When evening began to draw on, we were driving beneath the trees of a
wild jungle; arriving soon after at a large lake, we left the carriages.
The shores were overgrown with reeds--not the reeds that answer our
European notions, but rather such as Gulliver was likely to meet with in
his travels to Brobdingnag. The place was perfectly deserted, but we saw
a boat fastened close to the land. We had still about an hour and a
half of daylight before us, and so we quietly sat down on some ruins and
enjoyed the splendid view, whilst the servants of the Takur transported
our bags, boxes and bundles of rugs from the carriages to the ferry
boat. Mr. Y---- was preparing to paint the picture before us, which
indeed was charming.
"Don't be in a hurry to take down this view," said Gulab-Sing. "In half
an hour we shall be on the islet, where the view is still lovelier. We
may spend there the night and tomorrow morning as well."
"I am afraid it will be too dark in an hour," said Mr. Y----, opening
his color box. "And as for tomorrow, we shall probably have to start
very early."
"Oh, no! there is not the slightest need to start early. We may even
stay here part of the afternoon. From here to the railway station it is
only three hours, and the train only leaves for J ubbulpore at eight
in the evening. And do you know," added the Takur, smiling in his usual
mysterious way, "I am going to treat you to a concert. Tonight you shall
be witness of a very interesting natural phenomenon connected with this
island."
We all pricked up our ears with curiosity.
"Do you mean that island there? and do you really think we must go?"
asked the colonel. "Why should not we spend the night here, where we are
so deliciously cool, and where..."
"Where the forest swarms with playful leopards, and the reeds shelter
snug family parties of the serpent race, were you going to say,
colonel?" interrupted the Babu, with a broad grin. "Don't you admire
this merry gathering, for instance? Look at them! There is the father
and the mother, uncles, aunts, and children.... I am sure I could point
out even a mother-in-law."
Miss X---- looked in the direction he indicated and shrieked, till all
the echoes of the forest groaned in answer. Not farther than three steps
from her there were at least forty grown up serpents and baby snakes.
They amused themselves by practising somersaults, coiled up, then
straightened again and interlaced their tails, presenting to our dilated
eyes a picture of perfect innocence and primitive contentment. Miss
X---- could not stand it any longer and fled to the carriage, whence she
showed us a pale, horrified face. The Takur, who had arranged himself
comfortably beside Mr. Y---- in order to watch the progress of his
paint-ing, left his seat and looked attentively at the dangerous group,
quietly smoking his gargari--Rajput narghile--the while.
"If you do not stop screaming you will attract all the wild animals of
the forest in another ten minutes," said he. "None of you have anything
to fear. If you do not excite an animal he is almost sure to leave you
alone, and most probably will run away from you."
With these words he lightly waved his pipe in the direction of the
serpentine family-party. A thunderbolt falling in their midst could not
have been more effectual. The whole living mass looked stunned for a
moment, and then rapidly disappeared among the reeds with loud hissing
and rustling.
"Now this is pure mesmerism, I declare," said the colonel, on whom not a
gesture of the Takur was lost. "How did you do it, Gulab-Sing? Where did
you learn this science?"
"They were simply frightened away by the sudden movement of my chibook,
and there was no science and no mesmerism about it. Probably by this
fashionable modern word you mean what we Hindus call vashi-karana
vidya--that is to say, the science of charming people and animals by the
force of will. However, as I have already said, this has nothing to do
with what I did."
"But you do not deny, do you, that you have studied this science and
possess this gift?"
"Of course I don't. Every Hindu of my sect is bound to study the
mysteries of physiology and psychology amongst other secrets left to
us by our ancestors. But what of that? I am very much afraid, my dear
colonel," said the Takur with a quiet smile, "that you are rather
inclined to view the simplest of my acts through a mystical prism.
Narayan has been telling you all kinds of things about me behind my
back.... Now, is it not so?"
And he looked at Narayan, who sat at his feet, with an indescribable
mixture of fondness and reproof. The Dekkan colossus dropped his eyes
and remained silent.
"You have guessed rightly," absently answered Mr. Y----, busy over his
drawing apparatus. "Narayan sees in you something like his late deity
Shiva; something just a little less than Parabrahm. Would you believe
it? He seriously assured us--in Nassik it was--that the Raj-Yogis, and
amongst them yourself--though I must own I still fail to understand what
a Raj-Yogi is, precisely--can force any one to see, not what is before
his eyes at the given moment, but what is only in the imagination of the
Raj-Yogi. If I remember rightly he called it Maya.... Now, this seemed
to me going a little too far!"
"Well! You did not believe, of course, and laughed at Narayan?" asked
the Takur, fathoming with his eyes the dark green deeps of the lake.
"Not precisely... Though, I dare say, I did just a little bit," went on
Mr. Y----, absently, being fully engrossed by the view, and trying to
fix his eyes on the most effective part of it. "I dare say I am too
scep-tical on this kind of question."
"And knowing Mr. Y---- as I do," said the colonel, I can add, for
my part, that even were any of these phenomena to happen to himself
personally, he, like Dr. Carpenter, would doubt his own eyes rather than
believe."
"What you say is a little bit exaggerated, but there is some truth in
it. Maybe I would not trust myself in such an occurrence; and I tell you
why. If I saw something that does not exist, or rather exists only for
me, logic would interfere. However objective my vision may be, before
believing in the materiality of a hallucination, I feel I am bound to
doubt my own senses and sanity.... Besides, what bosh all this is! As
if I ever will allow myself to believe in the reality of a thing that
I alone saw; which belief implies also the admission of somebody else
governing and dominating, for the time being, my optical nerves, as well
as my brains."
"However, there are any number of people, who do not doubt, because they
have had proof that this phenomenon really occurs," remarked the Takur,
in a careless tone, which showed he had not the slightest desire to
insist upon this topic.
However, this remark only increased Mr. Y----'s excitement.
"No doubt there are!" he exclaimed. "But what does that prove?
Besides them, there are equal numbers of people who believe in the
materialization of spirits. But do me the kindness of not including me
among them!"
"Don't you believe in animal magnetism?"
"To a certain extent, I do. If a person suffering from some contagious
illness can influence a person in good health, and make him ill, in his
turn, I suppose somebody else's overflow of health can also affect the
sick person, and, perhaps cure him. But between physiological contagion
and mesmeric influence there is a great gulf, and I don't feel inclined
to cross this gulf on the grounds of blind faith. It is perfectly
possible that there are instances of thought-transference in cases of
somnambulism, epilepsy, trance. I do not positively deny it, though I am
very doubtful. Mediums and clairvoyants are a sickly lot, as a rule. But
I bet you anything, a healthy man in perfectly normal conditions is not
to be influenced by the tricks of mesmerists. I should like to see a
magnetizer, or even a Raj-Yogi, inducing me to obey his will."
"Now, my dear fellow, you really ought not to speak so rashly," said the
colonel, who, till then, had not taken any part in the discussion.
"Ought I not? Don't take it into your head that it is mere boastfulness
on my part. I guarantee failure in my case, simply because every
renowned European mesmerist has tried his luck with me, without any
result; and that is why I defy the whole lot of them to try again, and
feel perfectly safe about it. And why a Hindu Raj-Yogi should succeed
where the strongest of European mesmerists failed, I do not quite
see...."
