Indian Music excerpt from "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda pp 176-178

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The foundation stone of Hindu music is the RAGAS or fixed melodic scales. The six basic RAGAS branchout into 126 derivative RAGINIS (wives) and PUTRAS (sons). Each RAGA has a minimum of five notes: aleading note (VADI or king), a secondary note (SAMAVADI or prime minister), helping notes (ANUVADI,attendants), and a dissonant note (VIVADI, the enemy).

Each one of the six basic RAGAS has a natural correspondence with a certain hour of the day, season of theyear, and a presiding deity who bestows a particular potency. Thus, (1) the HINDOLE RAGA is heard only atdawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; (2) DEEPAKA RAGA is played during the eveningin summer, to arouse compassion; (3) MEGHA RAGA is a melody for midday in the rainy season, tosummon courage; (4) BHAIRAVA RAGA is played in the mornings of August, September, October, toachieve tranquillity; (5) SRI RAGA is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; (6) MALKOUNSARAGA is heard at midnights in winter, for valor.

The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between nature and man. Because nature is anobjectification of AUM, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all naturalmanifestations through the use of certain MANTRAS or chants. {FN15−7} Historical documents tell of theremarkable powers possessed by Miyan Tan Sen, sixteenth century court musician for Akbar the Great.Commanded by the Emperor to sing a night RAGA while the sun was overhead, Tan Sen intoned a MANTRAwhich instantly caused the whole palace precincts to become enveloped in darkness.

Indian music divides the octave into 22 SRUTIS or demi−semitones. These microtonal intervals permit fineshades of musical expression unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. Each one of theseven basic notes of the octave is associated in Hindu mythology with a color, and the natural cry of a bird orbeast−DO with green, and the peacock; RE with red, and the skylark; MI with golden, and the goat; FA withyellowish white, and the heron; SOL with black, and the nightingale; LA with yellow, and the horse; SI with acombination of all colors, and the elephant.

Three scales−major, harmonic minor, melodic minor−are the only ones which Occidental music employs, but Indian music outlines 72 THATAS or scales. The musician has a creative scope for endless improvisationaround the fixed traditional melody or RAGA; he concentrates on the sentiment or definitive mood of thestructural theme and then embroiders it to the limits of his own originality. The Hindu musician does not readset notes; he clothes anew at each playing the bare skeleton of the RAGA, often confining himself to a singlemelodic sequence, stressing by repetition all its subtle microtonal and rhythmic variations.

Bach, among Western composers, had an understanding of the charm and power of repetitious sound slightly differentiatedin a hundred complex ways.

Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 TALAS or time−measures. The traditional founder of Hindu music,Bharata, is said to have isolated 32 kinds of TALA in the song of a lark. The origin of TALA or rhythm isrooted in human movements−the double time of walking, and the triple time of respiration in sleep, wheninhalation is twice the length of exhalation.

India has always recognized the human voice as the most perfectinstrument of sound. Hindu music therefore largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For thesame reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed, rather than harmony (relation of simultaneousnotes).The deeper aim of the early rishi−musicians was to blend the singer with the Cosmic Song which can be heardthrough awakening of man's occult spinal centers.

Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and individualisticart, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at personal harmony with the Oversoul. The Sanskrit word formusician is BHAGAVATHAR, “he who sings the praises of God.”

The SANKIRTANS or musical gatheringsare an effective form of yoga or spiritual discipline, necessitating deep concentration, intense absorption in theseed thought and sound. Because man himself is an expression of the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect on him, offering a way to remembrance of his divine origin.

*Note: Awakening of the cerebrospinal centers (chakras/astral lotuses) is the sacred goal of the yogi. Western exegetes have not understood that the New Testament chapter of Revelation contains the symbolic exposition of a yogic science, taught to John and other close disciples by Jesus. John mentions the "mystery of the seven stars" (Rev. 1:20) and the "seven churches"; these symbols refer to the seven lotuses of light, described in yoga treatises as the seven "trap doors" in the cerebrospinal axis. Through these divinely planned exits, the yogi, by scientific meditation, escapes from the bodily prison and resumes his true identity as Spirit. The seventh center, the "thousand petaled lotus" in the brain is the throne of the Infinite Consciousness. In the state of divine illumination the yogi is saie to perceive Brahma or God as Padmaja, "the One born of the lotus."

Do - green/peacock

Re - red/skylark

Mi - gold/goat

Fa - yellowish white/heron

Sol - black/nightingale

La - yellow/horse

Si - all colors/elephant

Compiled by Anne Wilkerson Allen/ 

Found today via Facebook Notes by Anne Wilkerson Allen/

Resource for this information found: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healingspiral.com%2FYogananda-Autobiography.pdf&h=2AQFrdjQ6 via Anne Wilkerson Allen