This monumental treatise from the 13th century sums up and organizes what had gone before, and in doing so provides both master plan and basic topics for subsequent musicological work, even to the present day. The combination of Devanagarf text running concurrently with English translation, commentary, and footnotes, makes the work very convenient. This translation is more devoted to a direct explication of Sarngadeva's verses. Its guiding principles are two.
First, terms and ideas in the treatise are set in the larger general frame of Indian Sanskritic culture - as for instance a presentation of the Tantric metaphysics behind the doctrine of sound which Sarngadeva took over and elaborated from Matanga's Brhaddesi. Second, complex technical principles are explicated in full - as for instance a demonstration of how to work with the 5040 permutations of kuta-tana "note-series" as Sarngadeva all too briefly set them forth.
The work fulfils the urgent need for a standard and authentic work on the theory and practice of ancient Indian music in English. The translation provides English equivalents for technical terms, makes constant parenthetical reference to Sanskrit originals in transliteration. Contains a detailed word index, with multiple senses distinguished, and a glossary.