Mr. Y---- was growing altogether too excited, and the Takur dropped the
subject, and talked of something else.
For my part, I also feel inclined to deviate once more from my subject,
and give some necessary explanations.
Miss X---- excepted, none of our party had ever been numbered amongst
the spiritualists, least of all Mr. Y----. We Theosophists did not
believe in the playfulness of departed souls, though we admitted the
possibility of some mediumistic phenomena, while totally disagreeing
with the spiritualists as to the cause and point of view. Refusing to
believe in the interference, and even presence of the spirits, in the
so-called spiritualistic phenomena, we nevertheless believe in the
living spirit of man; we believe in the omnipotence of this spirit, and
in its natural, though benumbed capacities. We also believe that, when
incarnated, this spirit, this divine spark, may be apparently quenched,
if it is not guarded, and if the life the man leads is unfavorable
to its expansion, as it generally is; but, on the other hand, our
conviction is that human beings can develop their potential spiritual
powers; that, if they do, no phenomenon will be impossible for their
liberated wills, and that they will perform what, in the eyes of the
uninitiated, will be much more wondrous than the materialized forms of
the spiritualists. If proper training can render the muscular strength
ten times greater, as in the cases of renowned athletes, I do not see
why proper training should fail in the case of moral capacities. We
have also good grounds to believe that the secret of this proper
training--though unknown to, and denied by, European physiologists
and even psychologists--is known in some places in India, where its
knowledge is hereditary, and entrusted to few.
Mr. Y---- was a novice in our Society and looked with distrust even on
such phenomena as can be pro-duced by mesmerism. He had been trained
in the Royal Institute of British Architects, which he left with a
gold medal, and with a fund of scepticism that caused him to distrust
everything, en dehors des mathematiques pures. So that no wonder he lost
his temper when people tried to convince him that there existed things
which he was inclined to treat as "mere bosh and fables."
Now I return to my narrative.
The Babu and Mulji left us to help the servants to transport our luggage
to the ferry boat. The remainder of the party had grown very quiet and
silent. Miss X---- dozed peacefully in the carriage, forgetting her
recent fright. The colonel, stretched on the sand, amused himself by
throwing stones into the water. Narayan sat motionless, with his hands
round his knees, plunged as usual in the mute contemplation of Gulab
Lal-Sing. Mr. Y---- sketched hurriedly and diligently, only raising his
head from time to time to glance at the opposite shore, and knitting his
brow in a preoccupied way. The Takur went on smoking, and as for me, I
sat on my folding chair, looking lazily at everything round me, till my
eyes rested on Gulab-Sing, and were fixed, as if by a spell.
"Who and what is this mysterious Hindu?" I wondered in my uncertain
thoughts. "Who is this man, who unites in himself two such distinct
personalities: the one exterior, kept up for strangers, for the orld in
general, the other interior, moral and spiritual, shown only to a few
intimate friends? But even these intimate friends do they know much
beyond what is generally known? And what do they know? They see in him a
Hindu who differs very little from the rest of educated natives, perhaps
only in his perfect contempt for the social conventions of India and the
demands of Western civilization.... And that is all--unless I add that
he is known in Central India as a sufficiently wealthy man, and a Takur,
a feudal chieftain of a Raj, one of the hundreds of similar Rajes.
Besides, he is a true friend of ours, who offered us his protection
in our travels and volunteered to play the mediator between us and the
suspicious, uncommunicative Hindus. Beyond all this, we know absolutely
nothing about him. It is true, though, that I know a little more than
the others; but I have promised silence, and silent I shall be. But the
little I know is so strange, so unusual, that it is more like a dream
than a reality."
A good while ago, more than twenty-seven years, I met him in the house
of a stranger in England, whither he came in the company of a certain
dethroned Indian prince. Then our acquaintance was limited to two
conversations; their unexpectedness, their gravity, and even severity,
produced a strong impression on me then; but, in the course of time,
like many other things, they sank into oblivion and Lethe. About seven
years ago he wrote to me to America, reminding me of our conversation
and of a certain promise I had made. Now we saw each other once more in
India, his own country, and I failed to see any change wrought in his
appearance by all these long years. I was, and looked, quite young, when
I first saw him; but the passage of years had not failed to change me
into an old woman. As to him, he appeared to me twenty-seven years ago
a man of about thirty, and still looked no older, as if time were
powerless against him. In England, his striking beauty, especially his
extraordinary height and stature, together with his eccentric refusal to
be presented to the Queen--an honour many a high-born Hindu has sought,
coming over on purpose--excited the public notice and the attention of
the newspapers. The newspapermen of those days, when the influence of
Byron was still great, discussed the "wild Rajput" with untiring
pens, calling him "Raja-Misanthrope" and " Prince Jalma-Samson," and
in-venting fables about him all the time he stayed in England.
All this taken together was well calculated to fill me with consuming
curiosity, and to absorb my thoughts till I forgot every exterior
circumstance, sitting and staring at him in no wise less intensely than
Narayan.
I gazed at the remarkable face of Gulab-Lal-Sing with a mixed feeling of
indescribable fear and enthusiastic admiration; recalling the mysterious
death of the Karli tiger, my own miraculous escape a few hours ago in
Bagh, and many other incidents too many to relate. It was only a few
hours since he appeared to us in the morning, and yet what a number of
strange ideas, of puzzling occurrences, how many enigmas his presence
stirred in our minds! The magic circle of my revolving thought grew too
much for me. "What does all this mean!" I exclaimed to myself, trying
to shake off my torpor, and struggling to find words for my meditation.
"Who is this being whom I saw so many years ago, jubilant with manhood
and life, and now see again, as young and as full of life, only still
more austere, still more incomprehensible. After all, maybe it is his
brother, or even his son?" thought I, trying to calm myself, but with no
result. "No! there is no use doubting; it is he himself, it is the same
face, the same little scar on the left temple. But, as a quarter of a
century ago, so now: no wrinkles on those beautiful classic features;
not a white hair in this thick jet-black mane; and, in moments of
silence, the same expression of perfect rest on that face, calm as a
statue of living bronze. What a strange expression, and what a wonderful
Sphinx-like face!"
"Not a very brilliant comparison, my old friend!" suddenly spoke the
Takur, and a good-natured laughing note rung in his voice, whilst I
shuddered and grew red like a naughty schoolgirl. "This comparison is
so inaccurate that it decidedly sins against history in two important
points. Primo, the Sphinx is a lion; so am I, as indicates the word Sing
in my name; but the Sphinx is winged, and I am not. Secondo, the Sphinx
is a woman as well as a winged lion, but the Rajput Sinhas never had
anything effeminate in their characters. Besides, the Sphinx is the
daughter of Chimera, or Echidna, who were neither beautiful nor good;
and so you might have chosen a more flattering and a less inaccurate
comparison!"
I simply gasped in my utter confusion, and he gave vent to his
merriment, which by no means relieved me. "Shall I give you some good
advice?" continued Gulab-Sing, changing his tone for a more serious one.
"Don't trouble your head with such vain speculations. The day when this
riddle yields its solution, the Rajput Sphinx will not seek destruction
in the waves of the sea; but, believe me, it won't bring any profit to
the Russian Oedipus either. You already know every detail you ever will
learn. So leave the rest to our respective fates."
And he rose because the Babu and Mulji had informed us that the ferry
boat was ready to start, and were shouting and making signs to us to
hasten.
