189 “The Devas and Asuras (Gods and Tita_The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse

south, the west, and the north, and the Devas were defeated by the

Asuras in all these directions. They then fought in the

north-eastern direction; there the Devas did not sustain defeat.

This direction is _aparájitá_, _i.e._ unconquerable. Thence one

should do work in this direction, and have it done there; for such a

one (alone) is able to clear off his debts.” HAUG’S _Aitareya

Bráhmanam_, Vol. II, p. 33.

The debts here spoken of are a man’s religious obligations to the

Gods, the Pitaras or Manes, and men.

190 Vishṇu.

191 “It appears to me that this mythical story has reference to the

volcanic phenomena of nature. Kapil may very possibly be that hidden

fiery force which suddenly unprisons itself and bursts forth in

volcanic effects. Kapil is, moreover, one of the names of Agni the

God of Fire.” GORRESIO.

192 Garuḍ was the son of Kaśyap and Vinatá.

193 Garuḍ.

194 A famous and venerated region near the Malabar coast.

195 That is four fires and the sun.

196 Heaven.

197 Wind-Gods.

198 Śiva.

199 The lake Vindu does not exist. Of the seven rivers here mentioned

two only, the Ganges and the Sindhu or Indus, are known to

geographers. Hládiní means the Gladdener, Pávaní the Purifier,

Naliní the Lotus-Clad, and Suchakshu the Fair-eyed.

200 The First or Golden Age.

201 Diti and Aditi were wives of Kaśyap, and mothers respectively of

Titans and Gods.

202 One of the seven seas surrounding as many worlds in concentric

rings.

203 Śankar and Rudra are names of Śiva.

204 “Śárṅgin, literally _carrying a bow of horn_, is a constantly

recurring name of Vishṇu. The Indians also, therefore, knew the art

of making bows out of the hons of antelopes or wild goats, which

Homer ascribes to the Trojans of the heroic age.” SCHLEGEL.

205 Dhanvantari, the physician of the Gods.

206 The poet plays upon the word and fancifully derives it from _apsu_,

the locative case plural of _ap_, water, and _rasa_, taste.… The

word is probably derived from _ap_, water, and _sri_, to go, and

seems to signify _inhabitants of the water_, nymphs of the stream;

or, as Goldstücker thinks (Dict. s.v.) these divinities were

originally personifications of the vapours which are attracted by

the sun and form into mist or clouds.

207 “_Surá_, in the feminine comprehends all sorts of intoxicating

liquors, many kinds of which the Indians from the earliest times

distilled and prepared from rice, sugar-cane, the palm tree, and

various flowers and plants. Nothing is considered more disgraceful

among orthodox Hindus than drunkenness, and the use of wine is

forbidden not only to Bráhmans but the two other orders as well.… So

it clearly appears derogatory to the dignity of the Gods to have

received a nymph so pernicious, who ought rather to have been made

over to the Titans. However the etymological fancy has prevailed.

The word _Sura_, a God, is derived from the indeclinable _Swar_

heaven.” SCHLEGEL.

208 Literally, high-eared, the horse of Indra. Compare the production of

the horse from the sea by Neptune.

209 “And Kaustubha the best

Of gems that burns with living light

Upon Lord Vishṇu’s breast.”

_Churning of the Ocean._

210 “That this story of the birth of Lakshmí is of considerable

antiquity is evident from one of her names _Kshírábdhi-tanayá_,

daughter of the Milky Sea, which is found in _Amarasinha_ the most

ancient of Indian lexicographers. The similarity to the Greek myth

of Venus being born from the foam of the sea is remarkable.”

“In this description of Lakshmí one thing only offends me, that she

is said to have four arms. Each of Vishṇu’s arms, single, as far as

the elbow, there branches into two; but Lakshmí in all the brass

seals that I possess or remember to have seen has two arms only. Nor

does this deformity of redundant limbs suit the pattern of perfect

beauty.” SCHLEGEL. I have omitted the offensive epithet.

211 Purandhar, a common title of Indra.

212 A few verses are here left untranslated on account of the subject

and language being offensive to modern taste.

213 “In this myth of Indra destroying the unborn fruit of Diti with his

thunderbolt, from which afterwards came the Maruts or Gods of Wind

and Storm, geological phenomena are, it seems, represented under

mythical images. In the great Mother of the Gods is, perhaps,

figured the dry earth: Indra the God of thunder rends it open, and

there issue from its rent bosom the Maruts or exhalations of the

earth. But such ancient myths are difficult to interpret with

absolute certainty.” GORRESIO.

214 Wind.

215 Indra, with _mahá_, great, prefixed.

216 The Heavenly Twins.

217 Not banished from heaven as the inferior Gods and demigods sometimes

were.

218 Kumárila says: “In the same manner, if it is said that Indra was the

seducer of Ahalyá this does not imply that the God Indra committed

such a crime, but Indra means the sun, and Ahalyá (from ahan and lí)

the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the

morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalyá.” MAX

MULLER, _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 530_.

219 “The preceding sixteen lines have occurred before in Canto XLVIII.

This Homeric custom of repeating a passage of several lines is

strange to our poet. This is the only instance I remember. The

repetition of single lines is common enough.” SCHLEGEL.

220 Divine personages of minute size produced from the hair of Brahmá,

and probably the origin of

“That small infantry

Warred on by cranes.”

221 Sweet, salt, pungent, bitter, acid, and astringent.

222 “Of old hoards and minerals in the earth, the king is entitled to

half by reason of his general protection, and because he is the lord

paramount of the soil.” MANU, Book VIII. 39.

223 Ghí or clarified butter, “holy oil,” being one of the essentials of

sacrifice.

224 “A Bráhman had five principal duties to discharge every day: study

and teaching the Veda, oblations to the manes or spirits of the

departed, sacrifice to the Gods, hospitable offerings to men, and _a

gift of food to all creatures_. The last consisted of rice or other

grain which the Bráhman was to offer every day outside his house in

the open air. MANU, Book III. 70.” GORRESIO.

225 These were certain sacred words of invocation such a _sváhá_,

_vashaṭ_, etc., pronounced at the time of sacrifice.

226 “It is well known that the Persians were called Pahlavas by the

Indians. The _Śakas_ are nomad tribes inhabiting Central Asia, the

Scythes of the Greeks, whom the Persians also, as Herodotus tells

us, called Sakæ just as the Indians did. Lib. VII 64 ὁι γὰρ Πέρσαι

πάντας τοὺς Σύθας. καλέουσι Σάκας. The name Yavans seems to be used

rather indefinitely for nations situated beyond Persia to the west.…

After the time of Alexander the Great the Indians as well as the

Persians called the Greeks also Yavans.” SCHLEGEL.

Lassen thinks that the Pahlavas were the same people as the Πάκτυες

of Herodotus, and that this non-Indian people dwelt on the

north-west confines of India.

227 See page 13, note 6.

228 Barbarians, non-Sanskrit-speaking tribes.

229 A comprehensive term for foreign or outcast races of different faith

and language from the Hindus.

230 The Kirátas and Hárítas are savage aborigines of India who occupy

hills and jungles and are altogether different in race and character

from the Hindus. Dr. Muir remarks in his Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p.

488 (second edition) that it does not appear that it is the object

of this legend to represent this miraculous creation as the origin

of these tribes, and that nothing more may have been intended than

that the cow called into existence large armies, of the same stock

with particular tribes previously existing.

231 The Great God, Śiva.

232 Nandi, the snow-white bull, the attendant and favourite vehicle of

Śiva.

233 “The names of many of these weapons which are mythical and partly

allegorical have occurred in Canto XXIX. The general signification

of the story is clear enough. It is a contest for supremacy between

the regal or military order and Bráhmanical or priestly authority,

like one of those struggles which our own Europe saw in the middle

ages when without employing warlike weapons the priesthood

frequently gained the victory.” SCHLEGEL.

For a full account of the early contests between the Bráhmans and

the Kshattriyas, see Muir’s Original Sanskrit Texts (Second edition)

Vol. I. Ch. IV.

234 “Triśanku, king of Ayodhyá, was seventh in descent from Ikshváku,

and Daśaratha holds the thirty-fourth place in the same genealogy.

See Canto LXX. We are thrown back, therefore, to very ancient times,

and it occasions some surprise to find Vaśishṭha and Viśvámitra,

actors in these occurences, still alive in Rama’s time.”

235 “It does not appear how Triśanku, in asking the aid of Vaśishṭha’s

sons after applying in vain to their father, could be charged with

resorting to another _śákhá_ (School) in the ordinary sense of that

word; as it is not conceivable that the sons should have been of

another Śákhá from the father, whose cause they espouse with so much

warmth. The commentator in the Bombay edition explains the word

_Śákhantaram_ as Yájanádiná rakshántaram, ‘one who by sacrificing

for thee, etc., will be another protector.’ Gorresio’s Gauḍa text,

which may often be used as a commentary on the older one, has the

following paraphrase of the words in question, ch. 60, 3. Múlam

utsṛijya kasmát tvam sákhásv ichhasi lambitum. ‘Why, forsaking the

root, dost thou desire to hang upon the branches?’ ” MUIR, Sanskrit

Texts, Vol. I., p. 401.

236 A Chaṇḍála was a man born of the illegal and impure union of a Śúdra

with a woman of one of the three higher castes.

237 “The Chaṇḍála was regarded as the vilest and most abject of the men

sprung from wedlock forbidden by the law (Mánavadharmaśástra, Lib.

X. 12.); a kind of social malediction weighed upon his head and

rejected him from human society.” GORRESIO.

238 This appellation, occuring nowhere else in the poem except as the

name of a city, appears twice in this Canto as a name of Vaśishṭha.

239 “The seven ancient rishis or saints, as has been said before, were

the seven stars of Ursa Major. The seven other new saints which are

here said to have been created by Viśvámitra should be seven new

southern stars, a sort of new Ursa. Von Schlegel thinks that this

mythical fiction of new stars created by Viśvámitra may signify that

these southern stars, unknown to the Indians as long as they

remained in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, became known to them at

a later date when they colonized the southern regions of India.”

GORRESIO.

240 “This cannot refer to the events just related: for Viśvámitra was

successful in the sacrifice performed for Triśanku. And yet no other

impediment is mentioned. Still his restless mind would not allow him

to remain longer in the same spot. So the character of Viśvámitra is

ingeniously and skilfully shadowed forth: as he had been formerly a

most warlike king, loving battle and glory, bold, active, sometimes

unjust, and more frequently magnanimous, such also he always shows

himself in his character of anchorite and ascetic.” SCHLEGEL.

241 Near the modern city of Ajmere. The place is sacred still, and the

name is preserved in the Hindí. Lassen, however, says that this

Pushkala or Pushkara, called by the Grecian writers Πευκελίτις, the

earliest place of pilgrimage mentioned by name, is not to be

confounded with the modern Pushkara in Ajmere.

242 “Ambarísha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshváku, and is

therefore separated by an immense space of time from Triśanku in

whose story Viśvámitra had played so important a part. Yet Richíka,

who is represented as having young sons while Ambarísha was yet

reigning being himself the son of Bhrigu and to be numbered with the

most ancient sages, is said to have married the younger sister of

Viśvámitra. But I need not again remark that there is a perpetual

anachronism in Indian mythology.” SCHLEGEL..

“In the mythical story related in this and the following Canto we

may discover, I think, some indication of the epoch at which the

immolation of lower animals was substituted for human sacrifice.… So

when Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed at Aulis, one legend tells

us that a hind was substituted for the virgin.” GORRESIO.

So the ram caught in the thicket took the place of Isaac, or, as the

Musalmáns say, of Ishmael.

243 The Indian Cupid.

244 “The same as she whose praises Viśvámitra has already sung in Canto

XXXV, and whom the poet brings yet alive upon the scene in Canto

LXI. Her proper name was _Satyavatí_ (Truthful); the patronymic,

Kauśikí was preserved by the river into which she is said to have

been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kuśa

and Kuśí. The river flows from the heights of the Himálaya towards

the Ganges, bounding on the east the country of Videha (Behar). The

name is no doubt half hidden in the _Cosoagus_ of Pliny and the

_Kossounos_ of Arrian. But each author has fallen into the same

error in his enumeration of these rivers (Condochatem, Erannoboam,

Cosoagum, Sonum). The Erannoboas, (Hiraṇyaváha) and the Sone are not

different streams, but well-known names of the same river. Moreover

the order is disturbed, in which on the right and left they fall

into the Ganges. To be consistent with geography it should be

written: Erannoboam sive Sonum, Condochatem (Gandakí), Cosoagum.”

SCHLEGEL.

245 “Daksha was one of the ancient Progenitors or Prajápatis created by

Brahmá. The sacrifice which is here spoken of and in which Śankar or

Śiva (called also here Rudra and Bhava) smote the Gods because he

had not been invited to share the sacred oblations with them, seems

to refer to the origin of the worship of Śiva, to its increase and

to the struggle it maintained with other older forms of worship.”

GORRESIO.

246 Sítá means a furrow.

“Great Erectheus swayed,

That owed his nurture to the blue-eyed maid,

But from the teeming furrow took his birth,

The mighty offspring of the foodful earth.”

Iliad, Book II.

247 “The whole story of Sítá, as will be seen in the course of the poem

has a great analogy with the ancient myth of Proserpine.” GORRESIO.

248 A different lady from the Goddess of the Jumna who bears the same

name.

249 This is another fanciful derivation, _Sa_—with, and _gara_—poison.

_ 250 Purushádak_ means a cannibal. First called _Kalmáshapáda_ on

account of his spotted feet he is said to have been turned into a

cannibal for killing the son of Vaśishṭha.

