music and musical instruments: Asia and the Pacific modern China Ancient qin were only about one-third the size of modern ones and were played with open strings The modern form of the qin is believed to have been invented during the Han Dynasty According to myth, the qin was invented around 3000 b.c.e by the legendary kings Huang Di, Fu Xi, and Shennong; the tale says that the first qin had only five strings and that two more were added later Actual historical mentions of the qin date to about 1000 b.c.e., and archaeologists have found qin in tombs that date to about 500 b.c.e Other ancient stringed instruments included the pipa, a four-stringed fretted lute; the ruan, a four-stringed lute with a round body resembling a banjo; and the konghou, or harp, invented around 600 b.c.e Bowed fiddles (stringed instruments played with a bow instead of by plucking) were invented in Persia around 1000 b.c.e., and travelers in central Asia carried them east along the Silk Road The Mongols developed this design into several types of bowed instruments called huqin, a name meaning “barbarian instrument” in Chinese During the Han Dynasty, Chinese music was heavily influenced by the music of the Mongols and other peoples of central Asia, and Chinese musicians adopted some central Asian instruments, such as the morin khuur, a fiddle played with a bow of horsehair by Mongol horse herders During the Song Dynasty (420–479 c.e.) Chinese musicians began playing the erhu, a two-stringed bowed fiddle that was played sitting down as the musician held the base of the instrument on his knee Music was widely performed and sung in India by the time people began writing down the Vedas, the oldest Hindu texts, starting between 2000 and 1500 b.c.e Much of Indian music had a religious purpose The Vedas were transmitted orally through chanting Priests intoned sacred hymns in a musical style with notes associated with particular syllables and a prescribed rhythm Often groups of priests and believers would chant mantras (sacred words or phrases) together; a leader would call out the words and tune, and the group would repeat the mantra after him According to Hindu doctrine, singing the correct musical notes was essential to summoning the spiritual power of the words Th is style of vocal music was called Carnatic music and was the predominant musical form in all of India from about 2000 b.c.e until the end of the ancient period Indian people also played instruments to accompany vocal chants The main instruments were the flute, temple bells, and several stringed instruments, such as the sarod, which resembled the guitar Ancient Japanese people developed a complex musical tradition To the Japanese, poetry and songs were closely linked and in some cases indistinguishable Japanese musicians recited or chanted poems to a musical accompaniment on a stringed instrument, a flute, or a drum The Japanese divided their music into categories, such as court music, military music, and popular music Listening to a particular style of music evoked for them the culture from which that music originated 767 Much of what historians know about Japanese music comes from songs and poems from the later Nara Period (645–710 c.e.), which scholars have used to reconstruct some ancient Japanese musical principles Archaeologists have found statues of musicians dating to the ancient Jōmon (ca 13,000–ca 300 b.c.e.) and Yayoi (ca 300 b.c.e.–ca 300 c.e.) periods, but Japanese musicians of these periods did not write down any of their musical pieces The Nara Period texts Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) and Nihon shoki (The Chronicles of Japan) were the first recorded archives of Japanese history; these documents contain many songs of ancient origin By the time scholars started writing about music, they had a well-established body of work to describe, which means that modern historians can surmise a fair amount about ancient Japanese music that predated the sixth century c.e The evidence for ancient Korean music is fragmentary and comes mostly from Chinese sources Korean had both formal court music, performed at seasonal festivals and ceremonies, and more casual folk music, played and Red sandstone railing pillar in the form of a flute player (second century c.e.), Mathura, northern India (© The Trustees of the British Museum)