Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 54
Scan 54
The story of the violin, 1904
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER V.
3A WANDERING.
5In India it seems music was never confined to one class or caste in particular; it permeated the whole social body, from the priests, who claimed to have received it from the gods, down to the miserable, half-naked outcast of society. Add to this condition, which must have been conducive to the spreading of the divine art in every conceivable form, a highly sensitive and naturally poetical disposition of the people, an inclination also to immaterialise, or spiritualise life, and a profound reverence for the old, the traditional, and the necessary elements for the existence of the ravanastron and its like in earliest times was given. It was, as it is yet, the instrument of the dreamer, the mystic, the poet, the wandering hermit, and the Buddhist monk; the dejected beggar, who to its soft, unpretentious tones, could pour out his supplications and prayers.
7Speaking from personal knowledge, I may add that the tone of this ravanastron is by no means so bad as the miserable outward appearance of the instrument would lead one to suppose. It is soft, thin (a little muffled, as if muted), ethereal, suggestive, if you will, of thought
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