 2>>2 a sympatheti! resonan!e or indu!ed !urrent ta#es pla!e. 8e #now it as the first overtone. /he same o!!urs station after station, until the )ay has returned home, to its heavenly mansionC the 9olor. $vertones are the results of !y!li! !onditions en!ountered y the )ay of sound on its +ourney. /hey are li#e phases of the moon whi!h in themselves have no spe!ial reality ut whi!h are the sensorial interpretations of !y!li! !hanges o!!urring in the lunar:terrestrial system. /he moon remains the same whether full or in its !res!ent:li#e !ondition. 6imilarly the sound )ay does not e!ome this or that overtone. 8e hear the overtones e!ause the )ay stri#es su!h and su!h points in its pilgrimage. But the )ay itself is very real indeed. It is the sutrat(a of sound. /he important point to realiBe is that overtones and undertones do not !o:e&ist in a single moment of per!eption. /he )ay does not at the sa(e ti(e go matterward and 6piritward. 6o that it is true to say that undertones in a sense do not e&ist. /here are only overtones2 ut either des!ending or as!ending overtones a!!ording as sonal energy is polariBed one way or the other. Fndertones during an evolutionary or as!ending !y!le are really su +e!tive

failures2 /hey might e sym oliBed y the gravitational pull of the earth against whi!h the stem must fight to grow sunward. (ow is this gravitational pull over!omeG By the for!e of the roots and the su!tion of the sun. /his illustration, in!omplete as it is, shows that though the roots are growing along the line of the gravitational attra!tion, yet they are the very power than#s to whi!h gravitation is over!ome in the plant. Eravitation for the human soul !an e represented in a sense y the Powers of 4vil, whi!h perverted religions falsely !all Asuras or 5u!ifers. /he Asuras are the root powers of the involutionary period. /hey went down into matter, into the Pit or Patala, ut as the roots and sustained of the !y!le to !ome. /he Powers of *ar#ness of our day are on the !ontrary the opposing for!es of evolution, they are the opposite of the upward push of the stem2 thus the inverted Bodia!s of sound. $escending (usic: root (usic is essentiall) (usic of will, therefore magi!al musi!. It is the musi! of (antra(s, Hedi! musi!, sym oliBed y the 'andhara gra(a, the gra(a or rotherhood of the Asuras, .udras and other deities representing the same !osmi! pro!ess in one or the other of its aspe!ts, vi-., the des!ent of 6pirit into matter. ,arayana is the des!ending )ay of sound itself. ,arada is the personaliBed !enter of the )ay and therefore the !hief of the .udras in their human sense. /he des!ending )ay is ara means Man, or the emanation of the night ; a.a<, Man eing the sym ol of *ar#ness whi!h is the unmanifested 6pirit. ara)ana ;or the vehi!le of ,ara< e!ause it represents the will arid enduran!e of Man, sustainer of the 9y!le % +ust as the root, whi!h dwells in the dar#ness of the soil, is the sustainer and energiBer of the plant. /he s!ien!e of tone in!arnation !onstitutes the (antra shastra whi!h was apparently the su +e!t matter of the Eandharva Heda. It is forgotten y the ra!e, as it goes deeper into matter, and the se!rets of 9y!li! 8ill are lost, the personal will eing triumphant2 as the true Agnihotris of old disappear, at least from the view of most men, and priests and organiBed religion thrive on the de!aying ody of Sat)a2 as /ruth e!omes the many se!tarian !reeds. 5i#ewise the #nowledge of the 'andhara gra(a vanishes from the ra!e2 the des!ending trend of musi!al progression and the names of some of the tones eing all that remains of the musi! of the 'andharvas in the paradise of Indra, in a real sense Ind5 .a, the emanation and !reative power of an!ient India. But !y!les su!!eed !y!les and at the irth of every new !y!le of importan!e the 'andharva tones are heard again. 6ome des!endants of the Agnihotris intone again the des!ending in!antation of the )oot, whi!h e!omes manifest anew in the world of man, though unre!ogniBed y nearly all men. $r let us say rather that the old and !y!li! 'ryan )oot e!omes revitaliBed y the magnetism of the vernal spiritual 6un, and sap egins to flow upward again into leaves rea!hing toward the new "lower and the new "ruit where the power of the )oot and the power of the 5eaf unite for the gestation of the 6eed:pro!esses. 'll whi!h have their analogies in musi!, the future musi! of the end of this great !y!le eing destined to e orn of the union of the two !omplementary poles of musi!, the root musi! of

India and the leaf musi! of 'meri!a ;foreshadowed y the est 4uropean musi!<. But the root musi! must e made alive again, e&oteri!ally, that is, in its as!ending flow toward the "lower. 4soteri!ally, it never died, for in the hidden world of man a higher root is eing !onstituted for a new 4al+a. But the ra!e at large is very little !on!erned with this. It is rea!hing toward the end of its present !y!le, and therefore as!ending. 8e !ompared sonal energy to the sap. It is so in a general allegori!al sense, for the sap is the vehi!le of the hidden magneti! power of growth. 's there is a !ontinual !ir!ulation of the sap, so the flow of the rags ;not to e !onfused with the gra(as< is upward and downward, rohi and arohi. /he melodi! flow is similar to the flow of the sap, and rags are spe!ies of melodi! flow, or melodi! !y!les2 whereas the gra(as represent the general disposition of magneti! !enters. Both gra(as and rags are, however, portions or spe!ies of the (armoni! 6eries of overtones2 therefore every tone in gra(as and rags is related to the fundamental of the 6eries2 su!h a relation eing an a solute !hara!teriBation of the musi! of the 6elf or, as we have !alled it, monadi! musi!. If modern musi!ians in India #now nothing of the ar!hai! 'andhara gra(a, whi!h had already e!ome a mystery many !enturies ago, it is to e wondered whether they #now fully the meaning and true !hara!ter of the Sa5gra(a and %a5gra(a. I do not feel in a position to dis!uss the pro lem at present, ut I wish to point out that here is a pro lem, the solution of whi!h might ring a out very definite pra!ti!al results. I elieve espe!ially that the %a5gra(a is an as!ending repli!a of the 'andhara gra(a2 that the two as!ending gra(as are really !omplementary, as the Bha#ti and the Enana margas are !omplementary, devotion and #nowledge, the aspiration of the )oot and the !all of the 6un seed. It seems that most, if not all, rags are orn out of the Sagra(a. /hey are the musi!al manifestation of the great ha#ti movement of mediaeval India. Possi ly they originated in their !lassi!al !ondition in 6outh India, the !enter of 6an#ara!harya3s great )eformation whi!h degenerated into the later ha#ti movement. 6ome traditions of the Sringeri (atha are interesting to study in this respe!t. 's the first period of the (atha ends after 0>> years we may surmise that degeneration had set in. Musi!ally spea#ing we #now of the great musi!ian:singers of the 6outh, the 'diyars and 'lvars, who spread their e!stati! songs throughout India. 5ater, in the ,orth, we #now of the 6ufi movement manifesting very essentially through musi! and influen!ing (indu !ulture. /hen the Haishnavite reformation. In all these mediaeval and later movements the element of ha#ti is preponderant. But is it not possi le that efore these the %a5gra(a was the asis of another type of musi!, more o!!ultG It is even possi le that the )eformation of the fourteenth to si&teenth !enturies attempted to ring a!# some of the true #nowledge perverted y the mediaeval emotionalism and frenBy. It may e that a /an:6en did use melodi! progressions whi!h were ased on the old pre:mediaeval foundation, that for instan!e the famous .ag $i+a4 was the sym ol of the lost musi!, the musi! of the true al!hemi!al "ire whi!h regenerates ut whi!h may also #ill. /he allegory of how the singer sang it at the re1uest of the Mogul

emperor and was urnt y it even while plunged into the Eanges, seems 1uite transparent, if one #nows the o!!ult meaning of the Eanges in the human ody. It is also !hara!teristi! to find that the se!ond aspe!t of 6ach is designated y the term, %adh)a(a. /he %adh)a(a gra(a is thus shown as the path of the rising fire of the soul purified from matter, the path whi!h sym oliBes o!!ult #nowledge. But there !an e no %a5 gra(a if there has not een a des!ending 'agra(a to open the trail. /he two are as one, and their #ey:notes are truly %a, whi!h is the root sound of ,ature, the Fa of the 8estern world. Is it not also interesting to find that the true 9haldean name of $rpheus ;who was 'r+una< is Frfa, the primordial "aG Frfa:'r+una, dis!ipline of 6ri Drishna, 6an#ara!harya, the great e&pounder of the 3hagavad5'ita2 %a5gra(a, Sa5gra(a % all so many mysteries whi!h may e unveiled some day, as the new era of (indu musi! really egins. 't any rate what we !an easily grasp is the e&isten!e of two great streams of musi!, oth manifesting along the path of the (armoni! 6eries, that is in arithmeti!al progression ;n: 2n: "n: #n: et!.< together sym oliBing the !omplete pilgrimage of the soul or monad from 6pirit down into matter, from matter up to 6pirit, i.e., to the 9olor of the sound. /he path of des!ent and the path of as!ent are one. /he latter neutraliBes the former and so !osmi! e1uili rium be)ond duration is never !hanged. In the path of the des!ending (armoni! 6eries we see the )ay of sound !on1uering more and more units of matter, enlarging its universe y rea!hing to !easelessly deeper a ysses. In the as!ending !y!le we see it freeing itself from matter and simultaneously from time. Its vi rations in!rease until at the limit it e!omes master of the 4ternal ,ow, whi!h is infinite duration !on1uered. In!reasing units of vi rating su stan!e represented y lengths of string on one hand2 on the other hand, in!reasing fre1uen!ies or speed. Modern man is !on1uering speed, ut not as Patan+ali ids us to !on1uer the #nowledge of infinitesimally small Fnits of duration or moments. /he 8estern man !on1uers time ut finds all his moments soul emptied. It is e!ause of the la!# of #nowledge of the true Path of life, e!ause of the la!# of the understanding of !y!les. /he 9y!le is one as it manifests into myriads and myriads of small or vast !y!les. Its rhythm is one. Its name is one. /o ,ature as a whole, it is the (armoni! 6eries. In India we find the one e!omes the two. By understanding the meaning of these two gra(as, of their relationship, Indian musi!ians will parti!ipate in the great reawa#ening of the )oot of ar!hai! Ar)avarta, and will drin# at the fount of a new 6oma +ui!e flowing onward and upward, transfiguring with the spiritual realiBation of /one, of ada % the Hoi!e of 6ilen!e.

1.

9f. (. P. Blavats#y, The Secret $octrine, IIC7=@.