"Just let me finish," said Mr. Y----, "I have nearly done. Just an
additional touch or two."
"Let us see your work. Hand it round!" insisted the colonel and Miss
X----, who had just left her haven of refuge in the carriage, and joined
us still half asleep.
Mr. Y---- hurriedly added a few more touches to his drawing and rose to
collect his brushes and pencils.
We glanced at his fresh wet picture and opened our eyes in astonishment.
There was no lake on it, no woody shores, and no velvety evening mists
that covered the distant island at this moment. Instead of all this we
saw a charming sea view; thick clusters of shapely palm-trees scattered
over the chalky cliffs of the littoral; a fortress-like bungalow with
balconies and a flat roof, an elephant standing at its entrance, and a
native boat on the crest of a foaming billow.
"Now what is this view, sir?" wondered the colonel. "As if it was worth
your while to sit in the sun, and detain us all, to draw fancy pictures
out of your own head!"
"What on earth are you talking about?" exclaimed Mr. Y----. "Do you mean
to say you do not recognize the lake?"
"Listen to him--the lake! Where is the lake, if you please? Were you
asleep, or what?"
By this time all our party gathered round the colonel, who held the
drawing. Narayan uttered an exclamation, and stood still, the very image
of bewilderment past description.
"I know the place!" said he, at last. "This is Dayri--Bol, the country
house of the Takur-Sahib. I know it. Last year during the famine I lived
there for two months."
I was the first to grasp the meaning of it all, but something prevented
me from speaking at once.
At last Mr. Y---- finished arranging and packing his things, and
approached us in his usual lazy, careless way, but his face showed
traces of vexation. He was evidently bored by our persistency in seeing
a sea, where there was nothing but the corner of a lake. But, at the
first sight of his unlucky sketch, his countenance suddenly changed.
He grew so pale, and the expression of his face became so piteously
distraught that it was painful to see. He turned and returned the piece
of Bristol board, then rushed like a madman to his drawing portfolio and
turned the whole contents out, ransacking and scattering over the sand
hundreds of sketches and of loose papers. Evidently failing to find
what he was looking for, he glanced again at his sea-view, and suddenly
covering his face with his hands totally collapsed.
We all remained silent, exchanging glances of wonder and pity, and
heedless of the Takur, who stood on the ferry boat, vainly calling to us
to join him.
"Look here, Y----!" timidly spoke the kind-hearted colonel, as if
addressing a sick child. "Are you sure you remember drawing this view?"
Mr. Y---- did not give any answer, as if gathering strength and thinking
it over. After a few moments he answered in hoarse and tremulous tones:
"Yes, I do remember. Of course I made this sketch, but I made it from
nature. I painted only what I saw. And it is that very certainty that
upsets me so."
"But why should you be upset, my dear fellow? Collect yourself! What
happened to you is neither shameful nor dreadful. It is only the result
of the temporary influence of one dominant will over another, less
powerful. You simply acted under 'biological influence,' to use the
expression of Dr. Carpenter."
"That is exactly what I am most afraid of.... I remember everything now.
I have been busy over this view more than an hour. I saw it directly
I chose the spot, and seeing it all the while on the opposite shore I
could not suspect anything uncanny. I was perfectly conscious... or,
shall I say, I fancied I was conscious of putting down on paper what
everyone of you had before your eyes. I had lost every notion of the
place as I saw it before I began my sketch, and as I see it now.... But
how do you account for it? Good gracious! am I to believe that these
confounded Hindus really possess the mystery of this trick? I tell you,
colonel, I shall go mad if I don't understand it all!"
"No fear of that, Mr. Y----," said Narayan, with a triumphant twinkle in
his eyes. "You will simply lose the right to deny Yoga-Vidya, the great
ancient science of my country."
Mr. Y---- did not answer him. He made an effort to calm his feelings,
and bravely stepped on the ferry boat with firm foot. Then he sat down,
apart from us all, obstinately looking at the large surface of water
round us, and struggling to seem his usual self.
Miss X---- was the first to interrupt the silence.
"Ma chere!" said she to me in a subdued, but triumphant voice. "Ma
chere, Monsieur Y---- devient vraiment un medium de premiere force!"
In moments of great excitement she always addressed me in French. But
I also was too excited to control my feelings, and so I answered rather
unkindly:
"Please stop this nonsense, Miss X----. You know I don't believe in
spiritualism. Poor Mr. Y----, was not he upset?"
Receiving this rebuke and no sympathy from me, she could not think
of anything better than drawing out the Babu, who, for a wonder, had
managed to keep quiet till then.
"What do you say to all this? I for one am perfectly confident that no
one but the disembodied soul of a great artist could have painted that
lovely view. Who else is capable of such a wonderful achievement?"
"Why? The old gentleman in person. Confess that at the bottom of your
soul you firmly believe that the Hindus worship devils. To be sure it is
some deity of ours of this kind that had his august paw in the matter."
"Il est positivement malhonnete, ce Negre-la!" angrily muttered Miss
X----, hurriedly withdrawing from him.
The island was a tiny one, and so overgrown with tall reeds that, from
a distance, it looked like a pyramidal basket of verdure. With the
exception of a colony of monkeys, who bustled away to a few mango trees
at our approach, the place seemed uninhabited. In this virgin forest of
thick grass there was no trace of human life. Seeing the word grass the
reader must not forget that it is not the grass of Europe I mean; the
grass under which we stood, like insects under a rhubarb leaf, waved
its feathery many-colored plumes much above the head of Gulab-Sing
(who stood six feet and a half in his stockings), and of Narayan, who
measured hardly an inch less. From a distance it looked like a waving
sea of black, yellow, blue, and especially of rose and green. On
landing, we discovered that it consisted of separate thickets of
bamboos, mixed up with the gigantic sirka reeds, which rose as high as
the tops of the mangos.
It is impossible to imagine anything prettier and more graceful than the
bamboos and sirka. The isolated tufts of bamboos show, in spite of their
size, that they are nothing but grass, because the least gush of wind
shakes them, and their green crests begin to nod like heads adorned with
long ostrich plumes. There were some bamboos there fifty or sixty feet
high. From time to time we heard a light metallic rustle in the reeds,
but none of us paid much attention to it.
Whilst our coolies and servants were busy clearing a place for our
tents, pitching them and preparing the supper, we went to pay
our respects to the monkeys, the true hosts of the place. Without
exaggeration there were at least two hundred. While preparing for their
nightly rest the monkeys behaved like decorous and well-behaved people;
every family chose a separate branch and defended it from the intrusion
of strangers lodging on the same tree, but this defence never passed
the limits of good manners, and generally took the shape of threatening
grimaces. There were many mothers with babies in arms amongst them; some
of them treated the children tenderly, and lifted them cautiously,
with a perfectly human care; others, less thoughtful, ran up and
down, heedless of the child hanging at their breasts, preoccupied with
something, discussing something, and stopping every moment to quarrel
with other monkey ladies--a true picture of chatty old gossips on a
market day, repeated in the animal kingdom. The bachelors kept apart,
absorbed in their athletic exercises, performed for the most part
with the ends of their tails. One of them, especially, attracted our
attention by dividing his amusement between sauts perilleux and teasing
a respectable looking grandfather, who sat under a tree hugging two
little monkeys. Swinging backward and forward from the branch, the
bachelor jumped at him, bit his ear playfully and made faces at him,
chattering all the time. We cautiously passed from one tree to another,
afraid of frightening them away; but evidently the years spent by them
with the fakirs, who left the island only a year ago, had accustomed
them to human society. They were sacred monkeys, as we learned, and so
they had nothing to fear from men. They showed no signs of alarm at our
approach, and, having received our greeting, and some of them a piece of
sugar-cane, they calmly stayed on their branch-thrones, crossing their
arms, and looking at us with a good deal of dignified contempt in their
intelligent hazel eyes.
