Dattilam

Home > Kalakosa > Kalamulasastra > List of Books > Dattilam

DATTILAM
(KMS No. 2)

Edited and translated by MUKUND LATH

1988, xvii+236pp., textual notes., com., appen., bibl., indexes, ISBN: 81-208-0586-0, Rs 300 (HB)

The Dattila, ascribed to Dattila Muni, is a remarkable treatise from the earliest known period of systematic writing on music in India. The work can be placed in the same period as that of the available recension of the Natyasastra of Bharata Muni (c.1st cent. AD) and it presents a well developed sastric tradition of analytical thinking on music.

The treatise is devoted to the description of gandharva, a sacred corpus of music, derived from the still more ancient saman, the sacred Vedic form. Gandharva was also the source of later musical forms from which the present forms have descended.As a text the Dattila is not important merely in the historical context but also as a text of perennial significance, for it articulates a framework and approach in musicology by which our understanding of musical forms is still formed. This edition of the work presents the only available manuscript of the text, along with its translation and a commentary.

MUKUND LATH is a historian, teaching in the Department of History and Indian Culture in the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He has had an interest in music since his childhood and is a disciple of Pandit Jasraj. He is interested in the theory and history of Indian Music and his study of the Dattilam (1978) has been widely acclaimed among musicologists and scholars all over the world. His other works include an English translation of the kalpasutra, and a study and translation of the Ardha-kathanaka published under the title Half a Tale.



	[ Home \| Search \| Contact Us \| Index ]
	[ List of Books \| Kalatattvakosa \| Kalamulasastra \| Kalasamalocana ]

Copyright IGNCAŠ 1988 Co-published by IGNCA and Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 41 U.A. Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi - 110 007 Email: gloryindia@poboxes.com mlbd@vsnl.com