We cross-examine her, challenge her, and minutely weigh her evidence in human scales which cannot measure her hidden values. In science our relation with nature is one that exists between a man and his servant, or in a philosophical sense she is like a captive in the witness box.

We tease her, so to speak, to know how she can be used to serve our purposes we make use of her energies, whose Source yet remains unknown. Our relation with nature is one of practical business. We cannot comprehend the Great Life behind all names and forms, just because science brings home to us how we can use the powers of nature this familiarity has bred a contempt for her ultimate secrets. “Our eagerness for worldly activity kills in us the sense of spiritual awe. Because man himself is an expression of the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect on him, offering a way to remembrance of His Divine origin.” The Sanskrit word for musician is bhagavathar, “he who sings the praises of God.” The sankirtans or musical gatherings are an effective form of yoga or spiritual discipline, necessitating deep concentration, intense absorption in the seed thought and sound. Indian music is a subjective, spiritual and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Oversoul. The deeper aim of the early rishi-musicians was to blend the singer with the Cosmic Song which can be heard through awakening of man’s occult spinal centres. For the same reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed rather than harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).

Hindu music therefore, largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. India has always recognised the human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. The origin of tala or rhythm is rooted in human movements-the double time of walking and the triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is twice the length of exhalation. The traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have isolated 32 kinds of tala in the song of a lark. “Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 talas or time-measures.

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