This book is an attempt at a rational reconstruction of the fundamental principles of Indian Musicology and tries to indicate how the basic aesthetic appeal of the Ragas could be best interpreted. Challenging the idea that Indian music is a closed orthodox set of so-called rigid rules and principles, it treats Indian music as rooted in man’s spiritual vision. Music unfolds this vision spontaneously through proportionate note-sequences and it is the unending pilgrimage of man, which opens richer and greater horizons where man can find his home to be a hermitage of abiding peace and blissful joy. Throughout the book there runs a single thread, namely, the transcendental dimension of the spiritual vision in aesthetic enjoyment, as reflected in the musical creativity of India, from the ancient period. The criticism of the so-called gharana system together with a criticism of the traditional tala system and other allied issues regarding the concepts of raga and rasa will be helpful to the scholars and researchers in this field. The distinctive feature of this book is the treatment of the revolutionary experiments of Rabindranath Tagore on Indian music and its musicology. This section will stimulate specialists and general readers alike. This book is a must for western readers.
