Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University by Edward MacDowell
page 42 of 285 (14%)
page 42 of 285 (14%)
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hath no covering. He hangeth the earth upon nothing
and the pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His reproof. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and at the last day He shall stand upon the earth. As with the Hebrews, music among the Hindus was closely bound to religion. When, 3000 years before the Christian era, that wonderful, tall, white Aryan race of men descended upon India from the north, its poets already sang of the gods, and the Aryan gods were of a different order from those known to that part of the world; for they were beautiful in shape, and friendly to man, in great contrast to the gods of the Davidians, the pre-Aryan race and stock of the Deccan. These songs formed the _Rig-Veda_, and are the nucleus from which all Hindu religion and art emanate. We already know that when the auxiliary speech which we call music was first discovered, or, to use the language of all primitive nations, when it was first bestowed on man by the gods, it retained much of the supernatural potency that its origin would suggest. In India, music was invested with divine power, and certain hymns--especially the prayer or chant of Vashishtha--were, according to the _Rig-Veda_, all powerful in battle. Such a magic song, or chant, was called a _brahma_, and he who sang it a _brahmin_. Thus the very foundation of Brahminism, from which rose Buddhism in the sixth century B.C., can be traced back to the music of the sacred songs of the _Rig-Veda_ of India. The priestly or Brahmin caste grew therefore from the singers of the Vedic hymns. The Brahmins |
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