Cha+ter Five The 'eo(etr) of %usic 7hile /indu (usic is founded u+on and made up of tones whi!h are living mem ers and therefore souls, 8estern musi! in its ideal aspe!t is made up essentially of intervals. /hus is !onstituted the great and eternal musi!al dualism whi!h !an e resolved eventually into unity, only as 4ast and 8est, ea!h having rea!hed the !enter of its own sphere and fully understood its own dharma, realiBe that they are !omplementary, eing two aspe!ts of the same 4nergy whi!h is 6ound itself, two paths to the one goal of human world servi!e through the revelation of /one. /he individual and the group, the free man and the rotherhood or state, self:li eration and the entering into relationship2 all these dualities are various aspe!ts of the great duality of 6pirit and matter, of the $ne and the many. In musi! we have thus, on the one hand, the single tone and its pilgrimage through the many stations of the (armoni! 6eries, of the Path of in!arnation and li eration2 on the other hand, we have rotherhoods of tones, resonan!es whi!h are li#e ova of sound, and what we might !all tuneful spa!e % spa!e filled in its fullness y tones, or, as the old Enosti!s !alled it, the Pleroma. 8ith this last word we !ome to a asi! !on!eption of the true Musi! of the 8est, or Musi! of Pra4riti ;as y 8est we do not mean only a geographi!al lo!ation<, a !on!eption whi!h, however, we have never seen e&pressed so far, save perhaps in the intuitive strivings of a young 9alifornian !omposer, (enry 9owell. /he ordinary 4uropean mind in its sterile intelle!tualism !on!eives spa!e as emptiness, as that void whi!h e&tends etween o +e!ts of the stellar universe. 5i#ewise it !on!eives the interval etween the units of the musi!al s!ale as mere nothingness, as the a yss of ?wrong notes?. Intervals are not units of spa!e ut intelle!tual relations etween two a solutely separate musi!al units2 a mere proportion etween alge rai! entities. /o the true student of life su!h a standpoint is essentially false. 6pa!e is not emptiness ut fullness of eing. 6pa!e is the highest possi le !on!eption of the ' solute, of /('/ whi!h is the eternal reality of 6pirit and matter as one. 6pa!e !on!eived as a fullness of eing and therefore as a (ost of !osmi! eings is the Pleroma ;whi!h means fullness<. /he Pleroma of souls manifests in musi! as the pleroma of tones, that is as a fullness of con9oined tones within certain li(its. 8e realiBe at on!e the fundamental differen!e e&isting etween interval and pleroma. 8hen 4uropeans spea# of the interval of fifth they spea# of a !ertain relation etween two undefined musi!al notes. ' fifth is the proportion =C2, and nothing else. If realiBed as a!tual sounds it will mean stri#ing together or su!!essively two notes, the pit!h or 1uality of whi!h does not matter in the least. ' !hord is formed when two or more notes are thus stru!# together. 8hat is a !hordG ' group of two or more notes related the one to the other in a spe!ifi! manner, i.e., properly spa!ed. But the spa!e etween these notes is not !onsidered2 it is mere emptiness. 4a!h note is in a sense an autonomous and separate entity. In

!lassi!al musi! a !ertain magneti! or tonal attra!tion is understood to e&ist etween these separate entities2 ut in modern musi!, espe!ially in 6!hoen erg3s ?atonal? s!hool, there is no attra!tion or repulsion !onsidered whatsoever. 4very note is a perfe!t, self:suffi!ient, anar!histi! unit % ut an intelle!tual unit, let us not forgetI If, on the !ontrary, we !on!eive a fifth as a pleroma instead of as an interval, we get a radi!ally different entity. 8e deal then with a portion of musi!al spa!e whi!h is a fullness of tone, with a host of tones theoreti!ally infinite in num er2 no longer with two a stra!t notes with emptiness in etween, ut with a pleroma of !ompa!t, homogeneous sound:su stan!e. 6ound is su stantial energy, and thus a musi! ased on su stantial fullness wor#s with the living power of sound whi!h is the very power of 6pa!e. 6pa!e is really a fullness of a4asha whose !hara!teristi! is sound. /he musi! of pleromas is thus the musi! dealing with masses of a4asha, with portions of sonorous spa!e. It is the musi! of 6u stan!e, of +ra4riti. /he s!ien!e on whi!h su!h a musi! is ased !an e thus truly !alled the Eeometry of Musi! % using the term geometry, however, not in its modern 4uropean sense, ut with its ar!hai! and Pythagorean meaningC the s!ien!e of par!eling the fullness of 6pa!e whi!h is life. Eeometry, we are told y (. P. Blavats#y, was the fifth #ey out of the seven #eys to the !osmi! Mysteries. 'mong the others we may mention the physiologi!al, histori!al and numeri!al #eys. Eeometry, in its mysti!al sense, was the fifth #ey e!ause of its relation to the fifth prin!iple of the !osmos whi!h is really $aiva+ra4riti, the synthesis of the si& great sa4tis. It deals, therefore, with su stantial energy in 6pa!e, with the par!eling and surveying of 6pa!e, the first operation in the uilding of any !osmos or organism % and not with the mere intelle!tual !omputation of angles, figures, volumes, whi!h are without spiritual or vital !ontents, whi!h are only applied formulas. Mysti! geometry e!ame intelle!tual geometry, and Pythagorean arithmosophy mere mathemati!s, after the failure of the Eree# !iviliBation to #eep true to the Platoni! 6pirit and its adoption of the 'ristotelean sensorio:intelle!tual method. 6o did the musi! of pleromas of sound ;whi!h may have never een mu!h more than an ideal in Eree!e< e!ome the musi! of intervals, the musi! of pure intelle!tuality, as e&emplified in the early "lemish polyphonists and, to a large degree, in Ba!h. But efore studying further the prin!iples of su!h a Eeometry of Musi!, let us see here that pleromas of sounds in their purest form are not mere dreams. /hey have played a very important part in the ra!ial sense of tone, espe!ially perhaps sin!e the eginning of the era opened in the 4ast y Eautama the Buddha, and in the 8est, y 9hristianity. /his refers to gongs and ells and also to all types of magi!al drums and tomtoms uilt y men who understood the resonan!es of matter. A gong or bell +roduces a true +lero(a of sounds. If you stri#e it at various points of its surfa!e, various tones are released2 yet all these tones !onverge to the one !entral tone, whi!h is the #ey note or heart of the rotherhood of tones. (ere you have a mass of

vi rating su stan!e, thro

ing with multitudinous lives united in a !ompa!t group ;or lodge

or host<. 6onorous spa!e is thus made tangi le. 8e !an feel its !onstitution, its resonant 5ife, its form also. Its geometri!al properties are intimately !onne!ted with the power and meaning of the resonan!e o tained. In it we !an see the sym ol of +ra4riti, the great Mother vi rating under the impa!t of +urusha5+urusha that stri#es the gong from without, ut that eats within the ell2 sym oli!al fa!ts truly. 8e shall see later on how the 8estern !horus or or!hestra aims un!ons!iously at !onstituting y the power of tone al!hemy pleromas of tones or magnified gongs. But while gongs are spiritual and homogeneous yet stati! hosts of tones, the polyphoni! !horuses of the 8est ; rought to perfe!tion y Hittoria and Palestrina< are d)na(ic rotherhoods of individualiBed and self:moving tones ;i.e., melodi! !y!les<. If we !onsider the (armoni! 6eries of overtones eginning with its primary ;or fundamental<, we see that while the fre1uen!ies of the overtones in!rease regularly y a !onstant value ;whi!h is the fre1uen!y of the primary<, i.e., 1>>:2>>:=>>:7>>:.>>, et!., the intervals etween these su!!essive overtones de!rease progressively. /he interval etween primary and the first overtone is an o!tave2 then follow a fifth, a fourth, thirds, se!onds, et!., until the intervals rea!hed e!ome so small as to e altogether indis!erni le. 8ithin the first o!tave of the series we find no su tones, ut if we e&amine su!!eeding o!taves we find that an ever in!reasing num er of overtones are !ontained therein, until we !ome to the point where the interval etween overtones e!omes negligi le and the o!tave sele!ted seems as a !ompa!t mass of !ontinuous sounds. /he (armoni! 6eries is thus seen as the !easelessly a!!elerated multipli!ation of one tone ;primary< adding itself to itself !ontinuously until the whole universe is filled with its progeny. /he lone value ;i.e., fre1uen!y< in!reasing y !onstant steps, the intervals de!rease with a!!elerated speed. 8e get the reverse pro!ess if we uild a series of intervals ;or pleromas< in!reasing y the !onstant addition of the initial interval2 then we find that the differen!es etween the values of the two tones forming the limits of the interval in!rease with a!!elerated speed. In other words, musi! is uilt on one of two types of series or progressionsC series of fre1uen!ies where the initial tone adds itself to itself, and series of intervals where the initial interval adds itself to itself. In the first !ase we get what is !alled an arithmeti!al progression ;n: n=n: n=n=n: et!.<. In the se!ond !ase we o tain a geometri!al progression of some #ind ;n: n>n: n>n>n: et!., that is n: n2 n": n#: et!.<, the most well #nown among the latter eing the !y!le of twelve fifths whi!h is a series of twelve perfe!t fifths, the initial notes of whi!h areC C. '. $. A. E. 3. F?. C?. '?. $?. A?. E?.

/he thirteenth fifths would logi!ally e a B sharp2 ut B sharp is nearly identi!al to 9, to that

9 whi!h is found seven o!taves a ove the initial 9 of the series2 the differen!e eing a very small interval named the Pythagorean !omma. /hese twelve notes, if redu!ed to the o!tave !onstitute the !hromati! s!ale of 4uropean musi!, or the twelve l)us !y!le of 9hinese musi!. 5et it e repeated again that the !y!le of fifths and all similar !y!les, to whi!h has een given the name of Bodia!s of sound, are series of intervals, whereas what has een !alled so far the (armoni! 6eries is a series of tones. Both types of series are really ?harmoni!,? that is redu!ea le to unity2 ut this unity is one thing or the other, either a tone monad or a rotherhood of tones, an individual or a group. (indu musi! is ased on the former, on the arithmeti! of tone. Pythagorean musi! proper ;whi!h we trust will soon manifest as 'meri!an musi!< and 9hinese musi! are founded on the latter, on the geometry of tone. 4uropean musi! is in a way a mi&ture of oth and yet neither one nor the other. It has perverted living tones into intelle!tual notes2 it has seen of the pleromas of sounds ut their intelle!tual shells, intervals. It ignored the melodi! flow of sonal energy while trying to e e&pressionisti! and melodi!al. It never developed any real sense of vital resonan!e though it was dealing with !omple& harmoni! elements. Moreover, it destroyed the vital and magi!al power of musi! y dismissing all #nowledge of !osmologi!al !orresponden!es and o!!ult tone !orrelations, something whi!h even degenerated 9hinese musi!ians never thought of doing. 6u!h 6eries of twelve e1ual intervals ;fifths or fourths or o!taves, espe!ially< have een !alled Bodia!s of sound for the following reasonsC In our present stage of human development the idea of Bodia!s is related to the num er 12 whi!h is the num er of the manifested universe, the num er of +ra4riti, and of magnetism. /here are si& great for!es ;or sa4tis< in ,ature and as every one is dual, we o tain the num er 12 as the !omplete num er of the !y!le of for!es. /he twelve Adit)as are the twelve great aspe!ts of 'diti, the !osmi! Mother. 6o also the twelve apostles are the twelve !y!li! phases of the 9hrist. /he twelve fifths are sym ols of the very same !osmi! realities, and !an e !onsidered as the twelve great hierar!hies of sound, as the twelve Bodia!al (osts or pleromas. /he !y!le of fifths represents the outer shell, or s#in rather, of the 4gg of Brahma % the twelve gates through whi!h the energy of sound radiates. By the proper ad+ustment of these radiations vital resonan!es are produ!ed2 the outer and the inner worlds e!ome related and oth are energiBed y the great "ire of the Mother, Dundalini % of whi!h the Bodia!s of fifths and fourths are sym ols. Be!ause of this prin!iple of ad+ustment of inner and outer elements there is !onstant inter!hange, and duality rules in the Bodia!al fields. Intervals, groups, pleromas and every multipli!ity aspe!t of 5ife are rooted in the dualism of polarities. 4very manifested element or for!e is dual2 among whi!h eing the energy of growth whi!h manifests in the stru!tural patterns or organisms, plants and men ali#e. It has een proven that the distri ution of leaves on a stem follows a sort of geometri!al progression, the 1uotient of any of its terms y the pre!eding one eing a !onstant value ;1C610<. /he same progression is found when

