Many years before Gautama's time, the brahmas or singers of
sacred songs of ancient India formed themselves into a caste or
priesthood; and the word "Brahma," from meaning a sacred singer,
became the name of the supreme deity; in time, as the nation
grew, other gods were taken into the religion. Thus we find in
pre-Buddha times the trinity of gods: Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva,
with their wives, Sarasvati or learning, Lakshmi or beauty,
and Paravati, who was also called Kali, Durga, and Mahadevi,
and was practically the goddess of evil. Of these gods Brahma's
consort, Sarasvati, the goddess of speech and learning, brought
to earth the art of music, and gave to mankind the _Vina_.

This instrument is still in use and may be called the national
instrument of India. It is composed of a cylindrical pipe,
often bamboo, about three and a half feet long, at each end
of which is fixed a hollow gourd to increase the tone. It is
strung lengthwise with seven metal wires held up by nineteen
wooden bridges, just as the violin strings are supported by a
bridge. The scale of the instrument proceeds in half tones from
[F: a,] to [G: b''] The tones are produced by plucking the
strings with the fingers (which are covered with a kind of
metal thimble), and the instrument is held so that one of
the gourds hangs over the left shoulder, just as one would
hold a very long-necked banjo.

It is to the Krishna incarnation of Vishnu that the Hindu scale
is ascribed. According to the legend, Krishna or Vishnu came to
earth and took the form of a shepherd, and the nymphs sang to
him in many thousand different keys, of which from twenty-four
to thirty-six are known and form the basis of Hindu music. To
be sure these keys, being formed by different successions of
quarter-tones, are practically inexhaustible, and the 16,000
keys of Krishna are quite practicable. The differences in tone,
however, were so very slight that only a few, of them have
been retained to the present time.

The Hindus get their flute from the god Indra, who, from being
originally the all-powerful deity, was relegated by Brahminism
to the chief place among the minor gods--from being the god
of light and air he came to be the god of music. His retinue
consisted of the _gandharvas_, and _apsaras_, or celestial
musicians and nymphs, who sang magic songs. After the rise and
downfall of Buddhism in India the term _raga_ degenerated to
a name for a merely improvised chant to which