251 “In the setting forth of these royal genealogies the Bengal

recension varies but slightly from the Northern. The first six names

of the genealogy of the Kings of Ayodhyá are partly theogonical and

partly cosmogonical; the other names are no doubt in accordance with

tradition and deserve the same amount of credence as the ancient

traditional genealogies of other nations.” GORRESIO.

252 The tenth of the lunar asterisms, composed of five stars.

253 There are two lunar asterisms of this name, one following the other

immediately, forming the eleventh and twelfth of the lunar mansions.

254 This is another Ráma, son of Jamadagni, called Paraśuráma, or Ráma

with the axe, from the weapon which he carried. He was while he

lived the terror of the Warrior caste, and his name recalls long and

fierce struggles between the sacerdotal and military order in which

the latter suffered severely at the hands of their implacable enemy.

255 “The author of the _Raghuvaṅśa_ places the mountain Mahendra in the

territory of the king of the Kalingans, whose palace commanded a

view of the ocean. It is well known that the country along the coast

to the south of the mouths of the Ganges was the seat of this

people. Hence it may be suspected that this Mahendra is what Pliny

calls ‘promontorium Calingon.’ The modern name, _Cape Palmyras_,

from the palmyras Borassus flabelliformis, which abound there agrees

remarkably with the description of the poet who speaks of the groves

of these trees. _Raghuvaṅśa_, VI. 51.” SCHLEGEL.

256 Śiva.

257 Siva. God of the Azure Neck.

258 Śatrughna means slayer of foes, and the word is repeated as an

intensive epithet.

259 Alluding to the images of Vishṇu, which have four arms, the four

princes being portions of the substance of that God.

260 Chief of the insignia of imperial dignity.

261 Whisks, usually made of the long tails of the Yak.

262 Chitraratha, King of the Gandharvas.

263 The Chandrakánta or Moonstone, a sort of crystal supposed to be

composed of congealed moonbeams.

264 A customary mark of respect to a superior.

265 Ráhu, the ascending node, is in mythology a demon with the tail of a

dragon whose head was severed from his body by Vishṇu, but being

immortal, the head and tail retained their separate existence and

being transferred to the stellar sphere became the authors of

eclipses; the first especially by endeavouring to swallow the sun

and moon.

266 In eclipse.

267 The seventh of the lunar asterisms.

268 Kauśalyá and Sumitrá.

269 A king of the Lunar race, and father of Yayáti.

270 Literally _the chamber of wrath,_ a “_growlery_,” a small, dark,

unfurnished room to which it seems, the wives and ladies of the king

betook themselves when offended and sulky.

271 In these four lines I do not translate faithfully, and I do not

venture to follow Kaikeyí farther in her eulogy of the hump-back’s

charms.

272 These verses are evidently an interpolation. They contain nothing

that has not been already related: the words only are altered. As

the whole poem could not be recited at once, the rhapsodists at the

beginning of a fresh recitation would naturally remind their hearers

of the events immediately preceding.

273 The _śloka_ or distich which I have been forced to expand into these

nine lines is evidently spurious, but is found in all the commented

MSS. which Schlegel consulted.

274 Manmatha, Mind-disturber, a name of Káma or Love.

275 This story is told in the Mahábhárat. A free version of it may be

found in _Scenes from the Rámáyan, etc._

276 Only the highest merit obtains a home in heaven for ever. Minor

degrees of merit procure only leases of heavenly mansions terminable

after periods proportioned to the fund which buys them. King Yayáti

went to heaven and when his term expired was unceremoniously

ejected, and thrown down to earth.

277 See _Additional Notes_, THE SUPPLIANT DOVE.

278 Indra, called also Purandara, Town-destroyer.

279 Indra’s charioteer.

280 The elephant of Indra.

281 A star in the spike of Virgo: hence the name of the mouth Chaitra or

Chait.

282 The Rain-God.

283 In a former life.

284 One of the lunar asterisms, represented as the favourite wife of the

Moon. See p. 4, note.

285 The Sea.

286 The Moon.

287 The comparison may to a European reader seem a homely one. But

Spenser likens an infuriate woman to a cow “That is berobbed of her

youngling dere.” Shakspeare also makes King Henry VI compare himself

to the calf’s mother that “Runs lowing up and down, Looking the way

her harmless young one went.” “Cows,” says De Quincey, “are amongst

the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate

tenderness to their young, when deprived of them, and, in short, I

am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these gentle creatures.”

288 The commentators say that, in a former creation, Ocean grieved his

mother and suffered in consequence the pains of hell.

289 As described in Book I Canto XL.

290 Parasúráma.

291 The Sanskrit word _hasta_ signifies both _hand_, and the trunk of

“The beast that bears between his eyes a serpent for a head.”

292 See P. 41.

293 The first progeny of Brahmá or Brahmá himself.

294 These are three names of the Sun.

295 See P. 1.

296 The saints who form the constellation of Ursa Major.

297 The regent of the planet Venus.

298 Kuvera.

_ 299 Bali_, or the presentation of food to all created beings, is one of

the five great sacraments of the Hindu religion: it consists in

throwing a small parcel of the offering, _Ghee_, or rice, or the

like, into the open air at the back of the house.

300 In mythology, a demon slain by Indra.

301 Called also Garuḍ, the King of the birds, offspring of Vinatá. See

p. 53.

302 See P. 56.

303 See P. 43.

304 The story of Sávitrí, told in the Mahábhárat, has been admirably

translated by Rückert, and elegantly epitomized by Mrs. Manning in

_India, Ancient and Mediæval_. There is a free rendering of the

story in _Idylls from the Sanskrit_.

305 Fire for sacrificial purposes is produced by the attrition of two

pieces of wood.

306 Kaikeyí.

307 The chapel where the sacred fire used in worship is kept.

308 The students and teachers of the Taittiríya portion of the Yajur

Veda.

309 Two of the divine personages called _Prajápatis_ and _Brahmádikas_

who were first created by Brahmá.

310 It was the custom of the kings of the solar dynasty to resign in

their extreme old age the kingdom to the heir, and spend the

remainder of their days in holy meditation in the forest:

“For such through ages in their life’s decline

Is the good custom of Ikshváku’s line.”

_Raghuraṅśa._

311 See Book I, Canto XXXIX. An Indian prince in more modern times

appears to have diverted himself in a similar way.

It is still reported in Belgaum that Appay Deasy was wont to amuse

himself “by making several young and beautiful women stand side by

side on a narrow balcony, without a parapet, overhanging the deep

reservoir at the new palace in Nipani. He used then to pass along

the line of trembling creatures, and suddenly thrusting one of them

headlong into the water below, he used to watch her drowning, and

derive pleasure from her dying agonies.”—History of the Belgaum

District. By H. J. Stokes, M. S. C.

312 Chitraratha, King of the celestial choristers.

313 It is said that the bamboo dies after flowering.

314 “Thirty centuries have passed since he began this memorable journey.

Every step of it is known and is annually traversed by thousands:

hero worship is not extinct. What can Faith do! How strong are the

ties of religion when entwined with the legends of a country! How

many a cart creeps creaking and weary along the road from Ayodhyá to

Chitrakúṭ. It is this that gives the Rámáyan a strange interest, the

story still lives.” _Calcutta Review: Vol. XXIII._

315 See p. 72.

316 Four stars of the sixteenth lunar asterism.

317 In the marriage service.

318 The husks and chaff of the rice offered to the Gods.

319 An important sacrifice at which seventeen victims were immolated.

320 The great pilgrimage to the Himálayas, in order to die there.

321 Known to Europeans as the Goomtee.

322 A tree, commonly called _Ingua_.

323 Sacrificial posts to which the victims were tied.

324 Daughter of Jahnu, a name of the Ganges. See p. 55.

325 The _Mainá_ or Gracula religiosa, a favourite cage-bird, easily

taught to talk.

326 The Jumna.

327 The Hindu name of Allahabad.

328 The Langúr is a large monkey.

329 A mountain said to lie to the east of Meru.

330 Another name of the Jumna, daughter of the Sun.

331 “We have often looked on that green hill: it is the holiest spot of

that sect of the Hindu faith who devote themselves to this

incarnation of Vishṇu. The whole neighbourhood is Ráma’s country.

Every headland has some legend, every cavern is connected with his

name; some of the wild fruits are still called _Sítáphal_, being the

reputed food of the exile. Thousands and thousands annually visit

the spot, and round the hill is a raised foot-path, on which the

devotee, with naked feet, treads full of pious awe.” _Calcutta

Review_, Vol. XXIII.

332 Deities of a particular class in which five or ten are enumerated.

They are worshipped particularly at the funeral obsequies in honour

of deceased progenitors.

333 “So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears

the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:”

“Ἵπποι δ’ Αἰακίδαο, μάχης ἀπάνευθεν ἐότες,

Κλᾶιον, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα πυθέσθην ἡνιόχοιο

Ἐν κονίνσι πεσόντος ὑφ’ Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο”

ILIAD. XVII. 426.

“Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and

sorrows of man.” GORRESIO.

334 The lines containing this heap of forced metaphors are marked as

spurious by Schlegel.

335 The southern region is the abode of Yama the Indian Pluto, and of

departed spirits.

336 The five elements of which the body consists, and to which it

returns.

337 So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:

“Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:

Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.”

_King Henry V, Act IV, 6._

338 Kauśalyá, daughter of the king of another Kośal.

339 Rájagriha, or Girivraja was the capital of Aśvapati, Bharat’s

maternal grandfather.

340 The Kekayas or Kaikayas in the Punjab appear amongst the chief

nations in the war of the Mahábhárata; their king being a kinsman of

Krishṇa.

341 Hástinapura was the capital of the kingdom of Kuru, near the modern

Delhi.

342 The Panchálas occupied the upper part of the Doab.

343 “Kurujángala and its inhabitants are frequently mentioned in the

_Mahábhárata_, as in the _Ádi-parv._ 3789, 4337, _et al._” WILSON’S

_Vishṇu Puráṇa,_ Vol. II. p. 176. DR. HALL’S Note.

344 “The Ὁξύματις of Arrian. See _As. Res._ Vol. XV. p. 420, 421, also

_Indische Alterthumskunde_, Vol. I. p. 602, first footnote.”

WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. I. p. 421. DR. HALL’S Edition. The

Ikshumatí was a river in Kurukshetra.

345 “The Báhíkas are described in the Mahábhárata, Karṇa Parvan, with

some detail, and comprehend the different nations of the Punjab from

the Sutlej to the Indus.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. I. p. 167.

346 The Beas, Hyphasis, or Bibasis.

347 It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and

streams mentioned in Cantos LXVIII and LXXII. Professor Wilson

observes (_Vishṇu Puráṇa_, p. 139. Dr. Hall’s Edition) “States, and

tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and

some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers,

have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these

impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least

mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now

practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their

nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been

oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been

conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have,

consequently, put down names at random, according to their own

inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and

corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with

appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or

present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover

Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of

Calcutta, Barnagore represents Baráhanagar, Dakshineśwar is

metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaría into Willoughbury.… There is

scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of

extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an

incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree,

perhaps, a national defect.”

For further information regarding the road from Ayodhyá to

Rájagriha, see _Additional Notes_.

348 “The Śatadrú, ‘the hundred-channeled’—the Zaradrus of Ptolemy,

Hesydrus of Pliny—is the Sutlej.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II.

p. 130.

349 The Sarasvatí or Sursooty is a tributary of the Caggar or Guggur in

Sirhind.

_ 350 Súryamcha pratimehatu_, adversus solem mingat. An offence expressly

forbidden by the Laws of Manu.

351 Bharat does not intend these curses for any particular person: he

merely wishes to prove his own innocence by invoking them on his own

head if he had any share in banishing Ráma.

352 The Sáma-veda, the hymns of which are chanted aloud.

353 Walking from right to left.

354 Birth and death, pleasure and pain, loss and gain.

355 Erected upon a tree or high staff in honour of Indra.

356 I follow in this stanza the Bombay edition in preference to

Schlegel’s which gives the tears of joy to the courtiers.

357 The commentator says “Śatrughna accompanied by the other sons of the

king.”

358 Not Bharat’s uncle, but some councillor.

_ 359 Śatakratu_, Lord of a hundred sacrifices, the performance of a

hundred _Aśvamedhas_ or sacrifices of a horse entitling the

sacrificer to this exalted dignity.

360 The modern Malabar.

361 Now Sungroor, in the Allahabad district.

362 Ráma, Lakshmaṇ, and Sumantra.

363 The _svastika_, a little cross with a transverse line at each

extremity.

364 When an army marched it was customary to burn the huts in which it

had spent the night.

365 Yáma, Varuṇa, and Kuvera.

366 “A happy land in the remote north where the inhabitants enjoy a

natural pefection attended with complete happiness obtained without

exertion. There is there no vicissitude, nor decrepitude, nor death,

nor fear: no distinction of virtue and vice, none of the

inequalities denoted by the words best, worst, and intermediate, nor

any change resulting from the succession of the four Yugas.” See

MUIR’S _Sanskrit Texts_, Vol. I. p. 492.

367 The Moon.

368 The poet does not tell us what these lakes contained.

369 These ten lines are a substitution for, and not a translation of the

text which Carey and Marshman thus render: “This mountain adorned

with mango, jumboo, usuna, lodhra, piala, punusa, dhava, unkotha,

bhuvya, tinisha, vilwa, tindooka, bamboo, kashmaree, urista, uruna,

madhooka, tilaka, vuduree, amluka, nipa, vetra, dhunwuna, veejaka,

and other trees affording flowers, and fruits, and the most

delightful shade, how charming does it appear!”

_ 370 Vidyadharis_, Spirits of Air, sylphs.

371 A lake attached either to Amarávatí the residence of Indra, or Alaká

that of Kuvera.

