Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1880-04-08
Oriental PoNers Of MemorY.


Monster Williams writes to the Lon
don Atbei1Gltn3 as follows: " A remark
able demonstration has recently taken
place at Bombay. A number Of educated
natives in high position have been seized
by kind Of panic on suddenly waking
up to the fact that orthodox Brahmanism,
or, as they term it, the Aryan religion, is
decaying and disappearing. This they
attribute to the decline of Sanskrit learn
ing, consequent on the decline of nation
ality and patriotism among the native
princes. They have accordingly resolved
to unite in q common effort for the revival
of Sanskrit lore, and for diffusion Of a
true knowledge Of the Hindoo religion.
The movement has been begun in rather
a singular manner. A monster meeting
has been held at Bombay, in honor of a
blind Pandit named Gattu-Lalaii. Adj
dresses have been delivered in his praise,
and a sum Of 18, 80 rupees presented to
him, as a reward for his zeal in the cause
of religion, his success in purifying
men s minds" and his d" attractive genius
for making extempore poems" Pandit
Gattu-Lalaii was born at Kotah in 1845,
while his parents were on pilgrimage,
He lost the sight of both eyes, through
smallpox at the age of eight. He is
chiefly celebrated for his power Of com
posing impromptu Sanskrit verses, in
which no Italian inlprOUisatore has ever
displayed 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 | proposed three sub
jects-a description Of Bombay, the adj
vantage of Sansluit 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 conversed fluently in Sanskrit,
and impressed me very favorably with
his finished scholarship and the extent
of his literary requirements. Impromptu
versifers of this kind are called S'ighra-
Kayis or As'u-Kavis. .
The blind pandit's 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 Consecutiyely, is sur
prising. In this respect he far Out-does
Europeans, While l was travelling in
the south of India, l was visited by a
S. S'atavadhani-that is to say, a 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. 1 also heard a
Trims -adayadhani, 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 a
moments hesitation, the AshtaVadhani
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