The sun had set, and we were told that the supper was ready. We all
turned "homewards," except the Babu. The main feature of his character,
in the eyes of orthodox Hindus, being a tendency to blasphemy, he could
never resist the temptation to justify their opinion of him. Climbing up
a high branch he crouched there, imitating every gesture of the monkeys
and answering their threatening grimaces by still uglier ones, to the
unconcealed disgust of our pious coolies.
As the last golden ray disappeared on the horizon, a gauze-like veil
of pale lilac fell over the world. But as every moment decreased the
transparency of this tropical twilight, the tint gradually lost its
softness and became darker and darker. It looked as if an invisible
painter, unceasingly moving his gigantic brush, swiftly laid one coat
of paint over the other, ever changing the exquisite background of our
islet. The phosphoric candles of the fireflies began to twinkle here and
there, shining brightly against the black trunks of the trees, and lost
again on the silvery background of opalescent evening sky. But in a
few minutes more thousands of these living sparks, precursors of Queen
Night, played round us, pouring like a golden cascade over the trees,
and dancing in the air above the grass and the dark lake.
And behold! here is the queen in person. Noiselessly descending upon
earth, she reassumes her rights. With her approach, rest and peace
spread over us; her cool breath calms the activities of day. Like a fond
mother, she sings a lullaby to nature, lovingly wrapping her in her soft
black mantle; and, when everything is asleep, she watches over nature's
dozing powers till the first streaks of dawn.
Nature sleeps; but man is awake, to be witness to the beauties of this
solemn evening hour. Sitting round the fire we talked, lowering our
voices as if afraid of awaking night. We were only six; the colonel,
the four Hindus and myself, because Mr. Y---- and Miss X---- could
not resist the fatigue of the day and had gone to sleep directly after
supper.
Snugly sheltered by the high "grass," we had not the heart to spend this
magnificent night in prosaic sleeping. Besides, we were waiting for the
"concert" which the Takur had promised us.
"Be patient," said he, "the musicians will not appear before the moon
rises."
The fickle goddess was late; she kept us waiting till after ten o'clock.
Just before her arrival, when the horizon began to grow perceptibly
brighter, and the opposite shore to assume a milky, silvery tint, a
sudden wind rose. The waves, that had gone quietly to sleep at the feet
of gigantic reeds, awoke and tossed uneasily, till the reeds swayed
their feathery heads and murmured to each other as if taking counsel
together about some thing that was going to happen.... Suddenly, in the
general stillness and silence, we heard again the same musical notes,
which we had passed unheeded, when we first reached the island, as if
a whole orchestra were trying their musical instruments before playing
some great composition. All round us, and over our heads, vibrated
strings of violins, and thrilled the separate notes of a flute. In a
few moments came another gust of wind tearing through the reeds, and the
whole island resounded with the strains of hundreds of Aeolian harps.
And suddenly there began a wild unceasing symphony. It swelled in the
surrounding woods, filling the air with an indescribable melody. Sad and
solemn were its prolonged strains; they resounded like the arpeggios of
some funeral march, then, changing into a trembling thrill, they shook
the air like the song of a nightingale, and died away in a long sigh.
They did not quite cease, but grew louder again, ringing like hundreds
of silver bells, changing from the heartrending howl of a wolf, deprived
of her young, to the precipitate rhythm of a gay tarantella, forgetful
of every earthly sorrow; from the articulate song of a human voice, to
the vague majestic accords of a violoncello, from merry child's laughter
to angry sobbing. And all this was repeated in every direction by
mocking echo, as if hundreds of fabulous forest maidens, disturbed in
their green abodes, answered the appeal of the wild musical Saturnalia.
The colonel and I glanced at each other in our great astonishment.
"How delightful! What witchcraft is this?" we exclaimed at the same
time.
The Hindus smiled, but did not answer us. The Takur smoked his gargari
as peacefully as if he was deaf.
There was a short interval, after which the invisible orchestra
started again with renewed energy. The sounds poured and rolled in
unrestrainable, overwhelming waves. We had never heard anything like
this inconceivable wonder. Listen! A storm in the open sea, the wind
tearing through the rigging, the swish of the maddened waves rushing
over each other, or the whirling snow wreaths on the silent steppes.
Suddenly the vision is changed; now it is a stately cathedral and the
thundering strains of an organ rising under its vaults. The powerful
notes now rush together, now spread out through space, break off,
intermingle, and become entangled, like the fantastic melody of a
delirious fever, some musical phantasy born of the howling and whistling
of the wind.
Alas! the charm of these sounds is soon exhausted, and you begin to feel
that they cut like knives through your brain. A horrid fancy haunts our
bewildered heads; we imagine that the invisible artists strain our
own veins, and not the strings of imaginary violins; their cold breath
freezes us, blowing their imaginary trumpets, shaking our nerves and
impeding our breathing.
"For God's sake stop this, Takur! This is really too much," shouted
the colonel, at the end of his patience, and covering his ears with his
hands. "Gulab-Sing, I tell you you must stop this."
The three Hindus burst out laughing; and even the grave face of the
Takur lit up with a merry smile. "Upon my word," said he, "do you really
take me for the great Parabrahm? Do you think it is in my power to stop
the wind, as if I were Marut, the lord of the storms, in person. Ask for
something easier than the instantaneous uprooting of all these bamboos."
"I beg your pardon; I thought these strange sounds also were some kind
of psychologic influence."
"So sorry to disappoint you, my dear colonel; but you really must think
less of psychology and electrobiology. This develops into a mania
with you. Don't you see that this wild music is a natural acoustic
phenomenon? Each of the reeds around us--and there are thousands on this
island--contains a natural musical instrument; and the musician, Wind,
comes here daily to try his art after nightfall--especially during the
last quarter of the moon."
"The wind!" murmured the colonel. "Oh, yes! But this music begins to
change into a dreadful roar. Is there no way out of it?"
"I at least cannot help it. But keep up your patience, you will soon get
accustomed to it. Besides, there will be intervals when the wind falls."
We were told that there are many such natural orchestras in India. The
Brahmans know well their wonderful properties, and calling this kind of
reed vina-devi, the lute of the gods, keep up the popular superstition
and say the sounds are divine oracles. The sirka grass and the bamboos
always shelter a number of tiny beetles, which make considerable holes
in the hollow reeds. The fakirs of the idol-worshipping sects add art to
this natural beginning and work the plants into musical instruments. The
islet we visited bore one of the most celebrated vina-devis, and so, of
course, was proclaimed sacred.
"Tomorrow morning," said the Takur, "you will see what deep knowledge
of all the laws of acoustics was in the possession of the fakirs. They
enlarged the holes made by the beetle according to the size of the reed,
sometimes shaping it into a circle, sometimes into an oval. These
reeds in their present state can be justly considered as the finest
illustration of mechanism applied to acoustics. However, this is not to
be wondered at, because some of the most ancient Sanskrit books about
music minutely describe these laws, and mention many musical instruments
which are not only forgotten, but totally incomprehensible in our days."
