Vedic India as embodied principally in the Rig-Veda / [Zénaïde A. Ragozin].

  • Zénaïde Alexeïevna Ragozin
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vedic India as embodied principally in the Rig-Veda / [Zénaïde A. Ragozin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    VEDIC INDIA. CHAPTER I. THE WONDERLAND OF THE EAST. i. “ . . . And I saw the blue, holy Ganges, the eternally radi- ant Himalaya, the gigantic banyan-forests, with their wide leafy avenues, in which the clever elephants and the white-robed pilgrims peacefully wander ; strangely dreamy flowers gazed at me, with mys- terious meaning ; golden, wondrous birds burst into glad, wild song ; glittering sunbeams and the sweetly silly laugh of apes teased me playfully ; and from distant pagodas came the pious strains of pray- ing priests. . . . ” 1 Only a poet’s day-dream ; but how telling each feature of the fanciful picture ; and how each quaintly worded sentence lifts you out of the screechy, glary reality of steam whistle and electric light, till the few perfect lines, like the richly patterned flying-rug of Oriental story, land you in the very midst of that world of mystery and enchantment, of gorgeousness and twilight, restful at once and exciting, which the name India has always represented to the Western mind. 1 Heine (prose works).