372 The Ganges of heaven.

373 Naliní, as here, may be the name of any lake covered with lotuses.

374 This canto is allowed, by Indian commentators, to be an

interpolation. It cannot be the work of Válmíki.

375 A fine bird with a strong, sweet note, and great imitative powers.

376 Bauhinea variegata, a species of ebony.

377 The rainbow is called the bow of Indra.

378 Bhogavatí, the abode of the Nágas or Serpent race.

379 “The order of the procession on these occasions is that the children

precede according to age, then the women and after that the men

according to age, the youngest first and the eldest last: when they

descend into the water this is reversed and resumed when they come

out of it.” CAREY AND MARSHMAN.

380 Vṛihaspati, the preceptor of the Gods.

381 Garuḍ, the king of birds.

382 To be won by virtue.

383 The four religious orders, referable to different times of life are,

that of the student, that of the householder, that of the anchorite,

and that of the mendicant.

384 To Gods, men, and Manes.

385 Gayá is a very holy city in Behar. Every good Hindu ought once in

his life to make funeral offerings in Gayá in honour of his

ancestors.

_ 386 Put_ is the name of that region of hell to which men are doomed who

leave no son to perform the funeral rites which are necessary to

assure the happiness of the departed. _Putra_, the common word for a

son is said by the highest authority to be derived from _Put_ and

_tra_ deliverer.

387 It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent

husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.

Carey and Marshman translate, “the one-tailed city.”

388 The verses in a different metre with which some cantos end are all

to be regarded with suspicion. Schlegel regrets that he did not

exclude them all from his edition. These lines are manifestly

spurious. See _Additional Notes_.

389 This genealogy is a repetition with slight variation of that given

in Book I, Canto LXX.

390 In Gorresio’s recension identified with Vishṇu. See Muir’s _Sanskrit

Texts, Vol. IV. pp 29, 30_.

391 From _sa_ with, and _gara_ poison.

392 See Book I. Canto XL.

393 A practice which has frequently been described, under the name of

_dherna_, by European travellers in India.

394 Compare Milton’s “_beseeching or beseiging_.”

395 Ten-headed, ten-necked, ten faced, are common epithets of Rávaṇ the

giant king of Lanká.

396 The spouse of Rohiṇí is the Moon: Ráhu is the demon who causes

eclipses.

397 “Once,” says the Commentator Tírtha, “in the battle between the Gods

and demons the Gods were vanquished, and the sun was overthrown by

Ráhu. At the request of the Gods Atri undertook the management of

the sun for a week.”

398 Now Nundgaon, in Oudh.

399 A part of the great Daṇḍak forest.

400 When the saint Máṇḍavya had doomed some saint’s wife, who was

Anasúyá’s friend, to become a widow on the morrow.

401 Heavenly nymphs.

402 The _ball_ or present of food to all created beings.

403 The clarified butter &c. cast into the sacred fire.

404 The Moon-God: “he is,” says the commentator, “the special deity of

Bráhmans.”

405 “Because he was an incarnation of the deity,” says the commentator,

“otherwise such honour paid by men of the sacerdotal caste to one of

the military would be improper.”

406 The king of birds.

_ 407 Kálántakayamopamam_, resembling Yáma the destroyer.

408 Somewhat inconsistently with this part of the story Tumburu is

mentioned in Book II, Canto XII as one of the Gandharvas or heavenly

minstrels summoned to perform at Bharadvája’s feast.

409 Rambhá appears in Book I Canto LXIV as the temptress of Viśvámitra.

410 The conclusion of this Canto is all a vain repetition: it is

manifestly spurious and a very feeble imitation of Válmíki’s style.

See _Additional Notes_.

411 “Even when he had alighted,” says the commentator: The feet of Gods

do not touch the ground.

412 A name of Indra.

413 Śachí is the consort of Indra.

414 The spheres or mansions gained by those who have duly performed the

sacrifices required of them. Different situations are assigned to

these spheres, some placing them near the sun, others near the moon.

415 Hermits who live upon roots which they dig out of the earth:

literally _diggers_, derived from the prefix _vi_ and _khan_ to dig.

416 Generally, divine personages of the height of a man’s thumb,

produced from Brahmá’s hair: here, according to the commentator

followed by Gorresio, hermits who when they have obtained fresh food

throw away what they had laid up before.

417 Sprung from the washings of Vishṇuu’s feet.

418 Four fires burning round them, and the sun above.

419 The tax allowed to the king by the Laws of Manu.

420 Near the celebrated Rámagiri or Ráma’s Hill, now Rám-ṭek, near

Nagpore—the scene of the Yaksha’s exile in the _Messenger Cloud_.

421 A hundred _Aśvamedhas_ or sacrifices of a horse raise the sacrificer

to the dignity of Indra.

422 Indra.

423 Gorresio observes that Daśaratha was dead and that Sítá had been

informed of his death. In his translation he substitutes for the

words of the text “thy relations and mine.” This is quite

superfluous. Daśaratha though in heaven still took a loving interest

in the fortunes of his son.

424 One of the hermits who had followed Ráma.

425 The lake of the five nymphs.

426 The holy fig-tree.

427 The bread-fruit tree, Artocarpus integrifolia.

428 A fine timber tree, Shorea robusta.

429 The God of fire.

430 Kuvera, the God of riches.

431 The Sun.

432 Brahmá, the creator.

433 Śiva.

434 The Wind-God.

435 The God of the sea.

436 A class of demi-gods, eight in number.

437 The holiest text of the Vedas, deified.

438 Vásuki.

439 Garuḍ.

440 The War-God.

441 One of the Pleiades generally regarded as the model of wifely

excellence.

442 The Madhúka, or, as it is now called, Mahuwá, is the Bassia

latifolia, a tree from whose blossoms a spirit is extracted.

443 “I should have doubted whether Manu could have been the right

reading here, but that it occurs again in verse 29, where it is in

like manner followed in verse 31 by Analá, so that it would

certainly seem that the name Manu is intended to stand for a female,

the daughter of Daksha. The Gauḍa recension, followed by Signor

Gorresio (III 20, 12), adopts an entirely different reading at the

end of the line, viz. _Balám Atibalám api_, ‘Balá and Atibilá,’

instead of Manu and Analá. I see that Professor Roth s.v. adduces

the authority of the Amara Kosha and of the Commentator on Páṇini

for stating that the word sometimes means ‘the wife of Manu.’ In the

following text of the Mahábhárata I. 2553. also, Manu appears to be

the name of a female: ‘_Anaradyam_, _Manum_, _Vañsám_, _Asurám_,

_Márgaṇapriyám_, _Anúpám_, _Subhagám_, _Bhásím iti_, _Prádhá

vyajayata_. Prádhá (daughter of Daksha) bore Anavadyá, Manu, Vanśá,

Márgaṇapriyá, Anúpá, Subhagá. and Bhásí.’ ” _Muir’s Sanskrit Text_,

Vol. I. p. 116.

444 The elephant of Indra.

_ 445 Golángúlas_, described as a kind of monkey, of a black colour, and

having a tail like a cow.

446 Eight elephants attached to the four quarters and intermediate

points of the compass, to support and guard the earth.

447 Some scholars identify the centaurs with the Gandharvas.

448 The hooded serpents, says the commentator Tírtha, were the offspring

of Surasá: all others of Kadrú.

449 The text reads Kaśyapa, “a descendant of Kaśyapa,” who according to

Rám. II. l0, 6, ought to be Vivasvat. But as it is stated in the

preceding part of this passage III. 14, 11 f. that Manu was one of

Kaśyapa’s eight wives, we must here read Kaśyap. The Ganda recension

reads (III, 20, 30) _Manur manushyáms cha tatha janayámása Rághana_,

instead of the corresponding line in the Bombay edition. _Muir’s

Sanskrit Text, Vol I, p. 117._

450 The original verses merely name the trees. I have been obliged to

amplify slightly and to omit some quas versu dicere non est; _e.g._

the _tiniśa_ (Dalbergia ougeiniensis), _punnága_ (Rottleria

tinctoria), _tilaka_ (not named), _syandana_ (Dalbergia ougeiniensis

again), _vandana_ (unknown), _nípa_ (Nauclea Kadamba), _lakucha_

(Artœarpus lacucha), _dhava_ (Grislea tomentosa), Aśvakarna (another

name for the Sál), _Śamí_ (Acacia Suma), _khadira_ (Mimosa catechu),

_kinśuka_ (Butea frondosa), _pátala_ (Bignonia suaveolens).

451 Acacia Suma.

452 The south is supposed to be the residence of the departed.

453 The sun.

454 The night is divided into three watches of four hours each.

455 The chief chamberlain and attendant of Śiva or Rudra.

456 Umá or Párvati, the consort of Śiva.

457 A star, one of the favourites of the Moon.

458 The God of love.

459 A demon slain by Indra.

460 Chitraratha, King of the Gandharvas.

461 Titanic.

462 The Sáriká is the Maina, a bird like a starling.

463 Mahákapála, Sthúláksha, Pramátha, Triśiras.

464 Vishṇu, who bears a _chakra_ or discus.

465 Śiva.

466 See _Additional Notes_—DAKSHA’S SACRIFICE.

467 Himálaya.

468 One of the mysterious weapons given to Ráma.

469 A periphrasis for the body.

470 Triśirás.

471 The Three-headed.

472 The demon who causes eclipses.

473 “This Asura was a friend of Indra, and taking advantage of his

friend’s confidence, he drank up Indra’s strength along with a

draught of wine and Soma. Indra then told the Aśvins and Sarasvatí

that Namuchi had drunk up his strength. The Aśvins in consequence

gave Indra a thunderbolt in the form of a foam, with which he smote

off the head of Namuchi.” GARRETT’S _Classical Dictionary of India_.

See also Book I, Canto XXIX.

562 “Sugríva’s story paints in vivid colours the manners, customs and

ideas of the wild mountain tribes which inhabited Kishkindhya or the

southern hills of the Deccan, of the people whom the poem calls

monkeys, tribes altogether different in origin and civilization from

the Indo-Sanskrit race.” GORRESIO.

563 A fiend slain by Báli.

564 Báli’s mountain city.

565 The canopy or royal umbrella, one of the usual Indian regalia.

566 Whisks made of the hair of the Yak or Bos grunniers, also regal

insignia.

567 Righteous because he never transgresses his bounds, and

“over his great tides

Fidelity presides.”

568 Himálaya, the Lord of Snow, is the father of Umá the wife of Śiva or

Śankar.

569 Indra’s celestial elephant.

570 Báli was the son of Indra. See p. 28.

571 An Asur slain by Indra. See p. 261 Note. He is, like Vritra, a form

of the demon of drought destroyed by the beneficent God of the

firmament.

572 Another name of Indra or Mahendra.

573 The Bengal recension makes it return in the form of a swan.

574 Varuṇa is one of the oldest of the Vedic Gods, corresponding in name

and partly in character to the Οὐρανός of the Greeks and is often

regarded as the supreme deity. He upholds heaven and earth,

possesses extraordinary power and wisdom, sends his messengers

through both worlds, numbers the very winkings of men’s eyes,

punishes transgressors whom he seizes with his deadly noose, and

pardons the sins of those who are penitent. In later mythology he

has become the God of the sea.

575 Budha, not to be confounded with the great reformer Buddha, is the

son of Soma or the Moon, and regent of the planet Mercury. Angára is

the regent of Mars who is called the red or the fiery planet. The

encounter between Michael and Satan is similarly said to have been

as if

“Two planets rushing from aspect malign

Of fiercest opposition in midsky

Should combat, and their jarring spheres compound.”

_Paradise Lost._ Book VI.

576 The Aśvins or Heavenly Twins, the Dioskuri or Castor and Pollux of

the Hindus, have frequently been mentioned. See p. 36, Note.

577 Called respectively Gárhapatya, Áhavaniya, and Dakshiṇa, household,

sacrificial, and southern.

578 The store of merit accumulated by a holy or austere life secures

only a temporary seat in the mansion of bliss. When by the lapse of

time this store is exhausted, return to earth is unavoidable.

579 The conflagration which destroys the world at the end of a Yuga or

age.

580 Himálaya.

581 Tárá means “star.” The poet plays upon the name by comparing her

beauty to that of the Lord of stars, the Moon.

582 Suparṇa, the Well-winged, is another name of Garuḍa the King of

Birds. See p. 28, Note.

583 The God of Death.

584 The flag-staff erected in honour of the God Indra is lowered when

the festival is over. Aśvíní in astronomy is the head of Aries or

the first of the twenty-eight lunar mansions or asterisms.

585 Indra the father of Báli.

586 It is believed that every creature killed by Ráma obtained in

consequence immediate beatitude.

“And blessed the hand that gave so dear a death.”

587 “Yayáti was invited to heaven by Indra, and conveyed on the way

thither by Mátali, Indra’s charioteer. He afterwards returned to

earth where, by his virtuous administration he rendered all his

subjects exempt from passion and decay.” GARRETT’S C. D. OF INDIA.

588 The ascetic’s dress which he wore during his exile.

589 There is much inconsistency in the passages of the poem in which the

Vánars are spoken of, which seems to point to two widely different

legends. The Vánars are generally represented as semi-divine beings

with preternatural powers, living in houses and eating and drinking

like men sometimes as here, as monkeys pure and simple, living is

woods and eating fruit and roots.

590 For a younger brother to marry before the elder is a gross violation

of Indian law and duty. The same law applied to daughters with the

Hebrews: “It must not be so done in our country to give the younger

before the first-born.” GENESIS xix. 26.

591 “The hedgehog and porcupine, the lizard, the rhinoceros, the

tortoise, and the rabbit or hare, wise legislators declare lawful

food among five-toed animals.” MANU, v. 18.

592 “He can not buckle his distempered cause

Within the belt of rule.”

