For most Americans, Indian music is one of those fads that went out with the '60s. It conjures up images of burning incense, Sri Chinmoy and vegetarian snack bars. Most Americans' exposure to it is through Western popular musicians.

The Rolling Stones, Richie Havens and the Beatles used sitars for an exotic flair. Jazz musicians John McLaughlin and John Coltrane, attracted to Indian music's minor keys and improvisations, extracted aspects of its theory (quarter tones, complicated 17-beat rhythms, a constant drone) into their musical structures. The result is an innovative, unique music style that fuses Eastern and Western cultures.

The problem with such a style is that American audiences comprehend only the diluted version of a pure art form. There are Indian musicians in the U.S., such as sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarodist Ali Akbar Khan, who play unadulterated classical Hindustani music. But they seem more concerned with commercial success than with upholding the ancient secular and philosophical traditions that are an integral part of Indian classical music.

Many Indian musicians who come to the U.S. become intrigued with the plastic milk and honey they find here. As a result, their art is compromised by their materialistic lifestyle, and ultimately they have lowered their musical standards.

The loss of old traditions among the well-known Indian artists in this country makes Vilayat Khan's visit to Harvard last weekend an especially important event. Khan, one of India's most prominent sitarists, had never visited this country before. Although many authorities consider him the world's greatest living sitarist, he dislikes publicity and giving concert tours, and has not become very well-known outside of the Indian subcontinent. His lecture-demonstration at the Cabot Hall living room on Friday and his concert at Jordan Hall in Boston on Saturday were rare opportunities for Americans to experience Khan's virtuoso technique and original style.

Classical Indian music is connected deeply with the Hindu religion in which it was born. According to legend, several yogis created the music 4000 years ago. They devised a musical system whereby each note symbolized a feeling and part of the body. The music's purpose was utter self-realization, to be one with God.

It was a mystical way to understand the universe's infiniteness. The vogis assigned each raga (a musical composition based on a scale) to a time of day, year and mood. To many Western listeners, the music seems monotonous because its patterns and melodies change so subtly. Unlike Western music, the purpose is to express one constant mood.

The music is steeped in symbolic rituals. A student's guru is more than his teacher--he is a paternalistic spiritual guide. In the student's initiation ceremony, a string is tied around his wrist to indicate devotion to his guru. In addition, the soles of one's feet are considered unclean; it is forbidden to touch instruments with them. Fifteen hours of practice each day is not considered too rigorous.

It was in such a rigidly structured environment that Vilayat Khan learned his art. The sixth generation of a family of celebrated musicians, he was born in 1924 in the town of Gouripur, located in Bangladesh. He gave his first concert at the age of seven, and made his first recording in his early teens. His reputation now is equivalent to that of Pablo Casals in the West.

Vilayat Khan's humility is the first thing one notices about him. A shy man nervously smoking a clove cigarette, he does not fit one's image of a world-esteemed recording artist. In his disregard for fame and commercialism, he is a musician in the traditional Indian mold. He does not enjoy performing for others, but for his own fulfillment.

For Khan, music is "nada Brahma" (sound is God). Playing in front of a large audience is a traumatic ordeal for him. He says, "The kind of person I am, so nervous. Every day I become more nervous. I have no confidence in my music. When I find out after a concert I did superbly, I am surprised. It is like I am a dummy with the sitar and God played for me."

During his lecture demonstration at South House Friday, Khan's discomfort was evident. After playing a 40-minute raga, he looked around the room like a bewildered child, at a loss for words, waiting for someone to relieve him quickly and take him off the stage. At a reception held for him after the concert, he exhibited the same social awkwardness, huddling in a corner of the couch, silent except when spoken to. Unlike Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, who thrive on these liquor-dominated social events, Khan seemed embarrassed.

"I have no time for social life, publicity, selling my own ticket in the hall. I do not have the courage. I prefer to keep quiet and live my life in the countryside."

Khan lives a reclusive life with his family and the few students who study with him, on his estate in northern India at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains. One of his favorite topics is his home-grown produce and simple rural lifestyle.

This desire for a private existence away from the commercial eye has been shown in his refusal to play for radio and television, and in his declining the Padma Shri and Padma Vibhusan Awards in 1964 and 1968. The awards are the highest distinctions the Indian government pays to Indian artists.