The Music of Hindostan c8.5

c8.5

Secondly, whereas chronologically ordered history enables us to compare the present of a nation with its past and so to predict its future, and to compare one nation at a given moment with another, neither of these motives appeals to the Hindu. His past is like his present and throws little light upon it. If we look at the sculpture of a thousand years ago from Ellora, or the painting from Ajanta, or the carvings of Amravati and Sanchi another thousand years earlier, we see the same mothers carrying babies on their hips, the same graceful little movements of the hands, the same methods of grinding corn, the same kinds and shapes of musical instruments, the same antimony for the same almond-shaped eyes, the same dress, the same symbols of rank. Life in Europe during such space of time has been subject to gusts of fashion or revolution, and we have looked up between the whirlwinds and gratefully murmured ‘e pur si muove’. We thank God that we look before and after; the Indian contemns mushroom growths, and thinks methods of such recent origin and subject to such constant change hardly worth the trouble of acquiring.