And if ever this teaching was worked out
to perfection it was in the times of the Rishis, our philosophers
and saints, who left to us the Vedas."
"Now, I think I begin to understand the origin of all the mythological
fables of the Greek antiquity," thoughtfully said the colonel; "the
syrinx of Pan, his pipe of seven reeds, the fauns, the satyrs, and
the lyre of Orpheus himself. The ancient Greeks knew little about
harmony; and the rhythmical declamations of their dramas, which
probably never reached the pathos of the simplest of modern recitals,
could hardly suggest to them the idea of the magic lyre of Orpheus.
I feel strongly inclined to believe what was written by some of our
great philologists: Orpheus must be an emigrant from India; his
very name [greek script], or [greek script], shows that, even amongst
the tawny Greeks, he was remarkably dark. This was the opinion of
Lempriere and others."
"Some day this opinion may become a certainty. There is not the
slightest doubt that the purest and the highest of all the musical
forms of antiquity belongs to India. All our legends ascribe magic
powers to music; it is a gift and a science coming straight from
the gods. As a rule, we ascribe all our arts to divine revelation,
but music stands at the head of everything else. The invention of
the vina, a kind of lute, belongs to Narada, the son of Brahma.
You will probably laugh at me if I tell you that our ancient priests,
whose duty it was to sing during the sacrifices, were able to produce
phenomena that could not but be considered by the ignorant as signs
from supernatural powers; and this, remember, without a shadow of
trickery, but simply with the help of their perfect knowledge of
nature and certain combinations well known to them.
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