All this was very interesting, but still, disturbed by the din, we could
not listen attentively.
"Don't worry yourselves," said the Takur, who soon understood our
uneasiness, in spite of our attempts at composure. "After midnight the
wind will fall, and you will sleep undisturbed. However, if the too
close neighborhood of this musical grass is too much for you, we may as
well go nearer to the shore. There is a spot from which you can see the
sacred bonfires on the opposite shore."
We followed him, but while walking through the thickets of reeds we did
not leave off our conversation. "How is it that the Brahmans manage to
keep up such an evident cheat?" asked the colonel. "The stupidest man
cannot fail to see in the long run who made the holes in the reeds, and
how they come to give forth music."
"In America stupid men may be as clever as that; I don't know," answered
the Takur, with a smile; "but not in India. If you took the trouble to
show, to describe, and to explain how all this is done to any Hindu, be
he even comparatively educated, he will still see nothing. He will tell
you that he knows as well as yourself that the holes are made by the
beetles and enlarged by the fakirs. But what of that? The beetle in his
eyes is no ordinary beetle, but one of the gods incarnated in the insect
for this special purpose; and the fakir is a holy ascetic, who has acted
in this case by the order of the same god. That will be all you will
ever get out of him. Fanaticism and superstition took centuries to
develop in the masses, and now they are as strong as a necessary
physiological function. Kill these two and the crowd will have its eyes
opened, and will see truth, but not before. As to the Brahmans, India
would have been very fortunate if everything they have done were as
harmless. Let the crowds adore the muse and the spirit of harmony. This
adoration is not so very wicked, after all."
The Babu told us that in Dehra-Dun this kind of reed is planted on
both sides of the central street, which is more than a mile long. The
buildings prevent the free action of the wind, and so the sounds are
heard only in time of east wind, which is very rare. A year ago Swami
Dayanand happened to camp off Dehra-Dun. Crowds of people gathered round
him every evening. One day he delivered a very powerful sermon against
superstition. Tired out by this long, energetic speech, and, besides,
being a little unwell, the Swami sat down on his carpet and shut his
eyes to rest as soon as the sermon was finished. But the crowd, seeing
him so unusually quiet and silent, all at once imagined that his soul,
abandoning him in this prostration, entered the reeds--that had just
begun to sing their fantastical rhapsody--and was now conversing
with the gods through the bamboos. Many a pious man in this gathering,
anxious to show the teacher in what fulness they grasped his teaching
and how deep was their respect for him personally, knelt down before the
singing reeds and performed a most ardent puja.
"What did the Swami say to that?"
"He did not say anything.... Your question shows that you don't know
our Swami yet," laughed the Babu. "He simply jumped to his feet, and,
uprooting the first sacred reed on his way, gave such a lively European
bakshish (thrashing) to the pious puja-makers, that they instantly took
to their heels. The Swami ran after them for a whole mile, giving it hot
to everyone in his way. He is wonderfully strong is our Swami, and no
friend to useless talk, I can tell you."
"But it seems to me," said the colonel, "that that is not the right way
to convert crowds. Dispersing and frightening is not converting."
"Not a bit of it. The masses of our nation require peculiar
treatment.... Let me tell you the end of this story. Disappointed with
the effect of his teachings on the inhabitants of Dehra-Dun, Dayanand
Saraswati went to Patna, some thirty-five or forty miles from there. And
before he had even rested from the fatigues of his journey, he had to
receive a deputation from Dehra-Dun, who on their knees entreated him to
come back. The leaders of this deputation had their backs covered with
bruises, made by the bamboo of the Swami! They brought him back with no
end of pomp, mounting him on an elephant and spreading flowers all along
the road. Once in Dehra-Dun, he immediately proceeded to found a Samaj,
a society as you would say, and the Dehra-Dun Arya-Samaj now counts
at least two hundred members, who have renounced idol-worship and
superstition for ever."
"I was present," said Mulji, "two years ago in Benares, when Dayanand
broke to pieces about a hundred idols in the bazaar, and the same stick
served him to beat a Brahman with. He caught the latter in the hollow
idol of a huge Shiva. The Brahman was quietly sitting there talking to
the devotees in the name, and so to speak, with the voice of Shiva, and
asking money for a new suit of clothes the idol wanted."
"Is it possible the Swami had not to pay for this new achievement of
his?"
"Oh, yes. The Brahman dragged him into a law court, but the judge had to
pronounce the Swami in the right, because of the crowd of sympathizers
and defenders who followed the Swami. But still he had to pay for all
the idols he had broken. So far so good; but the Brahman died of cholera
that very night, and of course, the opposers of the reform said his
death was brought on by the sorcery of Dayanand Saraswati. This vexed us
all a good deal."
"Now, Narayan, it is your turn," said I. Have you no story to tell us
about the Swami? And do you not look up to him as to your Guru?"
"I have only one Guru and only one God on earth, as in heaven," answered
Narayan; and I saw that he was very unwilling to speak. "And while I
live, I shall not desert them."
"I know who is his Guru and his God!" thoughtlessly exclaimed the
quick-tongued Babu. "It is the Takur--Sahib. In his person both coincide
in the eyes of Narayan."
"You ought to be ashamed to talk such nonsense, Babu," coldly remarked
Gulab-Sing. "I do not think myself worthy of being anybody's Guru. As to
my being a god, the mere words are a blasphemy, and I must ask you not
to repeat them... Here we are!" added he more cheerfully, pointing to
the carpets spread by the servants on the shore, and evidently desirous
of changing the topic. "Let us sit down!"
We arrived at a small glade some distance from the bamboo forest.
The sounds of the magic orchestra reached us still, but considerably
weakened, and only from time to time. We sat to the windward of the
reeds, and so the harmonic rustle we heard was exactly like the low
tones of an Aeolian harp, and had nothing disagreeable in it. On the
contrary, the distant murmur only added to the beauty of the whole scene
around us.
We sat down, and only then I realized how tired and sleepy I was--and
no wonder, after being on foot since four in the morning, and after all
that had happened to me on this memorable day. The gentlemen went
on talking, and I soon became so absorbed in my thoughts that their
conversation reached me only in fragments.
"Wake up, wake up!" repeated the colonel, shaking me by the hand. "The
Takur says that sleeping in the moonlight will do you harm."
I was not asleep; I was simply thinking, though ex-hausted and sleepy.
But wholly under the charm of this enchanting night, I could not shake
off my drowsiness, and did not answer the colonel.
"Wake up, for God's sake! Think of what you are risking!" continued the
colonel. "Wake up and look at the landscape before us, at this wonderful
moon. Have you ever seen anything to equal this magnificent panorama?"
I looked up, and the familiar lines of Pushkin about the golden moon of
Spain flashed into my mind. And indeed this was a golden moon. At this
moment she radiated rivers of golden light, poured forth liquid gold
into the tossing lake at our feet, and sprinkled with golden dust every
blade of grass, every pebble, as far as the eye could reach, all round
us. Her disk of silvery yellow swiftly glided upward amongst the big
stars, on their dark blue ground.