MACBETH.

593 The _Ankuś_ or iron hook with which an elephant is driven and

guided.

594 Hayagríva, Horse-necked, is a form of Vishṇu.

595 “Aśvatara is the name of a chief of the Nágas or serpents which

inhabit the regions under the earth; it is also the name of a

Gandharva. Aśvatarí ought to be the wife of one of the two, but I am

not sure that this conjecture is right. The commentator does not say

who this Aśvatarí is, or what tradition or myth is alluded to.

Vimalabodha reads Aśvatarí in the nominative case, and explains,

Aśvatarí is the sun, and as the sun with his rays brings back the

moon which has been sunk in the ocean and the infernal regions, so

will I bring back Sítá.” GORRESIO.

596 That is, “Consider what answer you can give to your accusers when

they charge you with injustice in killing me.”

597 Manu, Book VIII. 318. “But men who have committed offences and have

received from kings the punishment due to them, go pure to heaven

and become as clear as those who have done well.”

598 Mándhátá was one of the earlier descendants of Ikshváku. His name is

mentioned in Ráma’s genealogy, p. 81.

599 I cannot understand how Válmíki could put such an excuse as this

into Ráma’s mouth. Ráma with all solemn ceremony, has made a league

of alliance with Báli’s younger brother whom he regards as a dear

friend and almost as an equal, and now he winds up his reasons for

killing Báli by coolly saying: “Besides you are only a monkey, you

know, after all, and as such I have every right to kill you how,

when, and where I like.”

600 A name of Garuḍa the king of birds, the great enemy of the Serpents.

601 Sugríva’s wife.

602 “Our deeds still follow with us from afar. And what we have been

makes us what we are.”

603 Sugríva and Angad.

604 Angad himself, being too young to govern, would be Yuvarája or

heir-apparent.

605 Susheṇa was the son of Varuṇa the God of the sea.

606 A demon with the tail of a dragon, that causes eclipses by

endeavouring to swallow the sun and moon.

607 The Lord of Stars is the Moon.

608 Or the passage may be interpreted: “Be neither too obsequious or

affectionate, nor wanting in due respect or love.”

609 Sacrifices and all religious rites begin and end with ablution, and

the wife of the officiating Bráhman takes an important part in the

performance of the holy ceremonies.

610 Viśvarúpa, a son of Twashṭri or Viśvakarmá the heavenly architect,

was a three-headed monster slain by Indra.

611 The Vánar chief, not to be confounded with Tárá.

612 Śrávaṇ: July-August. But the rains begin a month earlier, and what

follows must not be taken literally. The text has _púrvo’ yam

várshiko másah Śrávaṇah salilágamdh_. The Bengal recension has the

same, and Gorresio translates: “Equesto ilmese Srâvana

(luglio-agosto) primo della stagione piovosa, in cui dilagano le

acque.”

613 Kártik: October-November.

614 “Indras, as the nocturnal sun, hides himself, transformed, in the

starry heavens: the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or

all-seeing (panoptês) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the

cow beloved by Zeus, in the Hellenic equivalent of this form of

Indras.” DE GUBERNATIS, _Zoological Mythology_, Vol. I, p. 418.

615 Baudháyana and others.

616 Sugríva appears to have been consecrated with all the ceremonies

that attended the _Abhisheka_ or coronation of an Indian prince of

the Aryan race. Compare the preparations made for Ráma’s

consecration, Book II, Canto III. Thus Homer frequently introduces

into Troy the rites of Hellenic worship.

617 Vitex Negundo.

618 Mályavat: “The name of this mountain appears to me to be erroneous,

and I think that instead of Mályavat should be read Malayavat,

Malaya is a group of mountains situated exactly in that southern

part of India where Ráma now was, while Mályavat is placed to the

north east.” GORRESIO.

619 Mantles of the skin of the black antelope were the prescribed dress

of ascetics and religious students.

620 The sacred cord worn as the badge of religious initiation by men of

the three twice-born castes.

621 The hum with which students conduct their tasks.

622 I omit here a long general description of the rainy season which is

not found in the Bengal recension and appears to have been

interpolated by a far inferior and much later hand than Valmiki’s.

It is composed in a metre different from that of the rest of the

Canto, and contains figures of poetical rhetoric and common-places

which are the delight of more recent poets.

623 Praushthapada or Bhadra, the modern Bhadon, corresponds to half of

August and half of September.

624 The Sáman or Sáma-veda, the third of the four Vedas, is really

merely a reproduction of parts of the Rig-veda, transposed and

scattered about piece-meal, only 78 verses in the whole being, it is

said, untraceable to the present recension of the Rig-veda.

625 Áshádha is the month corresponding to parts of June and July.

626 Bharat, who was regent during Ráma’s absence.

627 Or with Gorresio, following the gloss of another commentary: “Has

completed every holy rite and accumulated stores of merit.”

628 The river on which Ayodhyá was built.

629 I omit a _śloka_ or four lines on gratitude and ingratitude repeated

word for word from the last Canto.

630 The Indian crane; a magnificent bird easily domesticated.

631 The troops who guard the frontiers on the north, south, east and

west.

632 The Chátaka, Cuculus, Melanoleucus, is supposed to drink nothing but

the water for the clouds.

633 The time for warlike expeditions began when the rains had ceased.

634 The rainbow.

635 Indra’s associates in arms, and musicians of his heaven.

636 Maireya, a spirituous liquor from the blossoms of the Lythrum

fruticosum, with sugar, &c.

637 Their names are as follows: Angad, Maínda, Dwida, Gavaya, Gaváksha,

Gaja, Śarabha, Vidyunmáli, Sampáti, Súryáksa, Hanumán, Vírabáhu,

Subáhu, Nala, Kúmuda, Susheṇa, Tára, Jámbuvatu, Dadhivakra, Níla,

Supátala, and Sunetra.

638 The Kalpadruma or Wishing-tree is one of the trees of Svarga or

Indra’s Paradise: it has the power of granting all desires.

639 The meaning is that if a man promises to give a horse and then

breaks his word he commits a sin as great as if he had killed a

hundred horses.

640 The story is told in Book I, Canto LXIII, but the charmer there is

called Menaká.

641 Rohiṇí is the name of the ninth Nakshatra or lunar asterism

personified as a daughter of Daksha, and the favourite wife of the

Moon. Aldebaran is the principal star in the constellation.

642 Válmíki and succeeding poets make the second vowel in this name long

or short at their pleasure.

643 Some of the mountains here mentioned are fabulous and others it is

impossible to identify. Sugríva means to include all the mountains

of India from Kailás the residence of the God Kuvera, regarded as

one of the loftiest peaks of the Himálayas, to Mahendra in the

extreme south, from the mountain in the east where the sun is said

to rise to Astáchal or the western mountain where he sets. The

commentators give little assistance: that Maháśaila, &c. are certain

mountains is about all the information they give.

644 One of the celestial elephants of the Gods who protect the four

quarters and intermediate points of the compass.

645 Váyu or the Wind was the father of Hanumán.

646 The path or station of Vishṇu is the space between the seven Rishis

or Ursa Major, and Dhruva or the polar star.

647 One of the seven seas which surround the earth in concentric

circles.

648 The title of Maheśvar or Mighty Lord is sometimes given to Indra,

but more generally to Śiva whom it here denotes.

649 See Book I, Canto XVI.

650 The numbers are unmanageable in English verse. The poet speaks of

hundreds of _arbudas_; and an _arbuda_ is a hundred millions.

651 Anuhláda or Anuhráda is one of the four sons of the mighty

Hiraṇyakaśipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kaśyapa and Diti and

killed by Vishṇu in his incarnation of the Man-Lion _Narasinha_.

According to the Bhágavata Puráṇa the Daitya or Asur Hiraṇyakaśipu

and Hiraṇyáksha his brother, both killed by Vishṇu, were born again

as Rávaṇ and Kumbhakarṇa his brother.

652 Puloma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in

order to avert an imprecation. Paulomí is a patronymic denoting

Śachí the daughter of Puloma.

653 “Observe the variety of colours which the poem attributes to all

these inhabitants of the different mountainous regions, some white,

others yellow, &c. Such different colours were perhaps peculiar and

distinctive characteristics of those various races.” GORRESSIO.

654 Susheṇ.

655 Tára.

656 Kesarí was the husband of Hanúmán’s mother, and is here called his

father.

657 “I here unite under one heading two animals of very diverse nature

and race, but which from some gross resemblances, probably helped by

an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo

myth … a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and

ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or

arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality,

capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all

characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as

well as in monkeys. In the _Rámáyaṇam_, the wise Jámnavant, the

Odysseus of the expedition of Lanká, is called now king of the bears

(rikshaparthivah), now great monkey (_Mahákapih_).” DE GUBERNATIS:

_Zoological Mythology_, Vol. II. p. 97.

658 Gandhamádana, Angad, Tára, Indrajánu, Rambha, Durmukha, Hanumán,

Nala, Da mukha, Śarabha, Kumuda, Vahni.

659 Daityas and Dánavas are fiends and enemies of the Gods, like the

Titans of Greek mythology.

660 I reduce the unwieldy numbers of the original to more modest

figures.

661 Sarayú now Sarjú is the river on which Ayodhyá was built.

662 Kauśikí is a river which flows through Behar, commonly called Kosi.

663 Bhagírath’s daughter is Gangá or the Ganges. The legend is told at

length in Book I Canto XLIV. _The Descent of Gangá_.

664 A mountain not identified.

665 The Jumna. The river is personified as the twin sister of Yáma, and

hence regarded as the daughter of the Sun.

666 The Sarasvatí (corruptly called Sursooty, is supposed to join the

Ganges and Jumna at Prayág or Allahabad. It rises in the mountains

bounding the north-east part of the province of Delhi, and running

in a south-westerly direction becomes lost in the sands of the great

desert.

667 The Sindhu is the Indus, the Sanskrit _s_ becoming _h_ in Persian

and being in this instance dropped by the Greeks.

668 The Sone which rises in the district of Nagpore and falls into the

Ganges above Patna.

669 Mahí is a river rising in Malwa and falling into the gulf of Cambay

after a westerly course of 280 miles.

670 There is nothing to show what parts of the country the poet intended

to denote as silk-producing and silver-producing.

671 Yavadwipa means the island of Yava, wherever that may be.

672 Śiśir is said to be a mountain ridge projecting from the base of

Meru on the south. Wilson’s _Vishnu Puráṇa_, ed. Hall, Vol. II. p.

117.

673 This appears to be some mythical stream and not the well-known Śone.

The name means red-coloured.

674 A fabulous thorny rod of the cotton tree used for torturing the

wicked in hell. The tree gives its name, Śálmalí, to one of the

seven Dwípas, or great divisions of the known continent: and also to

a hell where the wicked are tormented with the pickles of the tree.

675 The king of the feathered creation.

676 Viśvakarmá, the Mulciber of the Indian heaven.

677 “The terrific fiends named Mandehas attempt to devour the sun: for

Brahmá denounced this curse upon them, that without the power to

perish they should die every day (and revive by night) and therefore

a fierce contest occurs (daily) between them and the sun.” WILSON’S

Vishṇu Puráṇa. Vol. II. p. 250.

678 Said in the _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ to be a ridge projecting from the base

of Meru to the north.

679 Kinnars are centaurs reversed, beings with equine head and human

bodies.

680 Yakshas are demi-gods attendant on Kuvera the God of wealth.

681 Aurva was one of the descendants of Bhrigu. From his wrath proceeded

a flame that threatened to destroy the world, had not Aurva cast it

into the ocean where it remained concealed, and having the face of a

horse. The legend is told in the _Mahábhárat_. I. 6802.

682 The word Játarúpa means gold.

683 The celebrated mythological serpent king Sesha, called also Ananta

or the infinite, represented as bearing the earth on one of his

thousand heads.

684 Jambudwípa is in the centre of the seven great _dwípas_ or

continents into which the world is divided, and in the centre of

Jambudwípa is the golden mountain Meru 84,000 yojans high, and

crowned by the great city of Brahmá. See WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_,

Vol. II. p. 110.

685 Vaikhánases are a race of hermit saints said to have sprung from the

nails of Prajápati.

686 “The wife of Kratu, Samnati, brought forth the sixty thousand

Válakhilyas, pigmy sages, no bigger than a joint of the thumb,

chaste, pious, resplendent as the rays of the Sun.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu

Puráṇa_.

687 The continent in which Sudarśan or Meru stands, _i.e._ Jambudwíp.

688 The names of some historical peoples which occur in this Canto and

in the Cantos describing the south and north will be found in the

ADDITIONAL NOTES. They are bare lists, not susceptible of a metrical

version.

689 Suhotra, Śarári, Śaragulma, Gayá, Gaváksha, Gavaya, Susheṇa,

Gandhamádana, Ulkámukha, and Ananga.

690 The modern Nerbudda.

691 Krishṇaveṇí is mentioned in the _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ as “the deep

Krishṇaveṇí” but there appears to be no clue to its identification.

692 The modern Godavery.

693 The Mekhalas or Mekalas according to the Paráṇas live in the Vindhya

hills, but here they appear among the peoples of the south.

694 Utkal is still the native name of Orissa.

695 The land of the people of the “ten forts.” Professor Hall in a note

on WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 160 says: “The oral

traditions of the vicinity to this day assign the name of Daśárna to

a region lying to the east of the District of Chundeyree.”

696 Avantí is one of the ancient names of the celebrated Ujjayin or

Oujein in Central India.

697 Not identified.

698 Ayomukh means iron faced. The mountain is not identified.

699 The Káverí or modern Cauvery is well known and has always borne the

same appellation, being the Chaberis of Ptolemy.

700 One of the seven principal mountain chains: the southern portion of

the Western Gháts.

