The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-17
Oriental Powers Of Memory.

nonsler Williams writes to the Lon
HI M 1lsae''gua as follows: GA remark
. aL,o demonstration has recently taken
80 al Bombay. A number of educated
ls'.'es IN high position have been seized
~ : ana OF panic on suddenly waking
~ ~ me TACT that orthodox Brahmanism,
a. Sooa ~ they term it, the Aryan religion, is
ae.asing and disappearing. This they
~: 's. 'oule TO the decline of Sanskrit learn
M consequent on the decline of nation
,,r;g o and patriotism among the native
princes. They have accordingly resolved
~ ~ Sli'e In common effort for the revival
-. SalisKrlt lore, and for a diffusion of a
T rue knowledge of the Hindoo religion.
nH movement has been begun in rather
= singular manner. A monster meeting
has 1een held at Bombay, in honor of a
9nnu fandit named Gattu-Lalaii. Ad-
ulesses have been delivered in his praise,
anu sum of 1880 rupees presented to
nun, as reward for his zeal in the cause
y, ,s,llgion, his success in purifying
men sminds, +" and his g attractive genius
lor making extempore poems" Pandit
a..,,u-l.alaji was born at Kotah in 1915.
WI Mni,e ms parents We're on pilgrimage.
ne lost the sight of both eyes, through
smail-pox, at the age of eight. He is
clleny celebrated for his power of COM
posing impromptu Sanskrit verses, in
WnhcA no Italian inproUiSGtore has ever
olspayed equal talent. During one of
my Visits to Bombay he called on me,
accompanied by three amanuenses, and
requested a trial of his powers, declaring
himself capable of composing six sets Of
extemporaneous verses simultaneously,
on any six subjects and in any six metres
| liked to select. l proposed three sub
Jects-a description of Bombay, the adj
vantage of Sanskrit learning, and the
advent OF the Prince of Wales to India
naming at the same time three of the
most difficult metres | could remember.
Without a moments delay the pandit
dictated the required verses to his scribes
with wonderful precision and rapidity.
He also conyersed fiuently in Sanskrit,
and impressed me very favorably with
his finished scholarship and the extent
OF his literary requirements. Impromptu
versifiers of this kind are called S'ighra-
Kavis or As'u-Kavis.
The blind bandits successful tour de
force in my presence was, doubtless,
more due to great powers of memory
than to poetical genius. A Hindu's ca
pacity for keeping number of different
subjects in his recollection at one time,
and yet abstracting his mind so as to
concentrate his attention on each one
separately and consecutively, is sur
prising. In this respect he far out-does
Europeans. While | was travelling in
the south of India, was visited by a
Observation-Disclosures is to say, man who
could attend to one hundred things at
once He could play several games of
chess, write and repeat poetry, work out
problems, and make calculations of all
kinds simultaneously. | also heard a
Trims -adavadhani, or man who could
attend to thirty subjects. Ashtavadhanis,
or persons capable of attending to eight
subjects simultaneously, are by no means
uncommon throughout all parts of India.
A man whose powers of attention are of
this more limited calibre displays his
skill by asking eight persons, entire
strangers to himself, who speak eight
different dialects, to repeat the first word
of eight different sentences, and then the
second, and so on consecutively, till
every word of the eight sentences has
been repeated. Thereupon, without q
moments hesitation, the Asbtavadhani
reproduces all the eight sentences, sepa-
rately and continuously, with each word
in proper order, though the utterances
of each has been interrupted by the in
terpolation of seven other words in diff
ferent languages.