Many a moonlit night have I seen in India, but every time the impression
was new and unexpected. It is no use trying to describe these feerique
pictures, they cannot be represented either in words or in colors on
canvas, they can only be felt--so fugitive is their grandeur and beauty!
In Europe, even in the south, the full moon eclipses the largest and
most brilliant of the stars, so that hardly any can be seen for a
considerable distance round her. In India it is quite the contrary; she
looks like a huge pearl surrounded by diamonds, rolling on a blue velvet
ground. Her light is so intense that one can read a letter written in
small handwriting; one even can perceive the different greens of the
trees and bushes--a thing unheard of in Europe. The effect of the moon
is especially charming on tall palm trees. From the first moment of her
appearance her rays glide over the tree downwards, beginning with
the feathery crests, then lighting up the scales of the trunk, and
descending lower and lower till the whole palm is literally bathing in
a sea of light. Without any metaphor the surface of the leaves seems
to tremble in liquid silver all the night long, whereas their under
surfaces seem blacker and softer than black velvet. But woe to the
thoughtless novice, woe to the mortal who gazes at the Indian moon with
his head uncovered. It is very dangerous not only to sleep under, but
even to gaze at the chaste Indian Diana. Fits of epilepsy, madness
and death are the punishments wrought by her treacherous arrows on the
modern Acteon who dares to contemplate the cruel daughter of Latona in
her full beauty. The Hindus never go out in the moonlight without their
turbans or pagris. Even our invulnerable Babu always wore a kind of
white cap during the night.
As soon as the reeds concert reaches its height and the inhabitants of
the neighborhood hear the distant "voices of the gods," whole villages
flock together to the bank of the lake, light bonfires, and perform
their pujas. The fires lit up one after the other, and the black
silhouettes of the worshippers moved about on the opposite shore. Their
sacred songs and loud exclamations, "Hari, Hari, Maha-deva!" resounded
with a strange loudness and a wild emphasis in the pure air of the
night. And the reeds, shaken in the wind, answered them with tender
musical phrases. The whole stirred a vague feeling of uneasiness in
my soul, a strange intoxication crept gradually over me, and in this
enchanting place the idol-worship of these passionate, poetical souls,
sunk in dark ignorance, seemed more intelligible and less repulsive. A
Hindu is a born mystic, and the luxuriant nature of his country has made
of him a zealous pantheist.
Sounds of alguja, a kind of Pandean pipe with seven openings, struck
our attention; their music was wafted by the wind quite distinctly from
somewhere in the wood. They also startled a whole family of monkeys in
the branches of a tree over our heads. Two or three monkeys carefully
slipped down, and looked round as if waiting for something.
"What is this new Orpheus, to whose voice these monkeys answer?" asked I
laughingly.
"Some fakir probably. The alguja is generally used to invite the sacred
monkeys to their meals. The community of fakirs, who once inhabited
this island, have removed to an old pagoda in the forest. Their new
resting-place brings them more profit, because there are many passers
by, whereas the island is perfectly isolated."
"Probably they were compelled to desert this dreadful place because they
were threatened by chronic deafness," Miss X---- expressed her opinion.
She could not help being out of temper at being prevented from enjoying
her quiet slumber, our tents being right in the middle of the orchestra.
"A propos of Orpheus," asked the Takur, "do you know that the lyre of
this Greek demigod was not the first to cast spells over people, animals
and even rivers? Kui, a certain Chinese musical artist, as they are
called, expresses something to this effect: 'When I play my kyng the
wild animals hasten to me, and range themselves into rows, spellbound by
my melody.' This Kui lived one thousand years before the supposed era of
Orpheus."
"What a funny coincidence!" exclaimed I. "Kui is the name of one of our
best artists in St. Petersburg. Where did you read this?"
"Oh, this is not a very rare piece of information. Some of your Western
Orientalists have it in their books. But I personally found it in an
ancient Sanskrit book, translated from the Chinese in the second century
before your era. But the original is to be found in a very ancient work,
named The Preserver of the Five Chief Virtues. It is a kind of chronicle
or treatise on the development of music in China. It was written by the
order of Emperor Hoang-Tee many hundred years before your era."
"Do you think, then, that the Chinese ever understood anything about
music?" said the colonel, with an incredulous smile. "In California and
other places I heard some traveling artists of the celestial empire.
Well, I think, that kind of musical entertainment would drive any one
mad."
"That is exactly the opinion of many of your Western musicians on the
subject of our ancient Aryan, as well as of modern Hindu, music. But, in
the first instance, the idea of melody is perfectly arbitrary; and, in
the second, there is a good deal of difference between the technical
knowledge of music, and the creation of melodies fit to please the
educated, as well as the uneducated, ear. According to technical theory,
a musical piece may be perfect, but the melody, nevertheless, may be
above the understanding of an untrained taste, or simply unpleasant.
Your most renowned operas sound for us like a wild chaos, like a rush of
strident, entangled sounds, in which we do not see any meaning at all,
and which give us headaches. I have visited the London and the Paris
opera; I have heard Rossini and Meyer-beer; I was resolved to render
myself an account of my impressions, and listened with the greatest
attention. But I own I prefer the simplest of our native melodies to the
productions of the best European composers. Our popular songs speak to
me, whereas they fail to produce any emotion in you. But leaving the
tunes and songs out of question, I can assure you that our ancestors,
as well as the ancestors of the Chinese, were far from inferior to the
modern Europeans, if not in technical instrumentation, at least in their
abstract notions of music."
"The Aryan nations of antiquity, perhaps; but I hardly believe this in
the case of the Turanian Chinese!" said our president doubtfully.
"But the music of nature has been everywhere the first step to the
music of art. This is a universal rule. But there are different ways of
following it. Our musical system is the greatest art, if--pardon me this
seeming paradox--avoiding all artificiality is art. We do not allow in
our melodies any sounds that cannot be classified amongst the living
voices of nature; whereas the modern Chinese tendencies are quite
different. The Chinese system comprises eight chief tones, which serve
as a tuning-fork to all derivatives; which are accordingly classified
under the names of their generators. These eight sounds are: the notes
metal, stone, silk, bamboo, pumpkin, earthenware, leather and wood. So
that they have metallic sounds, wooden sounds, silk sounds, and so on.
Of course, under these conditions they cannot produce any melody; their
music consists of an entangled series of separate notes. Their imperial
hymn, for instance, is a series of endless unisons. But we Hindus owe
our music only to living nature, and in nowise to inanimate objects. In
a higher sense of the word, we are pantheists, and so our music is, so
to speak, pantheistic; but, at the same time, it is highly scientific.
Coming from the cradle of humanity, the Aryan races, who were the first
to attain manhood, listened to the voice of nature, and concluded that
melody as well as harmony are both contained in our great common mother.
Nature has no false and no artificial notes; and man, the crown of
creation, felt desirous of imitating her sounds. In their multiplicity,
all these sounds--according to the opinion of some of your Western
physicists--make only one tone, which we all can hear, if we know how
to listen, in the eternal rustle of the foliage of big forests, in the
murmur of water, in the roar of the storming ocean, and even in the
distant roll of a great city. This tone is the middle F, the fundamental
tone of nature. In our melodies it serves as the starting point, which
we embody in the key-note, and around which are grouped all the
other sounds. Having noticed that every musical note has its typical
representative in the animal kingdom, our ancestors found out that the
seven chief tones correspond to the cries of the goat, the peacock, the
ox, the parrot, the frog, the tiger, and the elephant. So the octave was
discovered and founded. As to its subdivisions and measure, they also
found their basis in the complicated sounds of the same animals."