the various parts of the human ody are measured. In other words, while the magneti! inner life of the plant is e&pressed in terms of the arithmeti!al (armoni! 6eries, the (or+holog) of all organisms is ruled y geometri!al progressions. /he soul or monad is a living num er2 ut the ar!hetypal form of organisms ; e they !ells or solar systems< is !hara!teriBed essentially y surfa!es whi!h are portions of living 6pa!e. /hus we have two different ases for 'rt e&pressions of any #ind, a!!ording as 'rt is founded upon either the unity of the 6elf or the duality of 6u stan!e. 5et us not forget, however, that in the former !ase this unity e&presses itself in two dire!tions, i.e., in the as!ending and des!ending modes, while in the latter, there is only one dire!tion !onsidered. 6o that in the two we have really a trinity of prin!iples. In the /ar(onic Series we see dualit) arising out of unit) in a graphi! way. "or the first o!tave of the 6eries in!ludes no overtone, the first overtone eing the o!tave of the fundamental2 ut the se!ond o!tave is divided into two une1ual intervals of fifth or fourth. If we start with the fundamental Sa, we find that it is Pa whi!h rings this duality, the fifth tone. Pa therefore sym oliBes the !reative power, that whi!h rings a out the polariBation of the ase&ual unity % i.e., mind !onsidered as energy. /he interval of fifth is therefore the sym ol of Man, of positive power. /he fourth, its !omplement, represents the 8oman in a mysti!al sense, i.e., 3uddhi. I have said that the growth of the stem is the result of two different for!esC the upward push given y the roots and the su!tion of the solar magnetism. /he former is represented y the fifth and the Bodia! of fifths, the latter y the fourth and the Bodia! of fourths. 8e have a similar dualism of for!es in the human organism. /hus is e&plained the pe!uliar nature of fifth and fourth, when understood as pleromas of tones % the fifth eing full: sounding, open, self:assertive, the sustainer of all harmonies, with its !enter elow2 the fourth eing more !on!entrated, elusive, mysti!al, a rea!hing forth toward its !enter a ove. /he fourth is a great mystery in fa!t2 for it is usually !onsidered as a des!ending interval, as the refle!tion a ove the toni! Sa of its fifth elow %a. But this is an unspiritual !on!eption whi!h is the result of the prevailing degeneres!en!e of the ideal of womanhood, a sym ol of male intelle!tual family auto!ra!y, if not of prostitution. /he pro lem is a very mysti!al one, fully treated in its spiritual sense in the great Enosti! wor#s and espe!ially in Pistis So+hia. 6ophia or 8isdom is the fourth2 9hrist is the fifth. $ut of their mysti!al union arises the new Pleroma, whi!h is the o!tave. /he importan!e of su!h a sym ol is very great, oth philosphi!ally and pra!ti!ally. "or on the relationship of fifth to fourth rests the entire stru!ture of the Pythagorean and 9hinese s!ales and of the larger system whi!h I elieve will e used in the future musi! of a regenerated 8estern !iviliBation. /o put it riefly, in 9hina the su stan!e of musi! is a series of twelve l)us whi!h are o tained y a series of as!ending fifths and des!ending fourths. Beginning, let us say, with the note 9 we get y an as!ending fifth E and y a des!ending fourth the note *. /he

interval 9 % * is a tone. It is the progeny of the mas!uline fifth and of the feminine fourth. /he l)us rea!hed y as!ending fifths are male2 those rea!hed y des!ending fourths are female. /he former elong to the prin!iple )ang, the latter to the prin!iple )in % heaven and earth. 8hat does this mean if not that woman is the falling a!# of the tide whi!h had its ape& in manG /hat she is !ontained within man as the fourth within the fifthG /his may e true in a personal and physiologi!al sense % and there is of !ourse a eautiful poesy in this dou le motion of life, in this pro!reation of the !hild pleroma within the family !ir!le tra!ed y the effort of the man. -et there is something more eautiful in a spiritual sense, that is, to realiBe in woman the 6oul whi!h is eyond des!ent, whi!h rea!hes upward too, whose !enter of attra!tion is the o!tave tone of the initial tone of man. Man and woman as 9ompanions, the latter adding her mysti! sense to the mentality of the former, and spiritual growth resulting from this dual soaring toward the spiritual "undamental. /hus instead of pro!reating a mere tone among the several tones of the s!ale the union of man and woman re!reates the initial seed and ,irvana is rea!hed. /his, however, might mean spiritual selfishness if the !y!le of !ompletion were not e&tended and the relation of a single fifth to a single fourth were not transformed into that of Bodia! of fifths to Bodia! of fourths. /welve fifths ma#e seven o!taves plus a !omma2 twelve fourths, five o!taves less a !omma. Both !on+oined !onstitute the Ereat Modia! of twelve o!taves, the !omplete !osmi! sphere. /he rotherhood of fifths and the rotherhood of fourths adding their impersonaliBed strength and devotion form the 6eed of the new humanity, the shistas who !olle!tively represent the Body or 6ahan of the Dal#i 'vatar, the 8hite (orse upon whi!h (e, it is said, !omes from 6ham alla to usher in the new 6atya -uga. /his 6eed is the true sangha whi!h was founded y Eautama the Buddha. 8hen the true sangha is !ompleted, when the resonan!e of the two Bodia!s is perfe!t and fully vi rant, Eautama, the eginning, will e!ome refle!ted in Maitreya, the !ompletion, after twenty: four !y!les ;twelve fifths plus twelve fourths< % the twenty:four 4lders mentioned in 6t. John3s ?)evelation,? whi!h, in its histori!al sense, is a prophe!y of the events whi!h ta#e pla!e in the entire Dali -uga, until the ,ew Jerusalem ;the new )a!e< manifests upon earth. 5i#ewise, when the full Bodia!s of sound vi rate together in perfe!t harmony, then o!!urs the new irth of /one within as without. In the perfe!t resonan!e of the instrument the spiritual /one in!arnates, as we saw in a pre!eding !hapter. "rom a pra!ti!al standpoint what is important to grasp is the fa!t that, the use of su!h Bodia!s or rotherhoods or demo!ra!ies of sounds presupposes the disenthroning of the o!tave, the ruling element in all musi!alities ased on the (armoni! 6eries. /he o!tave sym oliBes lood:relationship and therefore the family, the perfe!t and !omplete !ir!le of the home. It does so parti!ularly in 4urope where it is !on!eived as an interval, as a form, as the self:suffi!ient world of auto!rati! tonalities. In India, however, the o!tave is only one of the many stations on the Path of sound. It is only the magneti! !ir!le within whi!h tones

whi!h are spiritual entities temporarily evolve. It is either as!ending or des!ending, perpetually in motion. In 4urope the o!tave is so mu!h sound:spa!e divided into twelve e1ual intervals. It is pre:eminently stati!. In other words, the o!tave !an only e spiritually !on!eived as the asis of musi! when it is !onsidered as a fragment of the (armoni! 6eries. 8hen the (armoni! 6eries !eases to e the su stan!e of the musi!al flow, and intervals or pleromas ta#e the pla!e of the single tones perpetually evolving, then the o!tave e!omes truly the sym ol either of spiritual selfishness or of a purely physi!al system of lood relationship, whi!h gives irth to family selfishness when the prin!iple of temperament is a!!epted2 temperament eing the operation y whi!h the twelve intervals of fifths are redu!ed in some manner so as to fit in the interval !onstituted y seven o!taves. 's the o!tave loses its ruling fun!tion the harmoni! system !hanges entirely and tonality has no more meaning. /he fifth or fourth and to some e&tent the thirds, whi!h su divide the fifth in two une1ual parts, e!ome the pivots of the harmoni! system, or say rather of a new sense of resonan!e. The ai( of the geo(etr) of Tone is to dis!lose the law of cos(ic resonance. )esonan!e is the very prin!iple of the true musi! of the 8est, the Musi! of Pra4riti. But resonan!e is not orn of the (armoni! 6eries, as usually said y 8estern musi!ians. /he asis for harmony ;or the s!ien!e of !hord formation< is not the (armoni! 6eries, as usually elieved2 ut the !y!les of fifths and fourths. /rue melodies are founded on modes ;or rags< whi!h are segments of the (armoni! 6eries2 ut true !hords or true polyphony ;two methods of !reating resonan!e< ought to e !onstru!ted on prin!iples resulting from various !y!li! aspe!ts of the Bodia!s of sound. Before this most important point is fully understood neither 8estern nor 4astern musi! will ever e pure, nor !an they fulfill their higher magi!al theurgic dharma, nor find their !ommon !enter. 8hen 8estern musi!ians understand this they will give a!# to the term ?harmony? the meaning it had in Eree!e at the time of Pythagoras2 and the s!ien!e of resonan!e will ta#e the pla!e of oth 4uropean harmony and or!hestration. /he aim of 8estern musi! will e grasped. /his aim is the uilding of resonan!es whi!h are of the soul and not of the ody, whi!h are animisti! and not animal, spiritual and not merely psy!hi! % resonan!es whi!h 'tma may illumine from within. (armony is unity of resonan!e. It means really the same thing as Maitreya. It is the fullness of the life of +ra4riti homogeniBed y the intense, all:a sor ing devotion to +urusha. It is the "lower e!oming the "ruit, whose death will mean the release of the 6eed % or food and sattvic energy to entities of a higher #ingdom. /he s!ien!e and law of harmony is e&a!tly the s!ien!e and law of true rotherhood. It is ased on the prin!iple of real 'l!hemy, of the mysti! and never pu li!ly understood )osi!ru!ianism. "or the )ose and the 9ross are nothing else ut sym ols of the universal "lower and the universal )oot. /he 9ross is mysti!ally the wo(b of the Christs, 8ro eing, y the law of spiritual phoneti!s, the