701 Agastya is the great sage who has already frequently appeared as

Ráma’s friend and benefactor.

702 Támraparṇí is a river rising in Malaya.

703 The Páṇḍyas are a people of the Deccan.

704 Mahendra is the chain of hills that extends from Orissa and the

northern Sircars to Gondwána, part of which near Ganjam is still

called Mahendra Malay or hills of Mahendra.

705 Lanká, Sinhaladvípa, Sarandib, or Ceylon.

706 The Flowery Hill of course is mythical.

707 The whole of the geography south of Lanká is of course mythical.

Súryaván means Sunny.

708 Vaidyut means connected with lightning.

709 Agastya is here placed far to the south of Lanká. Earlier in this

Canto he was said to dwell on Malaya.

710 Bhogavatí has been frequently mentioned: it is the capital of the

serpent Gods or demons, and usually represented as being in the

regions under the earth.

711 Vásuki is according to some accounts the king of the Nágas or

serpent Gods.

712 Śailúsha, Gramiṇi, Siksha, Suka, Babhru.

713 The distant south beyond the confines of the earth is the home of

departed spirits and the city of Yáma the God of Death.

714 Suráshṭra, the “good country,” is the modern Sura

715 A country north-west of Afghanistan, Baíkh.

716 The Moon-mountain here is mythical.

717 Sindhu is the Indus.

718 Páriyátra, or as more usually written Páripátra, is the central or

western portion of the Vindhya chain which skirts the province of

Malwa.

719 Vajra means both diamond and thunderbolt, the two substances being

supposed to be identical.

720 Chakraván means the discus-bearer.

721 The discus is the favourite weapon of Vishṇu.

722 The Indian Hephaistos or Vulcan.

723 Panchajan was a demon who lived in the sea in the form of a conch

shell. WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, V. 21.

724 Hayagríva, Horse-necked, is the name of a Daitya who at the

dissolution of the universe caused by Brahmá’s sleep, seized and

carried off the Vedas. Vishṇu slew him and recovered the sacred

treasures.

725 Meru stands in the centre of Jambudwípa and consequently of the

earth. “The sun travels round the world, keeping Meru always on his

right. To the spectator who fronts him, therefore, as he rises Meru

must be always on the north; and as the sun’s rays do not penetrate

beyond the centre of the mountain, the regions beyond, or to the

north of it must be in darkness, whilst those on the south of it

must be in light: north and south being relative, not absolute,

terms, depending on the position of the spectator with regard to the

Sun and Meru.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 243. Note.

726 The Viśvadevas are a class of deities to whom sacrifices should be

daily offered, as part of the ordinary worship of the householder.

According to the _Váyu Puráṇa_, this is a privilege conferred on

them by Brahmá and the Pitris as a reward for religious austerities

practised by them upon Himálaya.

727 The eight Vasus were originally personifications like other Vedic

deities, of natural phenomena, such as Fire, Wind, &c. Their

appellations are variously given by different authorities.

728 The Maruts or Storm-Gods, frequently addressed and worshipped as the

attendants and allies of Indra.

729 The mountain behind which the sun sets.

730 One of the oldest and mightiest of the Vedic deities; in later

mythology regarded as the God of the sea.

731 The knotted noose with which he seizes and punishes transgressors.

732 Sávarṇi is a Manu, offspring of the Sun by Chháyá.

733 The poet has not said who the sons of Yáma are.

734 The Lodhra or Lodh (Symplocos Racemosa) and the Devadáru or Deodar

are well known trees.

735 The hills mentioned are not identifiable. Soma means the Moon. Kála,

black; Sudaraśan, fair to see; and Devasakhá friend of the Gods.

736 The God of Wealth.

737 The nymphs of Paradise.

738 Kuvera the son of Viśravas.

739 A class of demigods who, like the Yakshas, are the attendants of

Kuvera, and the guardians of his treasures.

740 Situated in the eastern part of the Himálaya chain, on the north of

Assam. The mountain was torn asunder and the pass formed by the

War-God Kártikeya and Paraśuráma.

741 “The Uttara Kurus, it should be remarked, may have been a real

people, as they are mentioned in the Aitareya Bráhmaṇa, VIII. 14.…

Wherefore the several nations who dwell in this northern quarter,

beyond the Himavat, the Uttara Kurus and the Uttara Madras are

consecrated to glorious dominion, and people term them the glorious.

In another passage of the same work, however, the Uttara Kurus are

treated as belonging to the domain of mythology.” MUIR’S _Sanskrit

Texts_. Vol. I. p. 494. See ADDITIONAL NOTES.

742 The Moon-mountain.

743 The Rudras are the same as the storm winds, more usually called

Maruts, and are often associated with Indra. In the later mythology

the Rudras are regarded as inferior manifestations of Śiva, and most

of their names are also names of Śiva.

744 Canto IX.

745 Udayagiri or the hill from which the sun rises.

746 Asta is the mountain behind which the sun sets.

747 Himálaya, the Hills of Snow.

748 Canto XI.

749 Hanumán was the leader of the army of the south which was under the

nominal command of Angad the heir apparent.

750 The Bengal recension—Gorresio’s edition—calls this Asur or demon the

son of Márícha.

751 The skin of the black antelope was the ascetic’s proper garb.

752 Uśanas is the name of a sage mentioned in the Vedas. In the epic

poems he is identified with Śukra, the regent of the planet Venus,

and described as the preceptor of the Asuras or Daityas, and

possessor of vast knowledge.

753 Hemá is one of the nymphs of Paradise.

754 Merusávarṇi is a general name for the last four of the fourteen

Manus.

755 Svayamprabhá, the “self-luminous,” is according to DE GUBERNATIS the

moon: “In the _Svayamprabhá_ too, we meet with the moon as a good

fairy who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend

Hemá (the golden one:) is during a month the guide, in the vast

cavern of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in

the search of the dawn Sítá.” This is is not quite accurate: Hanumán

and his companions wander for a month in the cavern without a guide,

and then Svayamprabhá leads them out.

756 Purandara, the destroyer of cities; the cities being the clouds

which the God of the firmament bursts open with his thunderbolts, to

release the waters imprisoned in these fortresses of the demons of

drought.

757 Perceived that Angad had secured, through the love of the Vánars,

the reversion of Sugríva’s kingdom; or, as another commentator

explains it, perceived that Angad had obtained a new kingdom in the

enchanted cave which the Vánars, through love of him, would consent

to occupy.

758 Vṛihaspati, Lord of Speech, the Preceptor of the Gods.

759 Śukra is the regent of the planet Venus, and the preceptor of the

Daityas.

760 The name of various kinds of grass used at sacrificial ceremonies,

especially, of the Kuśa grass, Poa cynosuroides, which was used to

strew the ground in preparing for a sacrifice, the officiating

Brahmans being purified by sitting on it.

761 Sampáti is the eldest son of the celebrated Garuḍa the king of

birds.

762 Vivasvat or the Sun is the father of Yáma the God of Death.

763 Book III, Canto LI.

764 Daśaratha’s rash oath and fatal promise to his wife Kaikeyí.

765 Vritra, “the coverer, hider, obstructer (of rain)” is the name of

the Vedic personification of an imaginary malignant influence or

demon of darkness and drought supposed to take possession of the

clouds, causing them to obstruct the clearness of the sky and keep

back the waters. Indra is represented as battling with this evil

influence, and the pent-up clouds being practically represented as

mountains or castles are shattered by his thunderbolt and made to

open their receptacles.

766 Frequent mention has been made of the three steps of Vishṇu

typifying the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun.

767 For the _Churning of the Sea_, see Book I, Canto XLV.

768 Kuvera, the God of Wealth.

769 The architect of the gods.

770 Garuḍa, son of Vinatá, the sovereign of the birds.

771 “The well winged one,” Garuḍa.

772 The god of the sea.

773 Mahendra is chain of mountains generally identified with part of the

Gháts of the Peninsula.

774 Mátariśva is identified with Váyu, the wind.

775 Of course not equal to the whole earth, says the Commentator, but

equal to Janasthán.

776 This appears to be the Indian form of the stories of Phaethon and

Dædalus and Icarus.

777 According to the promise, given him by Brahmá. See Book I, Canto

XIV.

778 In the Bengal recension the fourth Book ends here, the remaining

Cantos being placed in the fifth.

779 Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he

can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty, and so

on up to ninety.

780 Prahláda, the son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for

his devotion to Vishṇu, and was on this account persecuted by his

father.

781 The Bengal recension calls him Aríshṭanemi’s brother. “The

commentator says ‘Aríshṭanemi is Aruṇa.’ Aruṇa the charioteer of the

sun is the son of Kaśyapa and Vinatá and by consequence brother of

Garuḍa, called Vainateya from Vinatá, his mother.” GORRESSIO.

782 A nymph of Paradise.

783 Hanu or Hanú means jaw. Hanumán or Hanúmán means properly one with a

large jaw.

784 Vishṇu, the God of the Three Steps.

785 Náráyaṇ, “He who moved upon the waters,” is Vishnu. The allusion is

to the famous three steps of that God.

786 The Milky Way.

787 This Book is called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it

is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in

repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches

which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of

whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the

Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place

description, lamentation, and long stories which have been again and

again repeated.

788 Brahmá the Self-Existent.

789 Maináka was the son of Himálaya and Mená or Menaká.

790 Thus Milton makes the hills of heaven self-moving at command:

“At his command the uprooted hills retired

Each to his place, they heard his voice and went

Obsequious”

791 The spirit of the mountain is separable from the mountain. Himalaya

has also been represented as standing in human form on one of his

own peaks.

792 Ságar or the Sea is said to have derived its name from Sagar. The

story is fully told in Book I, Cantos XLII, XLIII, and XLIV.

793 Kritu is the first of the four ages of the world, the golden age,

also called Satya.

_ 794 Parvata_ means a mountain and in the Vedas a cloud. Hence in later

mythology the mountains have taken the place of the clouds as the

objects of the attacks of Indra the Sun-God. The feathered king is

Garuḍa.

795 “The children of Surasá were a thousand mighty many-headed serpents,

traversing the sky.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 73.

796 She means, says the Commentator, pursue thy journey if thou can.

797 If Milton’s spirits are allowed the power of infinite self-extension

and compression the same must be conceded to Válmíki’s supernatural

beings. Given the power as in Milton the result in Válmíki is

perfectly consistent.

798 “Daksha is the son of Brahmá and one of the Prajápatis or divine

progenitors. He had sixty daughters, twenty-seven of whom married to

Kaśyapa produced, according to one of the Indian cosmogonies, all

mundane beings. Does the epithet, Descendant of Daksha, given to

Surasá, mean that she is one of those daughters? I think not. This

epithet is perhaps an appellation common to all created beings as

having sprung from Daksha.” GORRESSIO.

799 Sinhiká is the mother of Ráhu the dragon’s head or ascending node,

the chief agent in eclipses.

800 According to De Gubernatis, the author of the very learned,

ingenious, and interesting though too fanciful _Zoological

Mythology_. Hanumán here represents the sun entering into and

escaping from a cloud. The biblical Jonah, according to him,

typifies the same phenomenon. Sá’dí, speaking of sunset, says _Yùnas

andar-i-dihán-imáhi shud_: Jonas was within the fish’s mouth. See

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

801 The Buchanania Latifolia.

802 The Bauhinia Variegata.

803 Through the power that Rávaṇ’s stern mortifications had won for him

his trees bore flowers and fruit simultaneously.

804 Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods.

805 So in Paradise Lost Satan when he has stealthily entered the garden

of Eden assumes the form of a cormorant.

806 Priests who fought only with the weapons of religion, the sacred

grass used like the verbena of the Romans at sacred rites and the

consecrated fire to consume the offering of ghee.

807 One of the Rákshas lords.

808 The brother Rávaṇ.

809 Indra’s elephant.

810 Rávaṇ’s palace appears to have occupied the whole extent of ground,

and to have contained within its outer walls the mansions of all the

great Rákshas chiefs. Rávaṇ’s own dwelling seems to have been

situated within the enchanted chariot Pushpak: but the description

is involved and confused, and it is difficult to say whether the

chariot was inside the palace or the palace inside the chariot.

811 Pushpak from _pushpa_ a flower. The car has been mentioned before in

Rávaṇ’s expedition to carry off Sítá, Book III, Canto XXXV.

812 Lakshmí is the wife of Vishṇu and the Goddess of Beauty and

Felicity. She rose, like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea. For an

account of her birth and beauty, see Book I, Canto XLV.

813 Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods, the Hephaestos or Mulciber

of the Indian heaven.

814 Rávaṇ in the resistless power which his long austerities had endowed

him with, had conquered his brother Kuvera the God of Gold and taken

from him his greatest treasure this enchanted car.

815 Like Milton’s heavenly car, “Itself instinct with spirit.”

816 Women, says Válmíki. But the Commentator says that automatic figures

only are meant. Women would have seen Hanumán and given the alarm.

817 Rávaṇ had fought against Indra and the Gods, and his body was still

scarred by the wounds inflicted by the tusks of Indra’s elephant and

by the fiery bolts of the Thunderer.

818 The Vasus are a class of eight deities, originally personifications

of natural phenomena.

819 The Maruts are the winds or Storm-Gods.

820 The Ádityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom

Varuṇa is the chief. The name Áditya was afterwards given to any

God, specially to Súrya the Sun.

821 The Aśvins are the Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the

Hindus.

822 The poet forgets that Hanumán has reduced himself to the size of a

cat.

823 Sítá “not of woman born,” was found by King Janak as he was turning

up the ground in preparation for a sacrifice. See Book II, Canto

CXVIII.

824 The six _Angas_ or subordinate branches of the Vedas are 1.

_Sikshá_, the science of proper articulation and pronunciation: 2.

