I recently read this story in the book "Dattilam: A compendium of ancient indian music" by E.W. Nijenhuis.
There is a tradition, according to which the Gandharvas kept Soma ( the celestial abrosia which stimulates the voice which is called 'lord of speech', vAcas pati ) for the gods, but, allowing it to be stolen, were punished by exclusion from drinking it. Whether the Soma was stolen or not, it was kept by the Gandharvas. As the gods, on the other hand, wanted to get it back from the Gandharvas, the goddess vAc ("Speech") advised the gods to buy it. She offered herself as price and promised to come back, when the gods would call upon her. The Gandharvas, being fond of women, accepted the bargain. When vAc fled, the two sides, i.e. the Gandharvas and the Gods, tried to retain her. The Gandharvas recited the Vedas, the gods danced and sung, and won her heart. Again she fled from them and entered the wood. When the gods found her, they cursed the wood. The trees, however, distributed her in the drum, the lute, the reed-pipes etc. This story is a mythological explanation of the fact that there is "Sound" in the wood of the drum, the lute, the flute and other instruments.
Mythological story on why there is sound in the wood
-
vasanthakokilam
- Posts: 10956
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01
About the book.
Title: DATTILAM, A Compendium Of Ancient Indian Music
Minor Title: Introduction, Translation and Commentary
By: E. Wiersma-Te Nijenhuis.
Ninejhuis is a Netherlands based researcher of Ancient Indian musical treatises.
So what is Dattilam? That is the topic of quite a few pages in the introductory pages of the book. The Dattilam treatise is a concise compendium of almost all the indian musical terms and so ti is a very suitable starting point for research into the theory of ancient indian music. Its date varies from 2nd century A.D. to 8th century A.D. Author: Dattila
The book initially gives you the transliterated Sanskrit version and the straight translation. There are 243 1/2 little paragraphs. I do not know what you call them, some are just two lines, some are three lines, the last 1/2 is just one line ending note "akarod dattilah sAstram gItam dattilasamjnitam" ( Dattila wrote this treatise, called Dattilam, in metrical form ). This is just 61 pages in the book. The rest of the 350 pages are commentary by Nijenhuis. I picked up the above story from the commentary section.
Vainika talked about Nijenhuis in another thread and that was my introduction to the author. I got this book and a few others by this author through our library. University libraries have these books and my local public library got them for me on an 'inter library' loan basis.
Title: DATTILAM, A Compendium Of Ancient Indian Music
Minor Title: Introduction, Translation and Commentary
By: E. Wiersma-Te Nijenhuis.
Ninejhuis is a Netherlands based researcher of Ancient Indian musical treatises.
So what is Dattilam? That is the topic of quite a few pages in the introductory pages of the book. The Dattilam treatise is a concise compendium of almost all the indian musical terms and so ti is a very suitable starting point for research into the theory of ancient indian music. Its date varies from 2nd century A.D. to 8th century A.D. Author: Dattila
The book initially gives you the transliterated Sanskrit version and the straight translation. There are 243 1/2 little paragraphs. I do not know what you call them, some are just two lines, some are three lines, the last 1/2 is just one line ending note "akarod dattilah sAstram gItam dattilasamjnitam" ( Dattila wrote this treatise, called Dattilam, in metrical form ). This is just 61 pages in the book. The rest of the 350 pages are commentary by Nijenhuis. I picked up the above story from the commentary section.
Vainika talked about Nijenhuis in another thread and that was my introduction to the author. I got this book and a few others by this author through our library. University libraries have these books and my local public library got them for me on an 'inter library' loan basis.