"I am no judge of your ancient music," said the colonel, "nor do I know
whether your ancestors did, or did not, work out any musical theories,
so I cannot contradict you; but I must own that, listening to the songs
of the modern Hindus, I could not give them any credit for musical
knowledge."
"No doubt it is so, because you have never heard a professional singer.
When you have visited Poona, and have listened to the Gayan Samaj, we
shall resume our present conversation. The Gayan Samaj is a society
whose aim is to restore the ancient national music."
Gulab-Lal-Sing spoke in his usual calm voice, but the Babu was evidently
burning to break forth for his country's honor, and at the same time, he
was afraid of offending his seniors by interrupting their conversation.
At last he lost patience.
"You are unjust, colonel!" he exclaimed. "The music of the ancient
Aryans is an antediluvian plant, no doubt, but nevertheless it is well
worth studying, and deserves every consideration. This is perfectly
proved now by a compatriot of mine, the Raja Surendronath Tagor.... He
is a Mus. D., he has lots of decorations from all kinds of kings and
emperors of Europe for his book about the music of Aryans.... And, well,
this man has proved, as clear as daylight, that ancient India has every
right to be called the mother of music. Even the best musical critics of
England say so!... Every school, whether Italian, German or Aryan, saw
the light at a certain period, developed in a certain climate and in
perfectly different circumstances. Every school has its characteristics,
and its peculiar charm, at least for its followers; and our school is
no exception. You Europeans are trained in the melodies of the West, and
acquainted with Western schools of music; but our musical system, like
many other things in India, is totally unknown to you. So you must
forgive my boldness, colonel, when I say that you have no right to
judge!"
"Don't get so excited, Babu," said the Takur. "Every one has the right,
if not to discuss, then to ask questions about a new subject. Otherwise
no one would ever get any information. If Hindu music belonged to an
epoch as little distant from us as the European--which you seem to
suggest, Babu, in your hot haste; and if, besides, it included all the
virtues of all the previous musical systems, which the European music
assimilates; then no doubt it would have been better understood, and
better appreciated than it is. But our music belongs to prehistoric
times. In one of the sarcophagi at Thebes, Bruce found a harp with
twenty strings, and, judging by this instrument, we may safely say that
the ancient inhabitants of Egypt were well acquainted with the
mysteries of harmony. But, except the Egyptians, we were the only people
possessing this art, in the remote epochs, when the rest of mankind
were still struggling with the elements for bare existence. We possess
hundreds of Sanskrit MSS. about music, which have never been translated,
even into modern Indian dialects. Some of them are four thousand and
eight thousand years old. Whatever your Orientalists may say to the
contrary, we will persist in believing in their antiquity, because we
have read and studied them, while the European scientists have never yet
set their eyes on them. There are many of these musical treatises,
and they have been written at different epochs; but they all, without
exception, show that in India music was known and systematized in times
when the modern civilized nations of Europe still lived like savages.
However true, all this does not give us the right to grow indignant when
Europeans say they do not like our music, as long as their ears are not
accustomed to it, and their minds cannot understand its spirit.... To a
certain extent we can explain to you its technical character, and give
you a right idea of it as a science. But nobody can create in you, in
a moment, what the Aryans used to call Rakti; the capacity of the human
soul to receive and be moved by the combinations of the various sounds
of nature. This capacity is the alpha and omega of our musical system,
but you do not possess it, as we do not possess the possibility to fall
into raptures over Bellini."
"But why should it be so? What are these mysterious virtues of your
music, that can be understood only by yourselves? Our skins are of
different colors, but our organic mechanism is the same. In other
words, the physiological combination of bones, blood, nerves, veins and
muscles, which forms a Hindu, has as many parts, combined exactly
after the same model as the living mechanism known under the name of an
American, Englishman, or any other European. They come into the world
from the same workshop of nature; they have the same beginning and the
same end. From a physiological point of view we are duplicates of each
other."
"Physiologically yes. And it would be as true psychologically, if
education did not interfere, which, after all is said and done, could
not but influence the mental and the moral direction taken by a human
being. Sometimes it extinguishes the divine spark; at other times it
only increases it, transforming it into a lighthouse which becomes man's
lodestar for life."
"No doubt this is so. But the influence it has over the physiology of
the ear cannot be so overpowering after all."
"Quite the contrary. Only remember what a strong influence climatic
conditions, food and everyday surroundings have on the complexion,
vitality, capacity for reproduction, and so on, and you will see that
you are mistaken. Apply this same law of gradual modification to the
purely psychic element in man, and the results will be the same. Change
the education and you will change the capacities of a human being....
For instance, you believe in the powers of gymnastics, you believe that
special exercise can almost transform the human body. We go one step
higher. The experience of centuries shows that gymnastics exist for the
soul as well as for the body. But what the soul's gymnastics are is our
secret. What is it that gives to the sailor the sight of an eagle, that
endows the acrobat with the skill of a monkey, and the wrestler with
muscles of iron? Practice and habit. Then why should not we suppose
the same possibilities in the soul of the man as well as in his body?
Perhaps on the grounds of modern science--which either dispenses with
the soul altogether, or does not acknowledge in it a life distinct from
the life of the body...."
"Please do not speak in this way, Takur. You, at least, ought to know
that I believe in the soul and in its immortality!"
"We believe in the immortality of spirit, not of soul, following the
triple division of body, soul and spirit. However, this has nothing to
do with the present discussion.... And so you agree to the proposition
that every dormant possibility of the soul may be led to perfected
strength and activity by practice, and also that if not properly used it
may grow numb and even disappear altogether. Nature is so zealous
that all her gifts should be used properly, that it is in our power to
develop or to kill in our descendants any physical or mental gift. A
systematic training or a total disregard will accomplish both in the
lifetime of a few generations."
"Perfectly true; but that does not explain to me the secret charm of
your melodies...."
"These are details and particulars. Why should I dwell on them when you
must see for yourself that my reasoning gives you the clue, which will
solve many similar problems? Centuries have accustomed the ear of
a Hindu to be receptive only of certain combinations of atmospheric
vibrations; whereas the ear of a European is used to perfectly different
combinations. Hence the soul of the former will be enraptured where the
soul of the latter will be perfectly indifferent. I hope my explanation
has been simple and clear, and I might have ended it here were it not
that I am anxious to give you something better than the feeling of
satisfied curiosity. As yet I have solved only the physiological aspect
of the secret, which is as easily admitted as the fact that we Hindus
eat by the handful spices which would give you inflammation of the
intestines if you happened to swallow a single grain. Our aural nerves,
which, at the beginning, were identical with yours, have been changed
through different training, and became as distinct from yours as our
complexion and our stomachs. Add to this that the eyes of the Kashmir
weavers, men and women, are able to distinguish three hundred shades
more than the eye of a European.... The force of habit, the law of
atavism, if you like. But things of this kind practically solve the
apparent difficulty. You have come all the way from America to study the
Hindus and their religion; but you will never understand the latter if
you do not realize how closely all our sciences are related, not to
the modern ignorant Brahmanism, of course, but to the philosophy of our
primitive Vedic religion."
