Musical Instruments.
Indian musical instruments are remarkable for the beauty and variety of their forms, which the ancient sculptures and paintings at Ajanta shew have remained unchanged for the last two thousand years. The harp, chang, is identical in shape with the Assyrian harp represented on the Nineveh sculptures, and the vitia is of equal antiquity. The Hindus claim to have invented the fiddle bow. At Kalka, in the Am bala district of the Panjab, the “ Jew’s harp,” mu-chang [ <k mouth-harp ”], is made at certain seasons of festivity and sold by hundreds. Musical instruments are made in most of the large towns and cities, and those of Srinagar [Cashmere] and Delhi in the Paniab, of Murshedabad in Bengal, and of Tumkur in Mysore, are especially prized. They are also made of marked excellence at Parashram and Malwan, both in the Ratnagiri collectorate of the Bombay Presidency. Delhi, Bareilly, and Channapatna in Mysore are noted for the manufacture of wire for musical instruments. The conch shell used in India as a wind instrument is often beautifully mounted in silver and gold. It is the Turbinella rapa of naturalists, and all that is required to make it sonorous is to drill a hole through its base. When blown into, the wind passing through the different whorls, produces a loud, sharp, and piercing sound, which is heard far and wide, and hence its great esteem as a war trumpet. It is used in religious services to call the attention of the gods to their worshippers ; and also at the Gonclusion of certain ceremonies. The conch shell used for pouring water on the gods is a smaller one, the Mazza rapa of naturalists. Both these species, and a third, the Voluta gravis, are used in the manufacture of the shell bracelets of Dacca.