_Chhandas_, metre: 3. _Vyákarana_, linguistic analysis or grammar:

4. _Nirukta_, explanation of difficult Vedic words: 5. _Jyotishṭom_,

Astronomy, or rather the Vedic Calendar: 6. _Kalpa_, ceremonial.

825 There appears to be some confusion of time here. It was already

morning when Hanumán entered the grove, and the torches would be

needless.

826 Rávaṇ is one of those beings who can “climb them as they will,” and

can of course assume the loveliest form to please human eyes as well

as the terrific shape that suits the king of the Rákshases.

827 White and lovely as the Arant or nectar recovered from the depths of

the Milky Sea when churned by the assembled Gods. See Book I, Canto

XLV.

828 Rávaṇ in his magic car carrying off the most beautiful women reminds

us of the magician in _Orlando Furioso_, possesor of the flying

horse.

“Volando talor s’alza ne le stelle,

E poi quasi talor la terra rade;

E ne porta con lui tutte le belle

Donne che trova per quelle contrade.”

829 Indian women twisted their long hair in a single braid as a sign of

mourning for their absent husbands.

830 Janak, king of Míthilá, was Sítá’s father.

831 Hiraṇyakaśipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his

blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishṇu

the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the

incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.

832 Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a

precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. This charity

is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: “He

prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.”

833 It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their

ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of

honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at

him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the

first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been

so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable

epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or

allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem.

834 This threat in the same words occurs in Book III, Canto LVI.

835 Rávaṇ carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses

but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas.

836 The wife of Indra.

837 These four lines have occurred before. Book III, Canto LVI.

838 Prajápatis are the ten lords of created beings first created by

Brahmá; somewhat like the Demiurgi of the Gnostics.

839 “This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the

Rig-veda. In Ashṭaka I. Súkta XXXIV, the Rishi Hiraṇyastúpa invoking

the Aśvins says: Á Násatyá tribhirekádaśairiha devebniryátam: ‘O

Násatyas (Aśvins) come hither with the thrice eleven Gods.’ And in

Súkta XLV, the Rishi Praskanva addressing his hymn to Agni (ignis,

fire), thus invokes him: ‘Lord of the red steeds, propitiated by our

prayers lead hither the thirty-three Gods.’ This number must

certainly have been the actual number in the early days of the Vedic

religion: although it appears probable enough that the thirty-three

Vedic divinities could not then be found co-ordinated in so

systematic a way as they were arranged more recently by the authors

of the Upanishads. In the later ages of Bramanism the number went on

increasing without measure by successive mythical and religious

creations which peopled the Indian Olympus with abstract beings of

every kind. But through lasting veneration of the word of the Veda

the custom regained of giving the name of ‘the thirty-three Gods’ to

the immense phalanx of the multiplied deities.” GORRESIO.

840 Serpent-Gods who dwell in the regions under the earth.

841 In the mythology of the epics the Gandharvas are the heavenly

singers or musicians who form the orchestra at the banquets of the

Gods, and they belong to the heaven of India in whose battles they

share.

842 The mother of Ráma.

843 The mother of Lakshmaṇ.

844 In the south is the region of Yáma the God of Death, the place of

departed spirits.

845 Kumbhakarṇa was one of Rávaṇ’s brothers.

846 The guards are still in the grove, but they are asleep; and Sítá has

crept to a tree at some distance from them.

847 “As the reason assigned in these passages for not addressing Sítá in

Sanskrit such as a Bráhman would use is not that she would not

understand it, but that it would alarm her and be unsuitable to the

speaker, we must take them as indicating that Sanskrit, if not

spoken by women of the upper classes at the time when the Rámáyaṇa

was written (whenever that may have been), was at least understood

by them, and was commonly spoken by men of the priestly class, and

other educated persons. By the Sanskrit proper to an [ordinary] man,

alluded to in the second passage, may perhaps be understood not a

language in which words different from Sanskrit were used, but the

employment of formal and elaborate diction.” MUIR’S _Sanskrit

Texts_, Part II. p. 166.

848 Svayambhu, the Self-existent, Brahmá.

849 Vṛihaspati or Váchaspati, the Lord of Speech and preceptor of the

Gods.

850 The Asurs were the fierce enemies of the Gods.

851 The Rudras are manifestations of Śiva.

852 The Maruts or Storm Gods.

853 Rohiṇí is an asterism personified as the daughter of Daksha and the

favourite wife of the Moon. The chief star in the constellation is

Aldebaran.

854 Arundhatí was the wife of the great sage Vaśishṭha, and regarded as

the pattern of conjugal excellence. She was raised to the heavens as

one of the Pleiades.

855 The Gods do not shed tears; nor do they touch the ground when they

walk or stand. Similarly Milton’s angels marched above the ground

and “the passive air upbore their nimble tread.” Virgil’s “vera

incessu patuit dea” may refer to the same belief.

856 That a friend of Ráma would praise him as he should be praised, and

that if the stranger were Rávaṇ in disguise he would avoid the

subject.

857 Kuvera the God of Gold.

858 Sítá of course knows nothing of what has happened to Ráma since the

time when she was carried away by Rávaṇ. The poet therefore thinks

it necessary to repeat the whole story of the meeting between Ráma

and Sugríva, the defeat of Bálí, and subsequent events. I give the

briefest possible outline of the story.

859 DE GUBERNATIS thinks that this ring which the Sun Ráma sends to the

Dawn Sítá is a symbol of the sun’s disc.

860 Śachí is the loved and lovely wife of Indra, and she is taken as the

type of a woman protected by a jealous and all-powerful husband.

861 The mountain near Kishkindhá.

862 Airávat is the mighty elephant on which Indra delights to ride.

863 Vibhishaṇ is the wicked Rávaṇ’s good brother.

864 Her name is Kalá, or in the Bengal recension Nandá.

865 One of Rávaṇ’s chief councillors.

866 Hanumán when he entered the city had in order to escape observation

condensed himself to the size of a cat.

867 The brook Mandákiní, not far from Chitrakúṭa where Ráma sojourned

for a time.

868 The poet here changes from the second person to the third.

869 The whole long story is repeated with some slight variations and

additions from Book II, Canto XCVI. I give here only the outline.

870 The expedients to vanquish an enemy or to make him come to terms are

said to be four: conciliation, gifts, disunion, and force or

punishment. Hanumán considers it useless to employ the first three

and resolves to punish Rávaṇ by destroying his pleasure-grounds.

871 Kinkar means the special servant of a sovereign, who receives his

orders immediately from his master. The Bengal recension gives these

Rákshases an epithet which the Commentator explains “as generated in

the mind of Brahmá.”

872 Ráma _de jure_ King of Kośal of which Ayodhyá was the capital.

_ 873 Chaityaprásáda_ is explained by the Commentator as the place where

the Gods of the Rákshases were kept. Gorresio translates it by “un

grande edificio.”

874 The bow of Indra is the rainbow.

875 We were told a few lines before that the chariot of Jambumáli was

drawn by asses. Here horses are spoken of. The Commentator notices

the discrepancy and says that by horses asses are meant.

876 Armed with the bow of Indra, the rainbow.

877 Rávaṇ’s son.

878 Conqueror of Indra, another of Rávaṇ’s sons.

879 The _śloka_ which follows is probably an interpolation, as it is

inconsistent with the questioning in Canto L.:

He looked on Rávaṇ in his pride,

And boldly to the monarch cried:

“I came an envoy to this place

From him who rules the Vánar race.”

880 The ten heads of Rávaṇ have provoked much ridicule from European

critics. It should be remembered that Spenser tells us of “two

brethren giants, the one of which had two heads, the other three;”

and Milton speaks of the “four-fold visaged Four,” the four Cherubic

shapes each of whom had four faces.

881 Durdhar, or as the Bengal recension reads Mahodara, Prahasta,

Mahápárśva, and Nikumbha.

882 The chief attendant of Śiva.

883 Bali, not to be confounded with Báli the Vánar, was a celebrated

Daitya or demon who had usurped the empire of the three worlds, and

who was deprived of two thirds of his dominions by Vishṇu in the

Dwarf-incarnation.

884 When Hanumán was bound with cords, Indrajít released his captive

from the spell laid upon him by the magic weapon.

885 “One who murders an ambassador (_rája bhata_) goes to Taptakumbha,

the hell of heated caldrons.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puraṇa_, Vol. II. p.

217.

886 The fire which is supposed to burn beneath the sea.

887 Sítá is likened to the fire which is an emblem of purity.

888 I omit two stanzas which continue the metaphor of the sea or lake of

air. The moon is its lotus, the sun its wild-duck, the clouds are

its water-weeds, Mars is its shark and so on. Gorresio remarks:

“This comparison of a great lake to the sky and of celestial to

aquatic objects is one of those ideas which the view and qualities

of natural scenery awake in lively fancies. Imagine one of those

grand and splendid lakes of India covered with lotus blossoms,

furrowed by wild-ducks of the most vivid colours, mantled over here

and there with flowers and water weeds &c. and it will be understood

how the fancy of the poet could readily compare to the sky radiant

with celestial azure the blue expanse of the water, to the soft

light of the moon the inner hue of the lotus, to the splendour of

the sun the brilliant colours of the wild-fowl, to the stars the

flowers, to the cloud the weeds that float upon the water &c.”

889 Sunábha is the mountain that rose from the sea when Hanumán passed

over to Lanká.

890 Three Cantos of repetition are omitted.

_ 891 Madhuvan_ the “honey-wood.”

892 Indra’s pleasure-ground or elysium.

893 Janak was king of Videha or Mithilá in Behar.

894 The original contains two more Cantos which end the Book. Canto

LXVII begins thus: “Hanumán thus addressed by the great-souled son

of Raghu related to the son of Raghu all that Sítá had said.” And

the two Cantos contain nothing but Hanumán’s account of his

interview with Sítá, and the report of his own speeches as well as

of hers.

895 The Sixth Book is called in Sanskrit _Yuddha-Káṇḍa_ or _The War_,

and _Lanká-Káṇda_. It is generally known at the present day by the

latter title.

896 Váyu is the God of Wind.

897 Garuḍa the King of Birds.

898 Serpent-Gods.

899 The God of the sea.

900 Indra’s elephant.

901 Kuvera, God of wealth.

902 Kuvera’s elephant.

903 The planet Venus, or its regent who is regarded as the son of Bhrigu

and preceptor of the Daityas.

904 The seven _rishis_ or saints who form the constellation of the Great

Bear.

905 Triśanku was raised to the skies to form a constellation in the

southern hemisphere. The story in told in Book I, Canto LX.

906 The sage Viśvámitra, who performed for Triśanku the great sacrifice

which raised him to the heavens.

907 One of the lunar asterisms containing four or originally two stars

under the regency of a dual divinity Indrágni, Indra and Agni.

908 The lunar asterism Múla, belonging to the Rákshases.

909 The Asurs or demons dwell imprisoned in the depths beneath the sea.

910 The God of Riches, brother and enemy of Rávaṇ and first possessor of

Pushpak the flying car.

911 King of the Serpents. Śankha and Takshak are two of the eight

Serpent Chiefs.

912 The God of Death, the Pluto of the Hindus.

913 Literally Indra’s conqueror, so called from his victory over that

God.

914 Their names are Nikumbha, Rabhasa, Súryaśatru, Suptaghna, Yajnakopa,

Mahápárśva, Mahodara, Agniketu, Raśmiketu, Durdharsha, Indraśatru,

Prahasta, Virúpáksha, Vajradanshṭra, Dhúmráksha, Durmukha, Mahábala.

915 Similarly Antenor urges the restoration of Helen:

“Let Sparta’s treasures be this hour restored,

And Argive Helen own her ancient lord.

As this advice ye practise or reject,

So hope success, or dread the dire effect,”

POPE’S _Homer’s Iliad_, Book VII.

916 The _Agnisálá_ or room where the sacrificial fire was kept.

917 The exudation of a fragrant fluid from the male elephant’s temples,

especially at certain seasons, is frequently spoken of in Sanskrit

poetry. It is said to deceive and attract the bees, and is regarded

as a sign of health and masculine vigour.

918 Consisting of warriors on elephants, warriors in chariots,

charioteers, and infantry.

919 Indra, generally represented as surrounded by the Maruts or

Storm-Gods.

920 Janasthán, where Ráma lived as an ascetic.

921 Máyá, regarded as the paragon of female beauty, was the creation of

Maya the chief artificer of the Daityas or Dánavs.

922 One of the Nymphs of Indra’s heaven.

923 The Lotus River, a branch of the heavenly Gangá.

_ 924 Trilokanátha_, Lord of the Three Worlds, is a title of Indra.

925 The celestial elephant that carries Indra.

926 As producers of the _ghi_, clarified butter or sacrificial oil, used

in fire-offerings.

927 This desertion to the enemy is somewhat abrupt, and is narrated with

brevity not usual with Válmíki. In the Bengal recension the

preceding speakers and speeches differ considerably from those given

in the text which I follow. Vibhishaṇ is kicked from his seat by

Rávaṇ, and then, after telling his mother what has happened, he

flies to Mount Kailása where he has an interview with Śiva, and by

his advice seeks Ráma and the Vánar army.

928 Vṛihaspati the preceptor of the Gods.

929 In Book II, Canto XXI, Kaṇdu is mentioned by Ráma as an example of

filial obedience. At the command of his father he is said to have

killed a cow.

930 A King of the Yakshas, or Kuvera himself, the God of Gold.

931 The brace protects the left arm from injury from the bow-string, and

the guard protects the fingers of the right hand.

932 The story is told in Book I, Cantos XL, XLI, XLII.

933 Fiends and enemies of the Gods.

934 The Indus.

935 Cowherds, sprung from a Bráhman and a woman of the medical tribe,

the modern Ahírs.

