them Adbhuta Rāmāyaṇa about Nārada ṛishi, which combines criticism with appreciation.
Once upon a time the great ṛishi Nārada thought within himself that he had mastered the whole art and science of music. To curb his pride the all-knowing Vishṇu took him to visit the abode of the gods. They entered a spacious building, in which were numerous men and women weeping over their broken limbs. Vishṇu stopped and enquired of them the reason for their lamentation. They answered that they were the rāgas and the rāgiṇīs, created by Mahādeva; but that as a ṛishi of the name of Nārada, ignorant of the true knowledge of music and unskilled in performance, had sung them recklessly, their features were distorted and their limbs broken; and that, unless Mahādeva or some other skilful person would sing them properly, there was no hope of their ever being restored to their former state of body. Nārada, ashamed, kneeled down before Vishṇu and asked to be forgiven.
The Vedic Index shows a very wide variety of musical instruments in use in Vedic times. Instruments of percussion are represented by the dundubhi, an ordinary drum; the āḍambara, another kind of drum; bhūmi-dundubhi, an earthdrum made by digging a hole in the ground and covering it with hide; vanaspati, a wooden drum; āghāṭi, a cymbal used to accompany dancing. Stringed instruments are represented by the kāṇḍa-viṇā, a kind of lute; karkari, another lute; vāṇa, a lute of 100 strings; and the vīṇā, the present instrument of that name in India. This one instrument alone is sufficient evidence of the development to which the art had attained even in those early days. There are also a number of wind instruments of the flute variety, such as the tūṇava, a wooden flute; the nāḍī, a reed flute; bākura, whose exact shape is unknown. 'By the time of the Yajur Veda several kinds of professional musicians appear to have arisen; for lute-players, drummers, flute-players and conch-blowers are mentioned in the list of callings.'
That vocal music had already got beyond the primitive stage may be concluded from the somewhat complicated method of chanting the Sāma Veda, which probably goes back to the Indo-Iranian age. These hymns of the Ṛik and Sāma Vedas are the earliest examples we have of words set to music, unless we except the Zendavesta, which may have been chanted. The Sāma Veda was sung
