gic 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
were not merely the keepers of the sacred books, or Vedas, the
philosophy, science, and laws of the ancient Hindus (for that is
how the power of the caste developed), but they were also the
creators and custodians of its secular literature and art. Two
and a half thousand years later Prince Gautama or Buddha died,
after a life of self-sacrifice and sanctity. On his death five
hundred of his disciples met in a cave near Rajagriha to gather
together his sayings, and chanted the lessons of their great
master. These songs became the bible of Buddhism, just as the
_Vedas_ are the bible of Brahminism, for the Hindu word for
a Buddhist council means literally "a singing together."

Besides the sacred songs of the Brahmins and Buddhists, the
Hindus had many others, some of which partook of the occult
powers of the hymns, occult powers that were as strongly marked
as those of Hebrew music. For while the latter are revealed in
the playing of David before Saul, in the influence of music on
prophecy, the falling of the walls of Jericho at the sound of
the trumpets of Joshua, etc., in India the same supernatural
power was ascribed to certain songs. For instance, there were
songs that could be sung only by the gods, and one of them, so
the legend runs, if sung by a mortal, would envelop the singer
in flames. The last instance of the singing of this song was
during the reign of Akbar, the great Mogul emperor (about 1575
A.D.). At his command the singer sang it standing up to his
neck in the river Djaumna, which, however, did not save him,
for, according to the account, the water around him boiled,
and he was finally consumed by a flame of fire. Another of
Akbar's singers caused the palace to be wrapped in darkness
by means of one of these magic songs, and another averted a
famine by causing rain to fall when the country was threatened
by drought. Animals were also tamed by means of certain songs,
the only relic of which is found in the serpent charmers'
melodies, which, played on a kind of pipe, seem to possess the
power of controlling cobras and the other snakes exhibited by
the Indian fakirs.