936 Barbarians or outcasts.

_ 937 Vraṇa_ means wound or rent.

938 Here in the Bengal recension (Gorresio’s edition), begins Book VI.

939 The Goomtee.

940 The Anglicized Nerbudda.

941 According to a Pauranik legend Keśarí Hanumán’s putative father had

killed an Asur or demon who appeared in the form of an elephant, and

hence arose the hostility between Vánars and elephants.

942 Here follows the enumeration of Sugríva’s forces which I do not

attempt to follow. It soon reaches a hundred thousand billions.

943 I omit the rest of this canto, which is mere repetition. Rávaṇ gives

in the same words his former answer that the Gods, Gandharvas and

fiends combined shall not force him to give up Sítá. He then orders

Śárdúla to tell him the names of the Vánar chieftains whom he has

seen in Ráma’s army. These have already been mentioned by Śuka and

Sáraṇ.

944 Lakshmí is the Goddess both of beauty and fortune, and is

represented with a lotus in her hand.

945 The poet appears to have forgotten that Śuka and Sáraṇ were

dismissed with ignominy in Canto XXIX, and have not been reinstated.

946 The four who fled with him. Their names are Anala, Panasa, Sampáti,

and Pramati.

947 The numbers here are comparatively moderate: ten thousand elephants,

ten thousand chariots, twenty thousand horses and ten million

giants.

948 The Kinśuk, also called Paláśa, is Butea Frondosa, a tree that bears

beautiful red crescent shaped blossoms and is deservedly a favorite

with poets. The Seemal or Śálmalí is the silk cotton tree which also

bears red blossoms.

949 Varuṇa.

950 The duty of a king to save the lives of his people and avoid

bloodshed until milder methods have been tried in vain.

951 I have omitted several of these single combats, as there is little

variety in the details and each duel results in the victory of the

Vánar or his ally.

952 Yajnaśatru, Mahápárśva, Mahodar, Vajradanshṭra, Śuka, and Sáraṇ.

953 Angad.

954 A mysterious weapon consisting of serpents transformed to arrows

which deprived the wounded object of all sense and power of motion.

955 On each foot, and at the root of each finger.

956 Varuṇ.

957 The name of one of the mystical weapons the command over which was

given by Viśvámitra to Ráma, as related in Book I.

958 One of Sítá’s guard, and her comforter on a former occasion also.

959 The preceptor of the Gods.

960 Ráma’s grandfather.

961 The Gandharvas are warriors and Minstrels of Indra’s heaven.

962 “It is to be understood,” says the commentator, “that this is not

the Akampan who has already been slain.”

963 Rávaṇ’s son, whom Hanumán killed when he first visited Lanká.

964 Níla was the son of Agni the God of Fire, and possessed, like

Milton’s demons, the power of dilating and condensing his form at

pleasure.

965 An ancient king of Ayodhyá said by some to have been Prithu’s

father.

966 The daughter of King Kuśadhwaja. She became an ascetic, and being

insulted by Rávaṇ in the woods where she was performing penance,

destroyed herself by entering fire, but was born again as Sítá to be

in turn the destruction of him who had insulted her.

967 Nandíśvara was Śiva’s chief attendant. Rávaṇ had despised and

laughed at him for appearing in the form of a monkey and the

irritated Nandíśvara cursed him and foretold his destruction by

monkeys.

968 Rávaṇ once upheaved and shook Mount Kailása the favourite dwelling

place of Śiva the consort of Umá, and was cursed in consequence by

the offended Goddess.

969 Rambhá, who has several times been mentioned in the course of the

poem, was one of the nymphs of heaven, and had been insulted by

Rávaṇ.

970 Punjikasthalá was the daughter of Varuṇ. Rávaṇ himself has mentioned

in this book his insult to her, and the curse pronounced in

consequence by Brahmá.

971 Pulastya was the son of Brahmá and father of Viśravas or Paulastya

the father of Rávaṇ and Kumbhakarṇa.

972 I omit a tedious sermon on the danger of rashness and the advantages

of prudence, sufficient to irritate a less passionate hearer than

Rávaṇ.

973 The Bengal recension assigns a very different speech to Kumbhakarṇa

and makes him say that Nárad the messenger of the Gods had formerly

told him that Vishṇu himself incarnate as Daśaratha’s son should

come to destroy Rávaṇ.

974 Mahodar, Dwijihva, Sanhráda, and Vitardan.

975 A name of Vishṇu.

976 There is so much commonplace repetition in these Sallies of the

Rákshas chieftains that omissions are frequently necessary. The

usual ill omens attend the sally of Kumbhakarṇa, and the Canto ends

with a description of the terrified Vánars’ flight which is briefly

repeated in different words at the beginning of the next Canto.

977 Kártikeya the God of War, and the hero and incarnation Paraśuráma

are said to have cut a passage through the mountain Krauncha, a part

of the Himálayan range, in the same way as the immense gorge that

splits the Pyrenees under the towers of Marboré was cloven at one

blow of Roland’s sword Durandal.

978 Rishabh, Śarabh, Níla, Gaváksha, and Gandhamádan.

979 Angad. The text calls him the son of the son of him who holds the

thunderbolt, _i.e._ the grandson of Indra.

980 Literally, weighing a thousand _bháras_. The _bhára_ is a weight

equal to 2000 _palas_, the _pala_ is equal to four _karśas_, and the

_karśa_ to 11375 French grammes or about 176 grains troy. The spear

seems very light for a warrior of Kumbhakarṇa’s strength and stature

and the work performed with it.

981 The custom of throwing parched or roasted grain, with wreaths and

flowers, on the heads of kings and conquerors when they go forth to

battle and return is frequently mentioned by Indian poets.

982 Lakshmaṇ.

983 I have abridged this long Canto by omitting some vain repetitions,

commonplace epithets and similes and other unimportant matter. There

are many verses in this Canto which European scholars would rigidly

exclude as unmistakeably the work of later rhapsodists. Even the

reverent Commentator whom I follow ventures to remark once or twice:

_Ayam śloka prak shipta iti bahavah_, “This _śloka_ or verse is in

the opinion of many interpolated.”

984 Narak was a demon, son of Bhúmi or Earth, who haunted the city

Prágjyotisha.

985 Śambar was a demon of drought.

986 Indra.

987 Devántak (Slayer of Gods) Narántak (Slayer of Men) Atikáya (Huge of

Frame) and Triśirás (Three Headed) were all sons of Rávaṇ.

988 The demon of eclipse who seizes the Sun and Moon.

989 Lakshmaṇ.

990 In such cases as this I am not careful to reproduce the numbers of

the poet, which in the text which I follow are 670000000; the Bengal

recension being content with thirty million less.

991 The discus or quoit, a sharp-edged circular missile is the favourite

weapon of Vishṇu.

992 To destroy Tripura the triple city in the sky, air and earth, built

by Maya for a celebrated Asur or demon, or as another commentator

explains, to destroy Kandarpa or Love.

993 The Lokapálas are sometimes regarded as deities appointed by Brahmá

at the creation of the word to act as guardians of different orders

of beings, but more commonly they are identified with the deities

presiding over the four cardinal and four intermediate points of the

compass, which, according to Manu V. 96, are 1, Indra, guardian of

the East; 2, Agni, of the South-east; 3, Yáma, of the South; 4,

Súrya, of the South-west; 5, Varuṇa, of the West; 6, Pavana or Váyu,

of the North-west; 7, Kuvera, of the North; 8, Soma or Chandra, of

the North-east.

994 The chariots of Rávaṇ’s present army are said to have been one

hundred and fifty million in number with three hundred million

elephants, and twelve hundred million horses and asses. The footmen

are merely said to have been “unnumbered.”

995 It is not very easy to see the advantage of having arrows headed in

the way mentioned. Fanciful names for war-engines and weapons

derived from their resemblance to various animals are not confined

to India. The “War-wolf” was used by Edward I. at the siege of

Brechin, the “Cat-house” and the “Sow” were used by Edward III. at

the siege of Dunbar.

996 Apparently a peak of the Himalaya chain.

997 This exploit of Hanumán is related with inordinate prolixity in the

Bengal recension (Gortesio’s text). Among other adventures he

narrowly escapes being shot by Bharat as he passes over Nandigrama

near Ayodhyá. Hanumán stays Bharat in time, and gives him an account

of what has befallen Ráma and Sítá in the forest and in Lanká.

998 As Garuḍ the king of birds is the mortal enemy of serpents the

weapon sacred to him is of course best calculated to destroy the

serpent arrows of Rávaṇ.

999 The celebrated saint who has on former occasions assisted Ráma with

his gifts and counsel.

1000 Indra.

1001 Yáma.

1002 Kártikeya.

1003 Kubera.

1004 Varuṇ.

1005 The Pitris, forefathers or spirits of the dead, are of two kinds,

either the spirits of the father, grandfathers and

great-grandfathers of an individual or the progenitors of mankind

generally, to both of whom obsequial worship is paid and oblations

of food are presented.

1006 The Maruts or Storm-Gods.

1007 The Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the Hindus.

1008 The Man _par excellence_, the representative man and father of the

human race regarded also as God.

1009 The Vasus, a class of deities originally personifications of natural

phenomena.

1010 A class of celestial beings who dwell between the earth and the sun.

1011 The seven horses are supposed to symbolize the seven days of the

week.

1012 One for each month in the year.

1013 The garden of Kuvera, the God of Riches.

1014 The consort of Indra.

1015 The Swayamvara, Self-choice or election of a husband by a princess

or daughter of a Kshatriya at a public assembly of suitors held for

the purpose. For a description of the ceremony see _Nala and

Damayantí_ an episode of the Mahábhárat translated by the late Dean

Milman, and _Idylls from the Sanskrit_.

1016 The Pitris or Manes, the spirits of the dead.

1017 Kuvera, the God of Wealth.

1018 Varuṇ, God of the sea.

1019 Mahádeva or Śiva whose ensign is a bull.

1020 The Address to Ráma, both text and commentary, will be found

literally translated in the Additional Notes. A paraphrase of a

portion is all that I have attempted here.

1021 Rávaṇ’s queen.

1022 Or Maináka.

1023 Here, in the North-west recension, Sítá expresses a wish that Tárá

and the wives of the Vánar chiefs should be invited to accompany her

to Ayodhyá. The car decends, and the Vánar matrons are added to the

party. The Bengal recension ignores this palpable interruption.

1024 The _arghya_, a respectful offering to Gods and venerable men

consisting of rice, dúivá grass, flowers etc., with water.

1025 I have abridged Hanumán’s outline of Ráma’s adventures, with the

details of which we are already sufficiently acquainted.

1026 In these respectful salutations the person who salutes his superior

mentions his own name even when it is well known to the person whom

he salutes.

1027 I have omitted the chieftains’ names as they could not be introduced

without padding. They are Mainda, Dwivid, Níla, Rishabh, Susheṇ,

Nala, Gaváksha, Gandhamádan, Śarabh, and Panas.

1028 The following addition is found in the Bengal recension: But

Vaiśravaṇ (Kuvera) when he beheld his chariot said unto it: “Go, and

carry Ráma, and come unto me when my thought shall call thee, And

the chariot returned unto Ráma;” and he honoured it when he had

heard what had passed.

1029 Here follows in the original an enumeration of the chief blessings

which will attend the man or woman who reads or hears read this tale

of Ráma. These blessings are briefly mentioned at the end of the

first Canto of the first book, and it appears unnecessary to repeat

them here in their amplified form. The Bengal recension (Gorresio’s

edition) gives them more concisely as follows: “This is the great

first poem blessed and glorious, which gives long life to men and

victory to kings, the poem which Válmíki made. He who listens to

this wondrous tale of Ráma unwearied in action shall be absolved

from all his sins. By listening to the deeds of Ráma he who wishes

for sons shall obtain his heart’s desire, and to him who longs for

riches shall riches be given. The virgin who asks for a husband

shall obtain a husband suited to her mind, and shall meet again her

dear kinsfolk who are far away. They who hear this poem which

Válmíki made shall obtain all their desires and all their prayers

shall be fulfilled.”

_ 1030 The Academy_, Vol. III., No 43, contains an able and interesting

notice of this work from the pen of the Professor of Sanskrit in the

University of Cambridge: “The _Uttarakáṇḍa_,” Mr. Cowell remarks,

“bears the same relation to the _Rámáyaṇa_ as the Cyclic poems to

the _Iliad_. Just as the _Cypria_ of Stasinus, the _Æthiopis_ of

Arctinus, and the little _Iliad_ of Lesches completed the story of

the _Iliad_, and not only added the series of events which preceded

and followed it, but also founded episodes of their own on isolated

allusions in Homer, so the _Uttarakáṇḍa_ is intended to complete the

_Rámáyaṇa_, and at the same time to supplement it by intervening

episodes to explain casual allusions or isolated incidents which

occur in it. Thus the early history of the giant Rávaṇa and his

family fills nearly forty Chapters, and we have a full account of

his wars with the gods and his conquest of Lanká, which all happened

long before the action of the poem commences, just as the _Cypria_

narrated the birth and early history of Helen, and the two

expeditions of the Greeks against Troy; and the latter chapters

continue the history of the hero Ráma after his triumphant return to

his paternal kingdom, and the poem closes with his death and that of

his brothers, and the founding by their descendants of various

kingdoms in different parts of India.”

1031 MUIR, _Sanskrit Texts,_ Part IV., pp. 414 ff.

1032 MUIR, _Sanskrit Texts_, Part IV., 391, 392.

1033 See _Academy_, III., 43.

_ 1034 Academy_, Vol. III., No. 43.

1035 E. B. Cowell. _Academy_, No. 43. The story of Sítá’s banishment will

be found roughly translated from the _Raghuvaṇśa_, in the Additional

Notes.