"I see. You mean that your music has something to do with the Vedas?"
"Exactly. It has a good deal--almost everything--to do with the Vedas.
All the sounds of nature, and, in consequence, of music, are directly
allied to astronomy and mathematics; that is to say, to the planets,
the signs of the zodiac, the sun and moon, and to rotation and numbers.
Above all, they depend on the Akasha, the ether of space, of the
existence of which your scientists have not made perfectly sure as yet.
This was the teaching of the ancient Chinese and Egyptians, as well as
of ancient Aryans. The doctrine of the 'music of the spheres' first
saw the light here in India, and not in Greece or Italy, whither it
was brought by Pythagoras after he had studied under the Indian
Gymnosophists. And most certainly this great philosopher--who revealed
to the world the heliocentric system before Copernicus and Galileo--knew
better than anyone else how dependent are the least sounds in nature
on Akasha and its interrelations. One of the four Vedas, namely, the
Sama-Veda, entirely consists of hymns. This is a collection of mantrams
sung during the sacrifices to the gods, that is to say, to the elements.
Our ancient priests were hardly acquainted with the modern methods of
chemistry and physics; but, to make up for it, they knew a good deal
which has not as yet been thought of by modern scientists. So it is not
to be wondered at that, sometimes, our priests, so perfectly acquainted
with natural sciences as they were, forced the elementary gods, or
rather the blind forces of nature, to answer their prayers by various
portents. Every sound of these mantrams has its meaning, its importance,
and stands exactly where it ought to stand; and, having a raison d'etre,
it does not fail to produce its effect. Remember Professor Leslie, who
says that the science of sound is the most subtle, the most unseizable
and the most complicated of all the series of physical sciences. 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. The phenomena produced by the priests and the Raj-Yogis are
perfectly natural for the initiate--however miraculous they may seem to
the masses."
"But do you really mean that you have no faith what-ever in the spirits
of the dead?" timidly asked Miss X----, who was always ill at ease in
the presence of the Takur.
"With your permission, I have none."
"And... and have you no regard for mediums?"
"Still less than for the spirits, my dear lady. I do believe in the
existence of many psychic diseases, and, amongst their number, in
mediumism, for which we have got a queer sounding name from time
immemorial. We call it Bhuta-Dak, literally a bhuta-hostelry. I
sincerely pity the real mediums, and do whatever is in my power to
help them. As to the charlatans, I despise them, and never lose an
opportunity of unmasking them."
The witch's den near the "dead city" suddenly flashed into my mind;
the fat Brahman, who played the oracle in the head of the Sivatherium,
caught and rolling down the hole; the witch herself suddenly taking to
her heels. And with this recollection also occurred to me what I had
never thought of before: Narayan had acted under the orders of the
Takur--doing his best to expose the witch and her ally.
"The unknown power which possesses the mediums (which the spiritualists
believe to be spirits of the dead, while the superstitious see in it the
devil, and the sceptics deceit and infamous tricks), true men of science
suspect to be a natural force, which has not as yet been discovered. It
is, in reality, a terrible power. Those possessed by it are generally
weak people, often women and children. Your beloved spiritualists, Miss
X----, only help the growth of dreadful psychic diseases, but people who
know better seek to save them from this force you know nothing whatever
about, and it is no use discussing this matter now. I shall only add one
word: the real living spirit of a human being is as free as Brahma;
and even more than this for us, for, according to our religion and our
philosophy, our spirit is Brahma himself, higher than whom there is only
the unknowable, the all-pervading, the omnipotent essence of Parabrahm.
The living spirit of man cannot be ordered about like the spirits of the
spiritualists, it cannot be made a slave of... However, it is getting so
late that we had better go to bed. Let us say good-bye for tonight."
Gulab-Lal-Sing would not talk any more that night, but I have gathered
from our previous conversations many a point without which the above
conversation would remain obscure. The Vedantins and the followers of
Shankaracharya's philosophy, in talking of themselves, often avoid using
the pronoun I, and say, "this body went," "this hand took," and so on,
in everything concerning the automatic actions of man. The personal
pronouns are only used concerning mental and moral processes, such as,
"I thought," "he desired." The body in their eyes is not the man, but
only a covering to the real man.
The real interior man possesses many bodies; each of them more subtle
and more pure than the preceding; and each of them bears a different
name and is independent of the material body. After death, when the
earthly vital principle disintegrates, together with the material body,
all these interior bodies join together, and either advance on the way
to Moksha, and are called Deva (divine), though it still has to pass
many stadia before the final liberation, or is left on earth, to wander
and to suffer in the invisible world, and, in this case, is called
bhuta. But a Deva has no tangible intercourse with the living. Its only
link with the earth is its posthumous affection for those it loved in
its lifetime, and the power of protecting and influencing them. Love
outlives every earthly feeling, and a Deva can appear to the beloved
ones only in their dreams--unless it be as an illusion, which cannot
last, because the body of a Deva undergoes a series of gradual changes
from the moment it is freed from its earthly bonds; and, with every
change, it grows more intangible, losing every time something of its
objective nature. It is reborn; it lives and dies in new Lokas or
spheres, which gradually become purer and more subjective. At last,
having got rid of every shadow of earthly thoughts and desires, it
becomes nothing from a material point of view. It is extinguished like
a flame, and, having become one with Parabrahm, it lives the life of
spirit, of which neither our material conception nor our language can
give any idea. But the eternity of Parabrahm is not the eternity of the
soul. The latter, according to a Vedanta expression, is an eternity in
eternity. However holy, the life of a soul had its beginning and its
end, and, consequently, no sins and no good actions can be punished
or rewarded in the eternity of Parabrahm. This would be contrary to
justice, disproportionate, to use an expression of Vedanta philosophy.
Spirit alone lives in eternity, and has neither beginning nor end,
neither limits nor central point. The Deva lives in Parabrahm, as a
drop lives in the ocean, till the next regeneration of the universe
from Pralaya; a periodical chaos, a disappearance of the worlds from the
region of objectivity. With every new Maha-yuga (great cycle) the
Deva separates from that which is eternal, attracted by existence in
objective worlds, like a drop of water first drawn up by the sun,
then starting again downwards, passing from one region to another, and
returning at last to the dirt of our planet. Then, having dwelt there
whilst a small cycle lasted, it proceeds again upwards on the other side
of the circle. So it gravitates in the eternity of Parabrahm, passing
from one minor eternity to another. Each of these "human," that is to
say conceivable, eternities consists of 4,320,000,000 years of objective
life and of as many years of subjective life in Parabrahm, altogether
8,640,000,000 years, which are enough, in the eyes of the Vedantins, to
redeem any mortal sin, and also to reap the fruit of any good actions
performed in such a short period as human life. The individuality of the
soul, teaches the Vedanta, is not lost when plunged in Parabrahm, as is
supposed by some of the European Orientalists.
Only the souls of bhutas--when the last spark of repentance and of
tendency to improvement are extinguished in them--will evaporate for
ever. Then their divine spirit, the undying part of them, separates from
the soul and returns to its primitive source; the soul is reduced to
its primordial atoms, and the monad plunges into the darkness of
eternal unconsciousness. This is the only case of total destruction of
personality.
Such is the Vedanta teaching concerning the spiritual man. And this
is why no true Hindu believes in the disembodied souls voluntarily
returning to earth, except in the case of bhutas.