There is no need to recount here the well-known mythological traditions of the ancient Greeks and Romans referring to the origin of their favourite musical instruments. Suffice it to remind the reader that Mercury and Apollo were believed to be the inventors of the lyra and the kithara; that the invention of the flute was attributed to Minerva; and that Pan is said to have invented the syrinx. More worthy of our attention are some similar records of the Hindus, because they have hitherto scarcely been noticed in any work on music.
In the mythology of the Hindus the god Nareda is the inventor of the vina, the principal national musical instrument of Hindustan. Saraswati, the consort of Brahma, may be considered as the Minerva of the Hindus. She is the goddess of music as well as of speech. To her is attributed the invention of the systematic arrangement of the sounds into a musical scale. She is represented seated on a peacock and playing on a stringed instrument of the guitar kind. Brahma himself we find depicted as a vigorous man with four handsome heads, beating with his hands upon a small drum. And Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is represented as a beautiful youth playing upon a flute. The Hindus still possess a peculiar kind of flute which they consider as the favourite instrument of Krishna. Furthermore, they have the divinity of Genēsa, the god of wisdom, who is represented as a man with the head of an elephant holding in his hands a tamboura—a kind of lute with a long neck.
Among the Chinese we meet with a tradition according to which they obtained their musical scale from a miraculous bird called Foung-hoang, which appears to have been a sort of Phœnix. As regards the invention of musical instruments, the Chinese have various traditions. In one of these we are told that the origin of some of their most popular instruments dates from the period when China was under the dominion of heavenly spirits called Ki. Another assigns the invention of several of their stringed instruments to the great Fohi, called "the Son of Heaven," who was, it is said, the founder of the Chinese empire, and who is stated to have lived about b.c. 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Ki, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important Chinese musical instruments, and the systematic arrangement of the tones, are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural female, who lived at the time of Fohi, and who was a virgin-mother. When Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, happened to hear on a certain occasion some divine music, he became so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months afterwards. The music which produced this miraculous effect was that of Kouei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the king, a kind of harmonicon constructed of slabs of sonorous stone, would draw wild animals around him and make them subservient to his will.
The Japanese have a beautiful tradition according to which the Sun-goddess, in resentment of the violence of an evil-disposed brother, retired into a cave, leaving the universe in darkness and in anarchy; when the beneficent gods, in their concern for the welfare of mankind, devised music to lure her forth from the retreat, and their efforts soon proved successful.[7]
The Kalmuks, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, adore a beneficent divinity, called Maidari, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking man, with a moustache and an imperial, playing upon an instrument with three strings, somewhat resembling the Russian balalaika.
Almost all these ancient conceptions we meet with also among European nations, though more or less modified.
Odin, the principal deity of the ancient Scandinavians, was the inventor of magic songs and Runic writings.
In the Finnish mythology the divine Vainamoinen is said to have constructed the five-stringed harp, called kantele, the old national instrument of the Finns. The frame he made out of the bones of the pike, and the teeth of the pike he used for the tuning-pegs. The strings he made of hair from the tail of a spirited horse. When the harp fell into the sea, and was lost, he made another, the frame of which was of birchwood, with pegs made out of the branch of an oak-tree. As strings for this harp he used the silky hair of a young girl. Vainamoinen took his harp, and sat down on a hill near a silvery brook. There he played with so irresistible an effect that he entranced whatever came within hearing of his music. Men and animals listened enraptured; the wildest beasts of the forest lost their ferocity; the birds of the air were drawn towards him; the fishes rose to the surface of the water, and remained immovable; the trees ceased to wave their branches; the brook retarded its course, and the wind its haste; even the mocking echo approached stealthily, and listened with the utmost attention to the heavenly sounds. Soon the women began to cry; then the old men and the children also began to cry; and the girls, and the young men—all cried for delight. At last Vainamoinen himself wept; and his big tears ran over his beard, and rolled into the water, and became beautiful pearls at the bottom of the sea.
Several other musical gods or godlike musicians could be cited, and, moreover, innumerable minor spirits, all bearing evidence that music is of divine origin.
True, people who think themselves more enlightened than their forefathers smile at these old traditions, and say that the original home of music is the human heart. Be it so. But do not the purest and most beautiful conceptions of man partake of a divine character? Is not the art of music generally acknowledged to be one of these? And is it not, therefore, even independently of myths and mysteries, entitled to be called the divine art?