ABSTRACT
Hindu philosophy, which so encompasses all things Indian, influenced totally–quite totally–all the principles of aesthetics upon which the arts were founded, so long ago that one forgets the physical impact of such a long, unbroken thread of continuous tradition. Indian musicians of all kinds and calibres spend three or four months teaching in and touring America, and American students by the score can be seen boarding Bombay planes in dhotis and kurtas, carrying sitars and sarods and tablas. The irony is that to the trained musician, Indian music is no longer as strange as it was. We can only become aware of the inward exploration of Indian music if we comprehend the metaphysical urges that are so part and parcel of the thinking of each individual Asian. The Indian musician has also discarded the solid, the representational, narrative in order to concentrate his efforts on the inner search into the nature of sentiment, in the true sense of the word.