!ontainer and mother su stan!e of 8ri. )osi!ru!ianism is spiritual 'l!hemy. lt is the spiritual do!trine of the 8est.;1< 'pplied to musi! it gives the asis for the musi!al Bodia!s and the system founded thereon2 a system whi!h was applied, more or less !ons!iously, the first time y the great )ussian !omposer 6!ria in. 6!ria in uilt his later wor#s on the prin!iple of true resonan!e using the !y!le of fourths as his musi!al su stan!e. 4ven this, however, is not yet understood y his iographers and y musi!ians in general who persist in studying his wor#s in the false light of the old 4uropean attitude to musi!. In 'meri!a today a few !omposers are un!ons!iously wor#ing toward a musi! founded on the !y!le of fifths. 6!hoen erg3s atonalism in 4urope is ut the shadow and utter perversion of this ,ew Musi! of the 8est whi!h is to !ome. Fntil 4uropeanism, as a generi! attitude toward life and manifested in whatever nation or ra!e it may e, is dead, the new 8est !annot fully lossom forth. 4uropean nations lost their !han!e of regeneration after the Ereat 8ar2 and 'meri!a is in the throes of a irth, the out!ome of whi!h is not wholly dis!erni le perhaps. /he same thing is true of musi!. Fntil tonalism, whi!h is musi!al feudalism, is dead, the true Bodia!s of tones !annot fully, openly resonate throughout the new !ontinent, 6!ria in3s influen!e is very small indeed in 4urope where a deadly neo:!lassi!ism is master. 4uropean musi!ians !hose 6travins#y instead of 6!ria in. It meant spiritual failure and aestheti! death under the !loa# of te!hni!al e&!ellen!e. In 'meri!a the dawn is hardly rea#ing as yet2 ut there is hope. /o the e&tent to whi!h the pioneers of the ra!e will e a le to live, rotherhood and to purify their minds of 4uropean intelle!tualism and materialism, to this e&tent will 8estern musi! e regenerated. /o su!h an e&tent will the true Eeometry of Musi! e understood as a #ey to the mastery of 5ife as well as of art, s!ien!e and philosophy taught y Pythagoras who was in a very real sense the 8estern aspe!t of Eautama the Buddha, the tea!her of (armony.

1.

5et us not mista#e many modern groups or s!hools who have adopted the sa!red name of

?)osi!ru!ian? for the most o!!ult original rotherhood founded late in the fourteenth !entury at the time of the great /i etan )eformation of /song:Dha:Pa. ,o #nown organiBation earing that name has any right to ear it, as far as we !an see. (istori!al )osi!ru!ianism is dead in 4urope for all aim and purpose. But the spirit of it lives forever.

Cha+ter Si2 %elodies and S)(+honies The great dualis( of (usical (anifestation e&presses itself in the two !omplementary elements of melody and symphony. By the latter term, however, is meant not what 8estern musi! !alls today a symphony ut any !omposition ased on the prin!iple of organiBation of simultaneous tones, that is to say, ased on what is understood nowadays oth as harmony and polyphony. ' melody is the !y!le of unfolding of a single tone impulse2 a symphony is an organism the !ells or organs of whi!h are tones. In this sense we !an easily understand the assertion, viB., that 4uropean musi! is essentially symphoni! musi!, while (indu musi! is almost e&!lusively melodi! musi!. 5et us analyBe riefly the main !hara!teristi!s of these two types of musi!al e&pression. ' melody !an e several things, and it is very important that we should understand what these things are. In 4urope a melody is a +attern of soundC it is an ara es1ue of intervals. It !an e a!!urately represented y the shape made on the staves y a se1uen!e of dots sym oliBing the su!!essive notes of the melody. It has a graphi!, de!orative value % a form. /his form may e 1uite o +e!tive or it may !onvey a su +e!tive emotional feeling to the hearer. But it remains always a form. If it moves us it is e!ause of its form value. /he main !hara!teristi! of su!h a form is that it is made up of a series of intervals, not of a series of tones. ' !lassi!al 4uropean melody !on!eived as a series of tones is hardly defensi le from a philosophi!al point of view. "or there is in it no !ontinuity whatsoever. It is merely a series of +umps2 there is no prin!iple of !ohesion whatsoever. 4ven tonality is wrongly understood as a system of relationship etween tones2 it is really a system of relationship etween intervals. If it seems to many of us a relation etween tones it is e!ause 8esterners have not yet fully understood the meaning of their musi!al system whi!h, as I said efore, is in fa!t a hy ridiBation of two opposite !on!eptions2 and e!ause 4uropean fol# musi!, whi!h is asi!ally even in its present distorted form melodi! musi!, has never een fully separated from the typi!al symphoni! musi! of learned musi!ians. I have pro a ly insisted enough upon this point at various times2 yet the !on!eption that in 4urope a melody is a series of intervals rather than a series of tones is not !lear to most people. Be!ause one note is stru!# after another they say that the melody is made of notes2 in reality it is a su!!ession of steps, as!ending and des!ending. /here is hardly any meaning given to the tones of the melody as single entities. It is the intervals whi!h are !orre!t or not !orre!t2 a note is either in tune or out of tune with another note. It is neither true nor untrue as a single entity. 4ven pit!h has no a solute sense, whether it e relative to the individual singer3s vital #ey note as in India, or to the 4arth3s #ey note as in 9hina. It is the relation of interval to interval whi!h !reates melodi! emotion, even in the !ase of romanti! musi!2 and, therefore, a melody needs usually to have a harmoni! a!!ompaniment so as to emphasiBe this relation of interval to interval, so as to ma#e more +recise the tonality and tonal modulations of the melody.

'ny melody whi!h is dependent upon or, even helped y the a!!ompaniment of !hanging harmonies, is a melody of intervals and not a melody of tones. 8hen an Indian singer sings with his ta(bura or an ,ative 'meri!an sings while eating his tomtom, su!h instrumental a!!essories do not !onstitute harmoni! a!!ompaniment2 they, on the !ontrary, lay an emphasis upon the single tone or #eynote of whi!h the melody itself is the c)clic unfolding. /he melody arises out of this single tone !ontinuously reiterated as a stem arises out of a seed. /he reiterated tone sym oliBes the roots of the melodi! plant, the sustaining power of its growth. It has no e&pressive intention. It is not part and par!el of the melody as 4uropean harmony is, for it does not !hange e&pressionisti!ally with it. /he single unharmoniBed melody is hardly to e found in 4uropean musi!, save in fragmentary instan!es where it is related to a larger symphoni! organism. /herefore 4uropean musi! may e said to e ignorant altogether of what a melody is as su!h. ' melody is !on!eived as the e&pressive part of a symphony. It is so even histori!ally if we !onsider the evolution of sa!red musi! in 4urope and see how polyphoni! !horuses turned into harmoniBed operati! melodies during the si&teenth !entury or therea out. $ne of the polyphoni! parts e!ame preponderant and the others !lustered together as !hords, as the harmony of the melody2 a pro!ess whi!h however was largely due to the spread of popular musi! of a more stri!tly melodi! !hara!ter % thus the mi&ture of two different !urrents2 thus the !lassi!al and romanti! ?symphony? of MoBart, Beethoven, "ran!# whi!h too# the pla!e of the stri!tly polyphoni! religious ?motet? of the fourteenth to si&teenth !enturies. But motet and symphony proper are merely two aspe!ts of what we !all generally symphoni! musi! in !ontradistin!tion to melodi! musi!2 the motet eing ased on pure polyphony, the symphony rea!hing toward harmoni! resonan!e, as we shall see presently. /he real melodi! asis of true 8estern or Pythagorean musi! is not, however, relationship of intervals. It is a relationship of tones !on!eived as single o!!ult entities magi!ally related to !orresponding prin!iples in the !osmos and in man. 6u!h melodies of tones energiBed y will for magi!al or spiritual purposes are really in!antations or (antra(s. /hey are neither 8estern nor 4astern2 they are a solutely universal. $f su!h melodi! in!antations was made the musi! used y Pythagoras, y the Hedi! Agnihotris, y the great 9hinese musi!ians, y the 4gyptian and 6yrian Enosti!s, et!. 9atholi! plain!hant was evolved out of su!h in!antations !alled in 6yria risgolo, whi!h after eing stolen and perverted y the 9hristian "athers e!ame hymns and the li#e. /he su stan!e of these in!antations was made up of the ar!hai! (indu gra(a on the one hand and of the Pythagorean s!ale, so !alled, on the other hand. /he purpose of ar!hai! in!antations was in general to ring down the souls of men or devas into effe!tual in!arnation2 therefore they were rooted in the des!ending 'andhara gra(a. 8hile in the new era ushered in y the Buddha the most general purpose of these !hants was to harmoniBe and purify the organisms of men, espe!ially the psy!hi! nature. It is pro a ly to

su!h an end that Pythagoras made use of magi!al in!antations and we see his iographer, Iam li!hus, des!ri ing them as followsC ?Pythagoras was of the opinion that musi! !ontri uted greatly to health, if it was used in an appropriate manner. (e was a!!ustomed to employ a purifi!ation of this #ind. . . (e arranged and adapted for his dis!iples what are !alled apparatus and !ontre!tations, divinely !ontriving mi&tures of !ertain diatoni!, !hromati!, and enharmoni! melodies, through whi!h he easily transferred and !ir!ularly led the passions of the soul into a !ontrary dire!tion when they had re!ently and in an irrational and !landestine manner een formed % su!h as sorrow, rage, pity, a surd emulation and fear, all various desired, angers and appetites, pride, supineness and vehemen!e. "or he !orre!ted ea!h of these y the rule of virtue, attempting them through appropriate melodies as through !ertain salutary medi!ines. ?In the evening li#ewise when his dis!iples were retiring to sleep, he li erated them y !ertain odes and pe!uliar songs from diurnal pertur ations and tumults, and purified their intelle!tive power from the influ&ive and efflu&ive waves of a !orporeal nature, rendered their sleep 1uiet and their dreams pleasant and propheti!. But when they rose again from their eds he freed them from no!turnal heaviness, rela&ation and torpor, through !ertain pe!uliar songs and modulations produ!ed either y simply stri#ing the lyre or employing the voi!e.... ?. . . 6ometimes also, y musi!al sounds alone una!!ompanied y words, the Pythagoreans healed the passions of the soul, and !ertain diseases, en!hanting, as they say, in reality. 'nd it is pro a le that from hen!e this name e+ode, i.e., en!hantment, !ame to e generally used. 'fter this manner therefore, Pythagoras through musi! produ!ed the most enefi!ial !orre!tion of human manners and lives.? 8e find the same musi!al ideal of purifi!ation and harmoniBation, of !orre!tion of human manners and lives, mentioned y all the an!ient 9hinese authors. /he melodies used are meant to produ!e order and harmony in man or so!iety and therefore originate in the prin!iple of harmony, in the Bodia!s of sounds. /hus the Pythagorean and 9hinese s!ales are founded upon the !y!les of fifths and fourths, as already mentioned ;as!ending fifths and fourth<. /hey !onstitute the Musi! of Pra4riti, whi!h aims at produ!ing the orderly arrangement of su stan!e around properly !oordinated !enters or cha4ras, and eventually at rousing the fire of the Mother whi!h en#indles all things, whi!h rea#s arriers and transfigures the many into a harmoniBed vehi!le for the $ne. /he ar!hai! theurgi!al aspe!t of musi!al (antra(s was perhaps different in general dire!tion. -et the prin!iple of tone a!tion is the same in oth !ases. It is that of sympatheti! resonan!e. 4very tone of the gra(a !orresponding to a prin!iple or magneti! !enter in man or the !osmos, mastery over the for!e loo#ed in su!h !enters was gained y uttering !orresponding tones with will and o!!ult #nowledge. ' perfe!t !ontrol of all natural energies was thus attained and used for enefi!ent % or malefi!ent % ends. In su!h !ases melody meant of !ourse something entirely different from what it

