Books written on the history of Indian music are few. Stray articles on the history of Indian music have appeared off and on in some journals. As far as South Indian music is concerned, no book dealing with its history has so far been written. Works on music written in Sanskrit and other Indian languages deal merely with the lakshana of the music of the respective periods. Brief biographical notes on some of the great composers and musicians have appeared in some recent books. The study of the history of Indian music has a great cultural value.
Although there are various methods of studying the musical history of a country, the method of taking specific topics and studying its history and evolution through the ages has been adopted in this book As far as the lives of composers and musicians and their contributions to music are concerned, the reader may refer to the author's works :-
(1) Great composers : Books I and II and
(2) Great musicians.
Some of the topics covered in this book formed the subject-matter of articles contributed by me to research journals. Some of the topics were contributed as Papers to conferences and seminars. All the articles and papers have since been re-written in the light of my researches and presented here.
The pictures of Vinadhara Dakshinamurti of Pudukkottai and the Harp at the temple at Tirumayam appeared along with the article Yazh and Veena " contributed by me to the " Hindu" of 10th April 1949. For the picture of Shahaji Maharajah, I am indebted to Rajasri A. Krishnaswami Mahadic, Rao Saheb, B.A., Palace, Tanjore. My thanks are due to the Superintendent, Madras Govt. Museum for having permitted me to take photographs of the harp in the Archaeological section.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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