Note 8 — Chapter II
C. H. (Charles Henry) Tawney translation
It appears from an article in Mélusine by A Bart, entitled An Ancient Manual of Sorcery, and consisting mainly of passages translated from Burnell’s Sámavidhána Bráhmaṇa, that this power can be acquired in the following way, “After a fast of three nights, take a plant of soma (Asclepias acida;) recite a certain formula and eat of the plant a thousand times, you will be able to repeat anything after hearing it once. Or bruise the flowers in water, and drink the mixture for a year. Or drink soma, that is to say the fermented juice of the plant for a month. Or do it always.” (Mélusine, 1878, p. 107; II, 7, 4–7.)
In the Milinda Pañho, (Pali Miscellany by V. Trenckner, Part. I, p. 14,) the child Nágasena learns the whole of the three Vedas by hearing them repeated once.