degenerated into in 4urope. ' melody was an un!hangea le formula of power. /he #nowledge of su!h formulas was a s!ientifi! #nowledge with vast ramifi!ations. It was the su stan!e of the old 'uh)a 6id)a, the s!ien!e of (antra(s !rowned y the #nowledge of the 6a!red 8ord whi!h was the very name of the 6oul. 'rt then meant the pra!ti!al appli!ation of s!ientifi! laws, and musi! was truly sa!red s!ien!e whi!h formed the very foundation of edu!ation and of !ivi! virtue, as well as of pra!ti!al o!!ultism. /here was a solutely no personal nor even individualisti! asis to it. /he individual manifested his own power and individuality only in the degree of his will and #nowledge, in the a!!ura!y of his performan!e. Musi! and melody !ontained no element of self:e&pression in the ordinary sense of the term. It was an instrument of power, using sound e&a!tly as modern engineers use ele!tri!ity. 4uropean formalism in musi! is the materialiBation and devitaliBation of this magi!al s!ien!e of musi!al engineering. 8hat was vital e!ame intelle!tual. /he gra(a whi!h was a rotherhood of living tones e!ame ossified into a s!ale of a stra!t notes. Patterns flourished where on!e the organi! harmony of a !osmos was aimed at for the purpose of moral purifi!ation and spiritual regeneration. In 4urope the Enosti! in!antations turned into diatoni! melodies intelle!tualiBed into polyphonies, and the Pythagorean ?musi! of the seven spheres? e!ame the ma+or s!ale after many transformations. In India the Hedi! gra(a and its as!ending !ounterparts developed into the many rags, the magi!al power of the former more or less degenerating into the individualisti! and often personally emotional magnetism of the latter. 8hen the power of o!!ult motion e!omes mere emotional energy there is indeed degenera!y, or rather a materialiBation. *egenera!y proper !omes with the advent of sheer virtuosity, with the sear!h for originality and the growth of ornament, gra!e notes and the li#eC with !ourt musi! in general, e&!eptions notwithstanding. /he distin!tion etween gra(as or rags is an apparently su tle one, yet it is a very important one. In a sense we may say that every tone of the gra(a gives irth to a typi!al rag % therefore the si& great rags, the gra(a itself eing their synthesis or rather sour!e. /he seven tones of the gra(a, let us not forget, are really the seven fundamentals or prin!iples of sound as a !osmi! element or entity. 's ea!h one of these tones is !onsidered as the fundamental of a (armoni! 6eries, that is, as ea!h sonorous soul unfolds itself as a series of melodi! !y!les, rags or raginis are !onstituted. /hese are truly melodi! !y!les2 they are essentially dynami!, that is, founded on the prin!iple of !ontinuous melodi! !hange, of sonal !ir!ulation % whi!h is truly sa4ti. 8here there is !hange and !reative motion, there is lood or sonal energy !ir!ulation2 there also is emotion, as!ent and des!ent2 and there eats at the !enter a heart, a num er 11. /his heart is the #eynote of ,ature2 it is the eleventh tone of the (armoni! 6eries, ,ature3s " sharp % the toni! of the sruti !y!leC %a, the Sa4ti. In appro&imate 4uropean notation the eleven first tones of the series areC

If we ta#e the odd num ers from 1 to 11, we have si& tones ;9 E 4 B * "< whi!h give us the asi! tones of the gra(a. /hese si& tones are the si& fundamentals synthesiBed in the seventh2 or rather let us say that the fourth B flat divides itself in the !ourse of evolution into two tones, ' and B natural, /he si&th stands for what is !onsidered in /heosophi!al !lassifi!ation as 3uddhi, the si&th prin!iple in man and in a sense the fourth prin!iple in the !osmos. Being the fourth !osmi! prin!iple it is the tone of ,ature and the sour!e of all rags, the sour!e of !osmi! energy % the heart. It is %adh)a(a, the se!ond aspe!t of 6ach, that of whi!h eginning and end is un#nown, the alan!e, the pivot of !hange2 therefore in a sense at least the Bodia!al sign 5i ra, the heart !onstantly eating from the !enter of the des!ending series !hara!teriBed y " natural ;Hirgo< to the !enter of the as!ending series E ;6!orpio<.;1< 8e have seen already that oth heart and sun are !hara!teriBed y the num er 11. /his natural %a ;of " sharp< is therefore the real fundamental of all rags. It had as a result to e !onsidered as Sa, as a starting point, as soon as rag musi! e!ame preponderant. Be!ause the rags are orn out of this Ma whi!h is the eleventh tone of the (armoni! 6eries whose primary is Sa, we see !learly how the rags developed from the Sa5gra(a. 8hile the original Sa5gra(a was founded upon the first si& odd tones of the 6eries ;as mentioned a ove<, the rags were uilt out of the su stan!e of the (armoni! 6eries a ove the tone num er 11. "rom 11 to 22 the o!tave in!ludes eleven dou le srutis ;hermaphrodites in a sense<2 from 22 to 77, the o!tave gives irth to the twenty:two srutis ;male and female<. /he musi! of the rags, manifestation of the ra4ti, power, is thus seen to e a secondar) (anifestation of the typi!al as!ending Sa5gra(a musi! % e&a!tly as the mediaeval ha#ti !ults were se!ondary manifestations and usually distortions of the great spiritual movement egun y 6an#ara!harya in the si&th !entury B.9.. /he same phenomenon o!!urred in 4urope when the true Enosti! philosophy of 9hrist e!ame perverted into mediaeval emotional devotionalism, and the true Pythagorean:Enosti! musi! of a Bar *aisan, of an 'rius and many other ?hereti!s? was turned into 9hur!h musi! ereft of all o!!ult al!hemi!al power. .ag musi! is thus a se!ondary manifestation of the magi!al musi! of the %antra Shastras, as personal emotions are the se!ondary manifestations of soul energy. -et as rag musi! e!omes purified and regenerated y the power of its true fundamental, the si& rags e!ome one and thus the true %a5gra(a, whi!h is the very path of "ire that laBes forth and arouses the new /one of a higher !y!le, of whi!h is orn ada in Sahasra, the 6ound in the 5ight. ada, out )adha, who sym oliBes this %a5gra(a, synthesis of all the Eopi rags, e!omes arada, the root !enter in the seed of the new !y!le.

.a4ti is the power within all true rags2 and ra4ti is the se!ondary manifestation of sa4ti, whi!h is sonal energy. But while sa4ti is the energy of sound within ea!h fundamental,

ra4ti is the !reative energy in material !y!li! manifestation. /he same differen!e e&ists etween the ar!hai! !on!eption of Damadeva, the first orn of Brahma, !osmi! desire on one hand and Dama, the god of love and of devotion on the other2 etween !osmi! Motion and human or divine emotions. 8hile !osmi! desire is that whi!h !auses 9hange to e orn out of the 9hangeless i.e., the root of 9hange<, ra4ti is the energy a!# of all manifested !hanges. It is, therefore, su stan!e of oth the !osmi! !hanges of magnetism ;!ir!ulation of solar for!e throughout the yearly and daily !y!les< and human emotions. /hus the rags !an e understood in two sensesC in relation to solar !hanges and in relation to human !hanges ;in their lowest aspe!ts, moods<. Be!ause the rags are related to solar !hanges ea!h has een made to !orrespond to a month and hour, and ea!h swara is !onsidered moreover as the vehi!le of a god ;in a sense one of the seven planetary gods or one of the seven mysti! )ays of the 6un<. By singing a rag at its appointed time and !ons!iously !orrelating it with the "or!e of whi!h it is the manifestation, the singer a!ts as a sort of !ondensating agent or lightening rod and pours the solar energy radiating at that spe!ial moment upon those who hear him, upon ,ature as well as upon humanity. 6u!h a fun!tion is not fundamentally different from that fulfilled y !ertain irds who are truly !onne!ted with solar for!es and a!tually dynamiBe ,ature y their songs. $nly man has the power to !apture and !ondense all solar for!es throughout the !y!le of !hange ;year or day<, while the ird is only !onne!ted with !ertain energies whi!h are of a less spiritual type. But this does not mean that any "or!e !an e !ondensed at any time. ' !urrent of indu!tion !an only e esta lished etween the !osmi! !enter and the singer at the time when this !enter is in a spe!ifi! !ondition of a!tivity. 8herever there is !hange there the prin!iple of the permutation of rays will apply, there the value of time and the law of periodi!ity will e all powerful. ,either !an a plant ring forth flowers in all seasons. Man !an for!e its growth2 ut hothouse heat and light are only +artial su stitutes for solar energy. /he material power of growth may e aroused within the seed ;and this refers in musi! mostly to the Bodia!s of sound, and in man to !orresponding energies< y the desire and will of man ;+arasa4ti in man and its derivatives<2 ut the magneti!:monadi! energies are too spiritual to e so indu!ed. /hey are fun!tions of /ime, su +e!tive phases of !y!li! eternity. I !ompared again musi!al pro!esses with vegeta le growth, for the analogy is true in every way. /he plant life !aptures and !ondenses solar energy in and through the leaves ;and possi ly in some other way<. It is the sour!e of heat and food for the animal and human #ingdoms. Musi! li#ewise, when !osmi!ally understood and used, is the sour!e of emotional energy. It rings to man ra4ti. It stirs magneti! for!es within, the power of whi!h !an apparently e almost tremendous in !ertain !ases, as all musi!ian mysti!s #now. But to sing the rags at the proper time is not enough. "or a rag is, as we have seen, the energy aspe!t of a fundamental. 8hat essentially !hara!teriBes a rag is that all its tones are dire!t overtones of this one fundamental, that therefore sonal energy !an flow into the musi!al organism made up of the fundamental and overtones, as lood through a !ompa!t

