murasukattil, and a special elephant, and was treated almost as a deity. It is described as 'adorned with a garland like the rainbow.' One of the poets tells us, marvelling at the mercy of the king, 'how he sat unwittingly upon the drum couch and yet was not punished'. Three kinds of drum are mentioned in these books : the battle drum, the judgment drum, and the sacrificial drum. The battle drum was regarded with the same veneration that regiments used to bestow upon the regimental flag in the armies of Europe and the capture of the drum meant the defeat of the army. One poem likens the beating of the drum to the sound of a mountain torrent. Another thus celebrates the virtues of the drummer :
For my grandsire's grandsire, his grandsire's grandsire
Beat the drum. For my father, his father did the same.
So he for me. From duties of his clan he has not swerved.
Pour forth for him one other cup of palm tree's purest wine.1[1]
The early Tamil literature makes much mention of music. The Paripadal (c. A.D. 100-200) gives the names of some of the svaras and mentions the fact of there being seven Palai (ancient Dravidian modes). The yal (^'^i^) is the peculiar instrument of the ancient Tamil land. No specimen of it exists to-day. It was evidently something like the vinct but not the same instrument, as the poet Manikkavachakar (c. A.D. 500-700) mentions both in such a way as to indicate two different instruments. Some of its varieties are said to have had over 1,000 strings. The Silappadigaram (a.D. 300), a Buddhist drama, mentions the drummer, the flute player, and the vina as well as the ja/, and also has specimens of early Tamil songs. This book contains some of the earliest expositions of the Indian musical scale, giving the seven notes of the gamut and also a number of the modes and ragas in use at that time. The names given to the notes are not those current in the present day and are with one exception pure Tamil words Tivakarani, a Jain lexicon of the same period, gives quite a lot of information about early Dravidian music. It mentions two kinds of ragas; complete or heptatonic, and
- ↑ 1 From Pura-porul Venbd malai, Pope's translation.
