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CURIOSITIES OF MUSIC. |
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It is therefore, really in barbarous nations, that we may, reasoning by analogy, find in what state music existed when our own ancestors were in a state of nature; but in order to give a more chronological character to our sketches we will begin with the Music and Musical Mythology of the Ancients.
THE HINDOOS.
With this people, and the Egyptians we find proofs of the existence of a musical system at a time which far antedates the earliest reliable Scriptural records.
Among the Hindoos especially, as far back as history extends, music has been treated not only as a fine art, but philosophically and mathematically. According to the oldest Brahminical records, in their all-embracing "Temple of Science," it belongs to the 2d chief division of Lesser Sciences, but its natural and philosophic elements, are, with a nice distinction, admitted into their holiest and oldest book, the Veda.* Of course it has a divine origin ascribed to it, in fact the entire realm of Indian music is one tale of Mythology.
According to Brahminical accounts, when Brahma had lain in the egg three thousand billion, four hundred million of years (3,000,400,000,000) he split it by the force of his thought and made Heaven and Earth from the two pieces; then Manu brought forth ten great forces, which made |
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•Krause—Qeschichte der Musik |
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