ody. But the very first thing ne!essary is to arouse the energy latent in the fundamental of the rag. If the sa4ti within the fundamental is not awa#ened there will e no real ra4ti produ!ed. /here !omes in the utteran!e ;audi le or inaudi le< of the sa!red name of the fundamental, that is within as 8ell as without. /he single tone must e set resonating efore the rag, whi!h is the form ta#en y the !y!li! evolution of the tone3s energy, !an a!1uire its full power. /hus the use of the ta(bura, whi!h is a sym ol and yet a prete&t to spiritual inertia. /he mission of the ta(bura is to sound the fundamental of the rag all the while the rag is eing sung % not only the fundamental ut also the fifth or fourth a ove, whi!h is the heart of the sa4ti. But the true ta(bura is not a mere instrument, it is the ver) bod) of the singer. It is the ody of the singer whi!h ought to produ!e and vitaliBe this fundamental in the phenomenon of root resonan!e. /he ody of the singer ought to e this very root of sound, e!ause in this ody the god of the fundamental ought to in!arnate at the !all of the singer3s will. /his is the meaning of the owing and salutation made to the ta(bura, and of the humming of the rag efore starting a song. /he god of the fundamental must e !alled upon, the path of his sa4ti must e outlined, then the musi! may flow arousing the ra4ti fire. /his fundamental is mysti!ally Tu( or To( or Ta(2 thus the sa!red meaning of the tomtom, of the name /um uru also, whi!h if properly grasped reveals what the ta(bura stands for. 'gain, let us say that the true ta(bura is within. ,o outer instrument of dead matter is ne!essary to one who has made of his own ody a living instrument, the ta erna!le of the Eod within. 6u!h a one #nows the se!rets of living resonan!e. (e is the !up of li ation, the sa!rifi!er and the li ation. $ne more element must e !onsidered as an important fa!tor in the !osmi! tuning of the ragC it is the dominant sruti. 8hether the oo#s whi!h are at present availa le mention it or not, I !annot say. But it is o vious that as the sruti !y!le is ased on the eleven year magneti! !ir!ulation of the solar energy within the solar system, every year must have its two predominant srutis !orresponding to the northward and southward motion of the sun. /he systole of the solar heart lasts five years2 its diastole five years2 in one year the solar lood passes through the solar auri!les. /he latter !orresponds evidently to %a, that is, the %a represented y the eleventh overtone. But who #nows how to !al!ulate !orre!tly the !orresponden!e in timeG 8hen the human heart is in tune with the solar heart, the variations of solar magnetism refle!t themselves in !orresponding emotional !hanges. /his harmony whi!h is evident in all animals and in primitive man, i.e., in man living near and true to ,ature, e!omes distur ed as mind, whi!h is a:seasonal, predominates or at any rate rea!hes a suffi!ient strength to defle!t emotions from their natural !ourse, thus usually perverting them. In this !ondition of harmoniBation, whi!h we find em odied so wonderfully in the old Indian !iviliBation in whi!h even the !onnu ial life was regulated y the progress of stars, the rags e&press oth !osmi! powers and human emotions. /hen musi! in the ra!e is a yearly ritual2 from spring to spring it flows from millions of hearts, led y the eats of the sun, leader of the or!hestra of

,ature and humanity. 6oon, however, the true !orresponden!es are lost, as men separate their emotions from their solar sour!es and e!ome self:energiBed, the energiBer eing only the personal self, eager to sing its love, its griefs, its e!stasies a!!ording to its own rhythm unrelated to the rhythm of ,ature. 4&pressionism proper is then orn, or )omanti!ism. /he human soul finds itself alone in utter dar#ness and suffo!ates in its odily +ail. Madly it yearns for the eyond, for Eod and for love whi!h is of the 6pirit. 'nd it sings its despair, its agonies, its tortures. /he tragedy of the human heart pours itself into melodies. /he 9hristus is !ru!ified. /he )oot is dripping with lood. In India su!h songs have formed the su stan!e of the devotional musi! of mediaeval and latter day mysti!s yearning, some with powerful will, others hysteri!ally, for union with Eod. In 4urope, in the nineteenth !entury, the aspiration was dire!ted mostly toward a solute love, toward redemption through pure love2 and the most eautiful of all these aspirations is pro a ly 8agner3s Tristan and Isolde. The ro(antic fervor which burst forth in Euro+e after the great revolutionary !risis at the end of the eighteenth !entury was, however, a rea!tion against the typi!al musi! of that !ontinent. It was a desperate re ellion against the materialisti! intelle!tualism and s!holasti!ism of many !enturies of feudal !iviliBation2 the re ellion of the human soul against !onventions, pre+udi!es and the ondage of so!ial !astes, and religious formalism also. /his released the flow of (elodic e2+ressionis( whi!h had een stopped for long !enturies. Musi! e!ame intensely su +e!tive, auto iographi!, poeti!. It really too# the pla!e of lyri! poetry, whi!h had e!ome !rystalliBed and atrophied. Musi! lended with words in the Eerman Lieder. /hen words were dis!arded altogether. 5isBt3s S)(+honic Poe(s and 9hopin3s Preludes, foreshadowed y some of Beethoven3s last wor#s, opened the way to tone:poems of all sorts, espe!ially to those in whi!h 6!ria in sang the mysti! irth of a new humanity. )omanti!ism in the nineteenth !entury was essentially a ,ordi! movement. It was a rea!tion against a false Ere!o:5atin worship whi!h was the degenerated aspe!t of an earlier e&pressionisti! out urst whi!h was then !entered mostly in 5atin !ountries, i.e., the )enaissan!e of the fifteenth !entury. /he musi! of the )enaissan!e was e&pressionisti! to a degree. It rought in the melodi! ideal, whi!h su limiBed the masses of Hittoria and also of Palestrina and )oland de 5assus, whi!h gave irth to Monteverdi3s musi!al dramas, soon degenerating into the typi!al Italian opera. 4uropeanism proper in musi!, however, does not re!ogniBe melody as an e&pressionisti! fa!t, as a song of the human soul % any more than 4uropean so!iety ased on feudal ideals re!ogniBed the individual human eing as an individual. 4uropean !lasses have een worse than (indu !astes, for there was no es!ape from the former, while the latter vanished efore the spiritual 1uest of the yogi. In musi! tonalism represents what feudalism is in the 6tate. 4uropean melodies are e&pressions of a s)ste(, i.e., of a tonality. /he ar!hai! melodies ased on the gra(a ;whi!h is the spiritual prototype of the 4uropean ma+or:minor

mode< are e&pressions of tones naturally related. /he former emphasiBe almost e&!lusively the forms2 the latter !onsider the first and foremost the living entities within a group. 'fter the individualisti! !risis of romanti!ism and e&pressionism, we see the re!ent rise of "as!ism in 5atin and even ,ordi! !ountries, and of Mar&ian 9ommunism in )ussia. In oth, the 6tate is glorified a ove the individual, the system a ove the human eing2 whereas the asi! idea of the old 'ryan philosophy is that all forms and organiBations, in!luding the whole of ,ature itself, e&ist for the purpose of the development of the soul and for nothing else. I insist upon this su +e!t e!ause it is an a solutely essential one. 4uropean musi!, harmoni! and espe!ially polyphoni!, is rooted in the !on!ept of form. ' symphony ;in our enlarged sense of the term< is a for(ula of d)na(ic resonance, a pro lem of alan!e, of ad+ustment of sound masses, plans, lines, et!., moving in a sort of time:spa!e whi!h is neither real time nor real spa!e. In this lies the se!ret of polyphony. /o write on paper the s!ore of a polyphoni! !horus or of a fugue is li#e writing the formula a!!ording to whi!h !ertain metals have to e !om ined and the form of the mold has to e !al!ulated in the ma#ing of a ell or gong. /he several parts of the !horus are li#e so many metals and the form of the musi!al development li#e the typi!al shape of the ell. 4uropean ells have all more or less the same asi! form, and so have most sonatas. /he various tonalities and modulations in a sonata form are also the harmoni! elements to e !om ined in !ertain rather definite proportions. /he sonata is thus an o +e!t e&isting in the musi!al world ased on this strange time:spa!e already referred to, really the intelle!tual shadow of a spiritual reality. /he ell of !ourse is a purely spatial o +e!t, whi!h has height, width and depth2 yet it has really another dimension as a resonant entity, for its resonan!e is prolonged in time. /he tone is thro ing, !onstantly !hanging, !onstantly renewed. Between the slowly moving vi rations of a resonating ell and the slow flu!tuations of a Palestrinian !horus, there is really not mu!h differen!e. $nly the element of time whi!h is somewhat empiri!al in the ell is treated s!ientifi!ally and a!!urately in a polyphoni! !omposition. /he s!ore is the formula em ra!ing this e&tended time:spa!e organism. 8hile pure polyphony is essentially vo!al, an ensem le of single melodies whi!h are os!illations around a tonal or modal ;in the mediaeval sense of the term< !enter, harmoni! developments are more espe!ially !onne!ted with instrumental musi!, a ove all with #ey oard instruments. In India we had vo!al melodies and instrumental rhythms2 in 4urope we had vo!al polyphony and instrumental harmonies. It is only e!ause of the impoverishment of mediaeval modes into !lassi!al tonalities, e!ause of the in!reasing intelle!tualiBation and !omple&ity of musi!, that voi!es !ould not #eep pa!e with the demands made upon them, and that polyphony invaded the domain of the instrumental musi! proper. 'nother reason, perhaps the most essential, is that musi! has een aspiring to !ontrol a !easelessly wider range of sounds. /he tenden!y of 8estern musi! is to es!ape the limitation of the o!tave and to !onsider as its unit a far wider !y!le of tones, viB., the Bodia!s of sound.

's a matter of fa!t, the polyphoni! musi! of the fourteenth to seventeenth !enturies is ased, in a sense, upon a sort of Bodia! of thirds. /he third is the main interval used and the four o!taves forming the limits of male and female voi!es !an e !onsidered as an appro&imate dou le Bodia! of thirds. "rom this let us +ump to the dou le Bodia! of fifth and fourth em ra!ing twelve o!taves, and we shall find the su stan!e of the polyphoni! stru!tures of the future. /he first step, however, will e to limit the field to the seven o!taves of the Bodia! of fifths, whi!h !onstitute appro&imately the instrumental field of 8estern musi! today and whi!h is the positive a!tive unit of the system. 'n 'meri!an !omposer, 9arl )uggles, is already !reating very e&tended polyphonies for string instrument ensem les, whi!h en!ompass the entire Bodia! of fifths and are uilt upon the new su stan!e of musi! without any taint of tonalism. 4ventually, new instruments will have to e !reated, and human voi!es will have to find a ne8 pla!e within this e&tended musi!al universe, a universe of !osmi! resonan!e through whi!h may !ir!ulate some day the great mysti! "ire whi!h moves in serpentine fashion, whi!h tra!es its spirals a!ross the worlds % Dundalini sym oliBed y the Dundry of 8agner3s Parsifal. 7hat is the relation etween the true melodi! !y!les of India and the great harmoni! polyphonies of future 8estern musi!G /he answer seems o vious in a sense, as it is !lear that a polyphony eing an ensem le of melodies, the nature of the polyphony is !onditioned y the type of its !omponent melodies. /he polyphoni! tapestries of the fourteenth and fifteenth !enturies in 4urope were !onditioned y the melodi! threads evolved y the plain !hant of the pre!eding millennium. Plain !hant had e!ome diatoni! and somewhat rigid2 the musi!al note had e!ome intelle!tualiBed and definitively pinned on a staff y Euido d3'reBBo a suffi!iently pre!ise mode of notation had een evolved % so that the threads were all ready for the polyphoni! weaving. 5et us imagine that the evolution of plain !hant had ta#en another !ourse. 8e would then have had an entirely different type of polyphoni! !omposition in the fifteenth !entury. 's a matter of fa!t, e!ause during the si&teenth and seventeenth !enturies a new type of melodies ased on tonalities, and no longer on the mediaeval religious modes, was evolved, we witness the irth of a new polyphony !ulminating in the wor#s of Ba!h. 5i#ewise, the melodi! !hromati!ism of 9hopin, 5isBt and 8agner is e!oming the su stan!e of a new type of so:!alled ?dissonant !ounterpoint,? in 4urope with 6!hoen erg, and in 'meri!a, in a mu!h purer and more intense form, with 9arl )uggles. If we go a step further and imagine that a day will !ome when the 8est will e!ome fully a!1uainted with and dis!over how to handle the free and vital melodi! material of the 4ast, then the new polyphonies whi!h will follow will ta#e an entirely different aspe!t. In other words, if the 4ast is the fountainhead of melodies and the 8est the fashioner of symphonies, it is evident that the symphonies will e great only in proportion as their melodi! su stan!e is great. 5i#ewise, a rotherhood is spiritual in proportion as the individuals !omposing it are spiritually evolved and therefore a le to live as rothers. '