1036 E. B. Cowell. _Academy_, Vol, III, No. 43.

1037 MUIR, _Sanskrit Texts_, Part IV., Appendix.

1038 Ghí: clarified butter. Gur: molasses.

1039 Haridwar (Anglicè Hurdwar) where the Ganges enters the plain

country.

1040 Campbell in “Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,” 1866, Part ii. p. 132; Latham,

“Descr. Eth.” Vol. ii. p. 456; Tod, “Annals of Rajasthan,” Vol. i.

p. 114.

1041 Said by the commentator to be an eastern people between the

Himálayan and Vindhyan chains.

1042 Videha was a district in the province of Behar, the ancient Mithilá

or the modern Tirhoot.

1043 The people of Malwa.

1044 “The Káśikośalas are a central nation in the Váyu Puráṇa. The

Rámáyaṇa places them in the east. The combination indicates the

country between Benares and Oude.… Kośala is a name variously

applied. Its earliest and most celebrated application is to the

country on the banks of the Sarayú, the kingdom of Ráma, of which

Ayodhyá was the capital.… In the Mahábhárata we have one Kośala in

the east and another in the south, besides the Prák-Kośalas and

Uttara Kośalas in the east and north. The Puráṇas place the Kośalas

amongst the people on the back of Vindhya; and it would appear from

the Váyu that Kuśa the son of Ráma transferred his kingdom to a more

central position; he ruled over Kośala at his capital of Kúśasthali

of Kuśavatí, built upon the Vindhyan precipices.” WILSON’S _Vishnṇu

Púraṇa_, Vol. II. pp. 157, 172.

1045 The people of south Behar.

1046 The Puṇḍras are said to be the inhabitants of the western provinces

of Bengal. “In the _Aitareyabráhmaṇa_, VII. 18, it is said that the

elder sons of Viśvamitra were cursed to become progenitors of most

abject races, such as Andhras, Puṇḍras, Śabaras, Pulindas, and

Mútibas.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ Vol. II. 170.

1047 Anga is the country about Bhagulpore, of which Champá was the

capital.

1048 A fabulous people, “men who use their ears as a covering.” So Sir

John Maundevile says: “And in another Yle ben folk that han gret

Eres and long, that hangen down to here knees,” and Pliny, lib. iv.

c. 13: “In quibus nuda alioquin corpora prægrandes ipsorum aures

tota contegunt.” Isidore calls them Panotii.

1049 “Those whose ears hang down to their lips.”

1050 “The Iron-faces.”

1051 “The One-footed.”

“In that Contree,” says Sir John Maundevile, “ben folk, that han but

o foot and thei gon so fast that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so

large that it schadeweth alle the Body azen the Sonne, when thei

wole lye and rest hem.” So Pliny, Natural History, lib. vii. c. 2:

speaks of “Hominumn gens … singulis cruribus, miræ pernicitatis ad

saltum; eosdemque Sciopodas vocari, quod in majori æstu, humi

jacentes resupini, umbrâ se pedum protegant.”

These epithets are, as Professor Wilson remarks, “exaggerations of

national ugliness, or allusions to peculiar customs, which were not

literally intended, although they may have furnished the Mandevilles

of ancient and modern times.”

_Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 162.

1052 The Kirrhadæ of Arrian: a general name for savage tribes living in

woods and mountains.

1053 Said by the commentator to be half tigers half men.

1054 The kingdom seems to have corresponded with the greater part of

Berar and Khandesh.

1055 The Bengal recension has Kishikas, and places them both in the south

and the north.

1056 The people of Mysore.

1057 “There are two Matsyas, one of which, according to the Yantra

Samráj, is identifiable with Jeypoor. In the Digvijaya of Nakula he

subdues the Matsyas further to the west, or Gujerat.” WILSON’S

_Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. 158. Dr. Hall observes: “In the

_Mahábhárata Sabhá-parwan_, 1105 and 1108, notice is taken of the

king of Matsya and of the Aparamatsyas; and, at 1082, the Matsyas

figure as an eastern people. They are placed among the nations of

the south in the _Rámáyaṇa Kishkindhá-káṇda_, XLI., II, while the

Bengal recension, _Kishkindhá-káṇḍa_, XLIV., 12, locates them in the

north.”

1058 The Kalingas were the people of the upper part of the Coromandel

Coast, well known, in the traditions of the Eastern Archipelago, as

Kling. Ptolemy has a city in that part, called Caliga; and Pliny

Calingæ proximi mari. WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. 156, Note.

1059 The Kauśikas do not appear to be identifiable.

1060 The Andhras probably occupied the modern Telingana.

1061 The Puṇḍras have already been mentioned in Canto XL.

1062 The inhabitants of the lower part of the Coromandel Coast; so

called, after them, Cholamaṇdala.

1063 A people in the Deccan.

1064 The Keralas were the people of Malabar proper.

1065 A generic term for persons speaking any language but Sanskrit and

not conforming to the usual Hindu institutions.

1066 “Pulinda is applied to any wild or barbarous tribe. Those here named

are some of the people of the deserts along the Indus; but Pulindas

are met with in many other positions, especially in the mountains

and forests across Central India, the haunts of the Bheels and

Gonds. So Ptolemy places the Pulindas along the banks of the

Narmadá, to the frontiers of Larice, the Látá or Lár of the

Hindus,—Khandesh and part of Gujerat.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_,

Vol. II. 159, Note.

Dr. Hall observes that “in the Bengal recension of the _Rámáyaṇa_

the Pulindas appear both in the south and in the north. The real

_Rámáyaṇa_ K.-k., XLIII., speaks of the northern Pulindas.”

1067 The Śúrasenas were the inhabitants of Mathurá, the Suraseni of

Arrian.

1068 These the Mardi of the Greeks and the two preceding tribes appear to

have dwelt in the north-west of Hindustan.

1069 The Kámbojas are said to be the people of Arachosia. They are always

mentioned with the north-western tribes.

1070 “The term Yavanas, although, in later times, applied to the

Mohammedans, designated formerly the Greeks.… The Greeks were known

throughout Western Asia by the term Yavan, or Ion. That the

Macedonian or Bactrian Greeks were most usually intended is not only

probable from their position and relations with India, but from

their being usually named in concurrence with the north-western

tribes, Kámbojas, Daradas, Páradas, Báhlíkas, Śakas &c., in the

Rámáyaṇa. Mahábhárata, Puránas, Manu, and in various poems and

plays.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ Vol. II. p. 181, Note.

1071 These people, the Sakai and Sacæ of classical writers, the

Indo-Scythians of Ptolemy, extended, about the commencement of our

era, along the west of India, from the Hindu Kosh to the mouths of

the Indus.

1072 The corresponding passage in the Bengal recension has instead of

Varadas Daradas the Dards or inhabitants of the modern Dardistan

along the course of the Indus, above the Himálayas, just before it

descends to India.

1073 From the word yonder it would appear that the prayer is to be

repeated at the rising of the Sun.

1074 The creator of the world and the first of the Hindu triad.

1075 He who pervades all beings; or the second of the Hindu triad who

preserves the world.

1076 The bestower of blessings; the third of the Hindu triad and the

destroyer of the world.

1077 A name of the War-God; also one who urges the senses to action.

1078 The lord of creatures; or the God of sacrifices.

1079 A name of the King of Gods; also all-powerful.

1080 The giver of wealth. A name of the God of riches.

1081 One who directly urges the mental faculties to action.

1082 One who moderates the senses, also the God of the regions of the

dead.

1083 One who produces nectar (amrita) or one who is always possessed of

light; or one together with Umá (Ardhanáríśvara).

1084 The names or spirits of departed ancestors.

1085 Name of a class of eight Gods, also wealthy.

1086 They who are to be served by Yogís; or a class of Gods named

Sádhyas.

1087 The two physicians of the Gods: or they who pervade all beings.

1088 They who are immortal; or a class of Gods forty-nine in number.

1089 Omniscient; or the first king of the world.

1090 He that moves; life; or the God of wind.

1091 The God of fire.

1092 Lord of creatures.

1093 One who prolongs our lives.

1094 The material cause of knowledge and of the seasons.

1095 One who shines. The giver of light.

1096 The hymn entitled the Ádityahridaya begins from this verse and the

words, thou art, are understood in the beginning of this verse.

1097 One who enjoys all (pleasurable) objects; The son of Aditi, the lord

of the solar disk.

1098 One who creates the world, i.e., endows beings with life or soul,

and by his rays causes rain and thereby produces corn.

1099 One who urges the world to action or puts the world in motion, who

is omnipresent.

1100 One who walks through the sky; or pervades the soul.

1101 One who nourishes the world, i.e., is the supporter.

1102 One having rays (Gabhasti) or he who is possessed of the

all-pervading goddess Lakshmí.

1103 One resembling gold.

1104 One who is resplendent or who gives light to other objects.

1105 One whose seed (Retas) is gold; or quicksilver, the material cause

of gold.

1106 One who is the cause of day.

1107 One whose horses are of tawny colour; or one who pervades the whole

space or quarters.

1108 One whose knowledge is boundless or who has a thousand rays.

1109 One who urges the seven (Práṇas) that is the two eyes, the two ears,

the nostrils and the organ of speech, or whose chariot, is drawn by

seven horses.

1110 Vide Gabhastimán.

1111 One who destroys darkness, or ignorance.

1112 One from whom our blessings or the enjoyments of Paradise come.

1113 The architect of the gods; or one who lessens the miseries of our

birth and death.

1114 One who gives life to the lifeless world.

1115 One who pervades the internal and external worlds; or one who is

resplendent.

1116 He who is identified with the Hindu triad, i.e. the creator (Brahmá)

the supporter (Vishnu) and the destroyer (Śiva).

1117 Cold or good natured. He is so called because he allays the three

sorts of pain.

1118 One who is the lord of all.

1119 Vide Divákara.

1120 One who teaches Brahmá and others the Vedas.

1121 One from whom Rudra the destroyer or the third of the Hindu triad

springs.

1122 One who is knowable through Aditi, i.e., the eternal Brahmavidyá.

1123 Great happiness or the sky.

1124 The destroyer of cold or stupidity.

1125 The Lord of the sky.

1126 Vide Timironmathana.

1127 One who is known through the Upanishads.

1128 He who is the cause of heavy rain.

1129 He who is a friend to the good, or who is the cause of water.

1130 One who moves in the solar orbit.

1131 One who determines the creation of the world; or who is possessed of

heat.

1132 One who has a mass of rays; or who has Kaustubha and other precious

stones as his ornaments.

1133 He who urges all to action; or who is yellow in colour.

1134 One who is the destroyer of all.

1135 One who is omniscient; or a poet.

1136 One who is identified with the whole world.

1137 One who is of huge form.

1138 One who pleases all by giving nourishment; or who is red in colour.

1139 One who is the cause of the whole world.

1140 One who protects the whole world.

1141 The most glorious of all that are glorious.

1142 One who is identical with the twelve months.

1143 One who gives victory over all the worlds to those who are

faithfully devoted to him; or the porter of Brahmá, named Jaya.

1144 One who is identical with the blessing which can be obtained by

conquering all the worlds; or with the porter of Brahmá named

Jayabhadra.

1145 One who has Hanúmán as his conveyance.

1146 One who controls the senses; or is furious with those who are not

his devotees.

1147 He who is free in moving the senses; or urges all beings to action.

1148 He who can be known through the Pranava (the mystical Om-kára.)

1149 One who is the knowledge of Brahmá.

1150 One who devours all things.

1151 He who is the destroyer of all pains; and of love, and hate, the

causes of pain; and ignorance which is the cause of love and hate.

1152 One who is bliss; or the mover.

1153 One who destroys ignorance and its effects.

1154 The doer of all actions.

1155 One who beholds the universe; who is a witness of good and bad

actions.

1156 Sacrifice of the five sensual fires.

1157 According to Ápastamba (says the commentator) “it should have been

placed on the nose: this must therefore have been done in conformity

with some other Sútras.”

1158 A class of eight gods.

1159 A class of eleven gods called Rudras.

1160 Named Víryaván.

1161 A class of divine devotees named Sádhyas.

1162 One who resides in the water.

1163 The third incarnation of Vishṇu, that bore the earth on his tusk.

1164 One whose armies are everywhere.

1165 One who controls the senses.

1166 He who resides in the heart, or who is full, or all-pervading.

1167 Vámana, or the Dwarf incarnation of Vishṇu.

1168 The killer of Madhu, a demon.

1169 He from whose navel, the lotus, from which Brahmá was born, springs.

1170 He who has a thousand horns. The horns are here the Sákhás of the

Sáma-veda.

1171 One who has a hundred heads. The heads are here meant to devote a

hundred commandments of the Vedas.

1172 Siddhas are those who have already gained the summit of their

desires.

1173 Sádhyas are those that are still trying to gain the summit.

1174 A mystic syllable uttered in Mantras.

1175 A mystic syllable made of the letters which respectively denote

Brahmá, Vishṇu, and Śiva.

1176 A class of divine gods.

1177 Sanskáras are those sacred writings through which the divine

commands and prohibitions are known.

1178 Bali, a demon whom Vámana confined in Pátála.

1179 Vishṇu, the second of the Hindu triad.

1180 Krishṇa, (black coloured) one of the ten incarnations of Vishṇu.

1181 A. Weber, _Akademische Vorlesungen_, p. 181.

1182 Systema brahmanicum, liturgicum, mythologicum, civile, exmonumentis

Indicis, etc.

1183 Not only have the races of India translated or epitomized it, but

foreign nations have appropriated it wholly or in part, Persia,

Java, and Japan itself.

1184 In the third century B.C.

189 “The Devas and Asuras (Gods and Titans) fought in the east, the