CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
North and South India differ largely in a multitude of things. The north is the land of the fighting races and has the large towns and cities of India with their keen intellectual and commercial life. The south is the land of peaceful villages, nestling among green fields and gardens, inhabited by a conservative and peace-loving people who are contented with a little. The south was far away from the battlefields of Empire until the time of the British; and so has passed through a more peaceful evolution and has clung more closely to the old ways. When the Muhammadan invasions overwhelmed the cities of the North, the sages and seers fled to the forests of the South, where they were safe from harm and were welcomed by the cultured Dravidians.
These differences are reflected in the music of the North and of the South, though we must not commit the mistake of thinking of these as distinct types of music. There is one Indian music, though there are many ways of working it out; and these all group themselves under the Northern and Southern schools. Distinguished as the Northern or Hindustani school and the Southern or Carnatic school, both are yet based on the principles stated in the ancient Sanskrit treatises on music.
The student of India will find in the same way one India which speaks again and again as he travels from North to South. The atmosphere of mystical devotion and of submission to what is looked upon as the divine will is found in all religious hearts; the one treasure-store of