6tate is no greater than its !itiBens. If the Fnited 6tates today fail so painfully to live up to the standards of true demo!ra!y, it is e!ause so few of their inha itants understand or !are to fulfill their !ivi! duties. /he same is true of India in a different sense. If a ma+ority of Indians #new how to live the true spiritual life, as taught for instan!e in the 3hagavad5 'ita, India would e free and great as a national unit. (owever, 8estern symphonies !an hardly ever e made out of the su stan!e of the rags, as understood in India today. .ags proper are essentially individualisti! in their organism2 they are the !y!li! transformations of a single tone. But the gra(as are fundamentally different, as we have already seen, /he gra(as eing rotherhoods of tones !an e!ome the su stan!e of future polyphonies. 's a matter of fa!t, Palestrinian motets are near appro&imations to polyphonies ased on true gra(as. "ree their melodi! parts, vivify every tone thereof, reinstate the true modal relationship of the ar!hai! Eree# modes distorted y most mediaeval theorists and ma#e of every !horist a spiritual soul instead of a religious devotee % and real spiritual polyphonies will e heard. 's for instrumental symphonies finding their su stan!e in the full e&tension of the Bodia!s of sound, aiming at uilding !osmi! resonan!es, seeds of new worlds of tone, the pro lem is more !omple&. 6uffi!ient it is to say that if one egins the Bodia!s of sound at a !ertain pit!h ;whi!h is a out the highest note of the piano<, one finds that the fre1uen!ies of the tones generated y progression of fifths are whole num ers, therefore overtones of the (armoni! 6eries founded on fundamental 1 ;the true Sa<. In other words, if the Musi! of Pra4riti ;Bodia!s of sound< is su tle and refined enough, it lends with the Musi! of Purusha ;(armoni! 6eries<2 then the marriage of (eaven and 4arth o!!urs. /he full resonan!e of the transfigured Bodia!s of sound e!omes the magneti! seed su stan!e into whi!h the 6oul of /one may in!arnate. It e!omes the Elorious Body of 9hrist, also of the sym oli!al 8hite (orse, 6ahan of the Dal#i 'vatar. /hrough the 8hirlwind ;Bodia! of sound< the Hoi!e of Eod ;(armoni! 6eries< is heard % as said in the Bi le.

1.

ln the 4uropean tonal system whi!h is really ased on the fifth, notwithstanding all that is

usually said in te&t oo#s, this pivotal fun!tion is played y the third, whi!h is either ma+or or minor2 the minor eing really a des!ending progression, though it is not used often as su!h.

Cha+ter Seven %usic and Civili-ation The +roble(s confronting the Indian and the 7estern (usicians: in their respe!tive spheres, are a!!urate sym ols of the more e&tensive tas#s whi!h are to e fa!ed y India and 'meri!a. 'gain let it e repeated that all these pro lems and tas#s revolve around one single need, the need for un!ompromising, deli erate and !omplete regeneration. /here is today hardly anything left in the world of human personalities whi!h is a solutely pure or un!ontaminated y materialism, intelle!tualism, sentimentalism and sensualism. 'll the vehi!les of the human soul, as all the vehi!les of tone, have een more or less !logged with waste matter or perverted as to fun!tion and form. 's said re!ently y a Persian BahaiC ?/his is the great washday of Eod.? Eod, in the ra!e and first of all in the individual, is !leansing (is soul garments whi!h have een efouled y a !onstant !onta!t with the waste matter of previous !y!les of unwise a!tivity. In many !ases the garments have to e thrown into the fire and new ones have to e woven patiently y the soul on the an!ient pattern whi!h is eternally true e!ause ased on the vital fun!tioning of the human organism. Musi!al instruments are to musi! what human personalities are to !iviliBation. 's !ulture e!omes more !omple& and more refined, instruments and personalities rea!h a higher point of me!hani!al and material perfe!tion, as resonant su stan!e is made to answer fully the !all of the 6pirit2 then resonan!e is wor#ed upon in su!h a way as to divor!e it from the in!arnating 6pirit. "inally, the outer form of the instruments e!omes the foremost !onsideration2 the instrument is made to loo# artifi!ially ? eautiful? and sur!harged with ornaments. "ormal eauty ta#es the pla!e of fun!tional e&!ellen!e, of the perfe!t ade1ua!y of form to fun!tion. /he original, the !lever, the daBBling supersede the true and the ne!essary. Hirtuosi swarm upon the dead ody of Musi!, as sophists and intelle!tual +ugglers on the !orpse of 9iviliBation. 8hen spiritual vitality has thus a andoned the ody of Musi! and of 9iviliBation, when disease is !logging the physi!al organisms of men and women, a radical pro!ess must e passed through, if death is to e avoided y individuals and ra!es at large. /his is the great pro!ess of alche(ical regenerationC a twofold or rather fourfold operation implying the purifi!ation of the odies ;emotional and mental as well as physi!al< and a new des!ent of the soul, whi!h will !ause a reawa#ening of the root and an in!reasing flow of sap. Purifi!ation is a!!omplished y the power of spiritual #nowledge, selfless love and sa!rifi!ial a!tivity. /hese three for!es all !ause suffering. It is the path of woe. /he man with spiritual #nowledge finds himself an e&ile in the world of perverted or deluded minds, a lonely wanderer through the human wastes. 6elfless love rings etrayals and the uttermost weariness of the heart. 6a!rifi!ial a!tivity results in !easeless !ru!ifi&ions. But the des!ent of the soul !an only ta#e pla!e in those who have trodden this threefold path lo woe, in those who have e!ome mysti!ally the 8oe:man, the wom of their own 9hrist:!hild. 8hen the mysti! (eart is emptied of its lood flowing from the 8ounds of the !ru!ified man ;Iesous,

or Io:sva<, there is orn the 9hrist !hild, Drishna the flute player. /he tones of Drishna3s flute awa#en the root elow2 and 5ife springs anew, the vegetation of manC 9iviliBation. 9iviliBation, as the name indi!ates, is orn in the !ityC But the true !iviliBation of the soul is the produ!t of no earthly !ity, ut of the (oly 9ity within the regenerated man or the regenerated ra!e, of the mysti! 6ham alla ;or ,ew Jerusalem<, the divine resonan!e of the perfe!t Bodia! of toneC ada. "or the ra!e at large, 4ast or 8est, this !entury, whi!h really e&tends from 10@. to 19@., is essentially the age of self:purifi!ation % as we have seen already. /he initial impulse was given in the hundred years that pre!eded it, whi!h was the age of redemption ;the idea whi!h haunted the mind and soul of the great )omanti!s in 4urope<. But now we have !ome to the ne!essary phase of self:purifi!ation. /rue self:purifi!ation depends o viously on the power of the 6elf within. But during this entire period the 6elf is hidden. It spea#s only through a two:fold (a)a, through a mas#, the mas# of matter, the mysterious mas# of its feminine aspe!t, in all realms % through the written word in another sense. It is only as the ne&t era dawns that the manifested tones of Drishna3s flute are to e heard, the seven tones of the )ay and the twenty:two srutis of the 9ir!umferen!e ;22 divided y @ e1uals =.17 or appro&imately the relation of !ir!umferen!e to diameter<. In other words it is only then that the manifested sphere of the new world, the radius of the new vegetation, the model of the new !iviliBation, will e pro+e!ted as a!tual fa!ts y the ra!e % or at least y a !ertain portion of it. /he present !enturial era is, therefore, in a sense ut a preparatory period. It is the time for purifi!ation. It is the time when John the Baptists ought to arise everywhere and utter the great worldwide !ry of old, adly translated asC ?)epent ye?I and meaning reallyC ?)ise eyond yourselfI 6ear!h for the Fniversal 6oul withinI? It is the very message uttered y Mahatma Eandhi, the message of Sat)agraha, the !all for a new 9rusade of the 6pirit to release Sat)a from its ondage % in every individual. /he Sat)a of Musi!I I have attempted in this small and pre!ursory wor# to show the way to it. But what is needed are 9rusaders who will tread the path of woe whi!h alone leads to the full realiBation of this sat)a, the path of Sat)agraha. /his 6yntoni! )eformation mentioned efore !an only e!ome a reality if men and women musi!ians attempt to purify themselves from the spiritual lethargy, the la!# of tone, whi!h !hara!teriBes our present humanity. "or the !enter of all reformations is always, first and last, the individual. But India has a danger of her own to es!ape fromC that of spiritual selfishness. Many perhaps are those who realiBe the need for individual purifi!ation, who renoun!ing the world and meditating upon the great /ruths have gained the power to utter the tone of their own eing and have #nown the true sruti e&perien!e within their innermost nature. But having realiBed the /ruth whi!h !ould e realiBed y su!h pra!ti!es as are #nown all over India, they !ontent themselves to athe in the light they have dis!overed and do not hear the !all of humanity. 6u!h a light is, however, ut a refle!ted light. Drishna does not spea# to those who give up a!tion and !ast away all sense of relationship with the ra!e. Drishna spea#s

