The Scented Garden

106 Ecstasy stronger than Death. for the descending Shiva upon his devotee. The eunuch’s voice is the shrill sound heard by adepts at the moment of union with the divine. The gar- den is of course the sphere of the trained soul. 9. This is a very literal translation ; it is either an accident, or shows a high degree of scientific knowledge. The dependence of sound on air was discovered in Europe by Hawksbee in 1705. (Hawksbee first performed the “ bell in vacuo ” experiment in 1705. Newton (Principia Vol. III, 1687), gave an inaccurate formula for Velocity of Sound in Air and other fluids. Laplace nearly 100 years later corrected this. But we do not wish to stake El Haji’s reputation as a prophet on this phrase. It is perfectly open to us to read “ dies with breath ” or “ dies with mind ” the root [Persian text]