only to the 8arriors, to the 9rusaders who are offering themselves to the !ause of (umanity. (e is not true to sat)a who !raves to en+oy its liss alone in the forests. (e is ut a perfe!t resonan!e whi!h no spiritual /one will ever fe!undate. Purifi!ation is needed, ut for the sa#e of the !iviliBation that is to !ome. /he steel lade must e tempered ut to serve in the war for righteousness, in that war where lood is not spilled ;for the heat of su!h lood urns the vi!torious<, ut where falsehoods and superstitions are destroyed and adhar(a flees efore the triumphant dhar(a. In other words, what is needed is the seed of a ra!e of 9iviliBers, who thin#, feel and a!t in fun!tion of the ra!e whi!h is theirs, y physi!al irthright or y soul right, and of (umanity as a whole. /he root of 'ryan !iviliBation has egun to stir in India. /he !all of the (idden 6elf is eing heard y a few. /his !all must e!ome musi!, for the root is essentially musi!, for musi! is the innermost layer, the ody of power, the inner strength of !iviliBation. 9iviliBation is orn of /one and perpetuates itself through the syntoni! ritual !ele rated day in and day out in the homes and temples of the ra!e. /his syntoni! ritual must e understood again in its deep spiritual sense and performed not perfun!torily or y lips, ut with the energy of the 6elf pervading all tones, in!arnating in all rags. Hegetation and !iviliBation2 these are the two terms of a nearly perfe!t analogy, as often repeated, and musi! is to !iviliBation what the flow of sap and magneti! growth are to the plant. 9iviliBation patterns itself upon musi!, as the sand spread on a vi rating dis! falls into geometri!al shapes under the impa!t of tones. 5i#ewise the tides of sap, of lood, or of the sea give rhythm to the growth of plants, odies or !ontinents. /he !y!le of vegetation follows the !y!le of the solar year2 the !y!les of !iviliBation and of ra!ial development !oin!ide with larger Bodia!al !y!les, among whi!h the great year of 2.,060 earthly years ;!y!le of pre!ession of the e1uino&<. Civili-ation is not as si(+le a (atter as often conceived. It is dual as the plant organism is dualC root and leaves. 9iviliBation e&ists first and foremost as an ar!hetype, or as a !olle!tion of ar!hetypes, in the Platoni! world of Ideas. /hen!e it involves into the mental matter of the ra!e, a few great Minds a!ting as the seeds, and later, roots of the !iviliBation to e. /he outer forms of !iviliBation, this or that !ulture, are li#e stems and leaves growing and providing eventually a material asis to the flower and fruit. /his des!ending, involving tide of !iviliBation from the spiritual !y!li! plane to the plane of individual or ra!ial mentalities, is essentially musi!. It is the true root musi!, the musi! of the eginning, whi!h will find its !ounterpart in the musi! of the end at the time of !y!li! flowering, when musi! unites with the other arts, espe!ially with plasti! motions, in order to !onstitute the syntheti! drama, somewhat inade1uately foreshadowed y 8agner, and 1uite definitely !on!eived y 6!ria in efore his death. 's the great /heosophist, 8illiam N. Judge, said, it is upon sound ;or ada 3rah(a< that the evolution of the visi le from the invisi le depends. /he root musi! of the !y!li! eginnings is the manifestation of this !reative sound. It represents the male poten!y of

eing. It is des!ending musi! when the greater !y!le is on its downward motion2 ut when the ra!e is rea!hing spiritward, the general trend and progression of musi!, of gra(as and s!ales, is an as!ending one. 'ryan:(indu musi! eing the root musi! of the great !y!le of our present humanity, it follows that it responds to the magneti! tides of the spiritual 6un of the ra!e. Its very dharma and mission is to !apture and !ondense these magneti! 8aves of solar 8ill so that the ra!e e fe!undated there y % very mu!h in the way in whi!h the !hlorophyll of the leaves !ondenses, the solar radiations into food and fuel for animals and men. /his is the meaning of the syntoni! ritual throughout months and years. "or these magneti! waves emanated y the sun are !onstantly !hanging in polarity, dire!tion, et!. /hus the singer who wishes to !ondense them y the power of his songs must adapt the latter to these variations. .ags and the li#e must therefore e sung in a!!ordan!e to the !hart of the variations of solar magnetism, that is, at definite times of day, month, year, et!. /he result is that when the musi!ians of an entire ra!e understand and pra!ti!e su!h a s!heme of syntoni! !orresponden!es, there are songs eing sung at every minute of the day, year in year out, somewhere in the land, !ondensing the 8aves of solar 8ill. 't every moment the ra!e as a whole is thus vivified y this 8ill2 at every moment the toni! power of sound energiBes the root and the flow of the mysti! sap of humanity is regular, !onstant and strong % as the flow of lood in a healthy ody. Indeed the !orresponden!e is true2 for India is the very heart !enter of humanity % greater India that is. If the Indian heart !eased to eat, this humanity of ours would die. But humanity is ill, very ill2 e!ause its heart is very wea#2 and the heart must e tonified if death is not to ensue. It must e tonified y the power of solar 6ound, inaudi le as well as audi le. /he inaudi le 6ound is that whi!h is uttered y the great spiritual /ea!hers and 'vatars of the ra!e. It is the 6ound produ!ed y the rhythm of perfe!t lives em odying the 8ill of master souls, y In!arnations of the spiritual 6un. 'udi le sounds are those uttered y the real musi!ian souls of the ra!e, the s)ntonists, those who #now how to !ondense solar magnetism into tones whi!h resound throughout the glo e and revivify the human ra!e. 8hen the root is healthy and strong, when the flow of sap is steady and ri!h, then the stem rises and !on1uers spa!e, unfolds its leaves whi!h !apture the heat of the physi!al sun. /hen a !ulture is orn. /he human earth is green and soon !overed with !rops. /hen also, on a somewhat different plane, the syntoni! ritual e!omes a ra!ial ne!essity if !ulture is to grow to its fullness. Musi! is then the Musi! of Pra4riti, the musi! of the Bodia!s of sound, and the syntoni! ritual molds itself a!!urately into the pageant of the seasons. /he most wonderful e&ample of su!h a syntoni! ritual we have een give y 9hina of the !lassi!al period, when musi! was the pivot of the harmony of the 6tate, as seen y 9onfu!ius. 9hinese philosophy !onsiders all things as eing produ!ed y the operation of two !omplementary prin!iples, )ang, mas!uline and )in, feminine. 's the yearly !y!le unrolls itself, )ang first predominates, then )in2 every month or Bodia!al sign eing !hara!teriBed

y a !ertain definite relation etween the two !osmi! polarities. /o su!h relations the various l)us ;or tones of the duode!uple Bodia! of sound< were made to !orrespond. 4a!h month had thus its toni! and dominant l)us and all !eremonial songs or hymns had to e sung on this toni!. 5i#ewise, as the 6tate was !onsidered to e the refle!tion of the !osmos, every fun!tion in the 6tate was represented y a tone. 8hen the 4mperor was offi!iating his tone was ta#en as a toni!2 this was !hanged when the 4mpress or various ministers e!ame in turn the !enters of the rites. Musi! was thus essentially the great mediator etween heaven and earth, or the !osmos and the 6tate. It ound the one to the other. 's an emanation of the !elestial it fe!undated the so!ial. 's a sym ol of human perfe!tion it for!ed, y the law of sympatheti! resonan!e ;the asis of magi!<, the !elestial energies to em ody themselves into the guardians and organiBers of the 6tate. It transfigured manmade laws into !osmi! harmony. It alan!ed all for!es into a perfe!t ?syntony? wherein every tone was fulfilling its !osmi! fun!tion, ea!h restrained y all, all fortified y the individual strength of ea!h. $n su!h a musi! rooted in the fundamental tone of ,ature itself, was ere!ted the wonderful stru!ture of the old 9hinese !iviliBation and !ulture, whi!h, though eing outwardly disrupted now, will e transferred to the patrimony of the new ra!e, perhaps on other shores, perhaps on a new !ontinent. 8e have a similar !on!eption of the fun!tion of musi! in the Platoni! system of 6tate organiBation. 5ater, we find the idea of the syntoni! ritual em odied, at least in 6yria, in the early 9hristian 9hur!h. 8e have seen already from te&ts written y Bar:(e raeus that the musi!al modes of the 6yrian 9hur!h had in the eginning a very definite !osmologi!al meaning. 4very festival had its spe!ifi! mode. /hroughout the 9hristian mysti! year the modes were eing sounded out energiBing the !eremonies performed within the 9hur!h, whi!h was in a sense the (oly 9ity, the wom of a future ra!e regenerated y faith and y the !ommunion of all its mem ers in the lood of 9hrist, the )oot !enter of this future humanity. 8hat the 6tate was to 9hinese !iviliBation, the 9atholi! 9hur!h, one and universal, had een to 9hristian !iviliBation. Blood relationship and the family ideal was the asis of the former, the !ommunion of the faithful united y sa!ramental parti!ipation in the lood of 9hrist was the !ornerstone of the latter. ,ow with the foundation of the Fnited 6tates and the slow irth of a new ra!e in 'meri!a, we witness the attempt at realiBing the *emo!rati! 6tate ased on the intangi ility and !ivi! e1uality efore the 5aw of the individual human eing, independently of any !onsideration of a ra!e, !reed or se& % a sort of applied Buddhism. (ere, also, a new type of syntoni! ritual will e evolved, ased on the e&tended !y!le of perfe!t fifths ;sym ols of the free !itiBens<2 that is to say, it will manifest in proportion as the new ra!e is ready to live true to the new and spiritual ideal of 'meri!an !itiBenship % whi!h o viously it is not doing at the present time. 't the sour!e of all these attempts at organiBing human so!iety a!!ording to some great !osmi! pattern, we find the great ideal of rotherhood and of the suprema!y of the 5aw, whi!h is the essen!e of Eautama3s tea!hings and living message. It is true that 9hinese

!iviliBation e&isted long efore the si&th !entury B.9. But so did the essen!e of Buddhism. 8hile 9onfu!ius re:modeled and revivified the old 9hinese systems, Eautama the Buddha reformed and gave a fundamentally new impulse to the ar!hai! Buddhisti! ideals. (e ushered in a new era of human development, a vast !osmi! !y!le. (e regenerated the heart of humanity y giving to it a new #eynote, y formulating in his (eart do!trine the method and do!trine of future attainment. /hus while the 9hinese 6tate is still ased on lood relationship, ;that is on a physi!al, ra!ial asis<, the original, Buddhist Sangha #nows of no ra!ial or lood ties and is the seed of the Fniversal Brotherhood of the Sat)a 1uga whi!h is to !ome. /he original Sangha degenerated outwardly. /he 9hristian Enosti! rotherhoods were perse!uted and outwardly disappeared. 5i#ewise the Pythagorean, 9hinese and Enosti! musi! have degenerated2 and the syntoni! rituals are no more. /hus the plant of !iviliBation is de!aying oth in 9hina and in 4urope. But the )oot of musi! is not dead. It lives in the Indian heart and a new offshoot is slowly rising from the 'ryan )oot. 5et the )oot e revivifiedI 5et the fire of growth and the living sap rise in the new germ trying to pier!e through the dar# soil of Patala:'meri!aI /he old world is dying out2 ut a new one is eing orn. 5et the dead ury the dead. But a ove all let the living liveI Ar)avarta must e resus!itated, for this is spring time, for this is the time for the )oot to e awa#ened again and for the 8ill of the (idden 6un to ta#e possession of its human vehi!les, for the /one to sing its many souls throughout the ritual of days and months ?mounted upon the universal wheel of /ime?. /he /one resonates in ea!h and all. /he !enter of the 6yntoni! )eformation is the individual. 5et then the individual e regenerated.