I end these notes with an extract which I translate from Signor Gorresio's Preface to the tenth volume of his RÁmÁyan, and I take this opportunity of again thankfully acknowledging my great obligations to this eminent Sanskritist from whom I have so frequently borrowed. As Mr. Muir has observed, the Bengal recension which Signor Gorresio has most ably edited is throughout an admirable commentary on the genuine RÁmÁyan of northern India, and I have made constant reference to the faithful and elegant translation which accompanies the text for assistance and confirmation in difficulties:
“Towards the southern extremity and in the island of LankÁ (Ceylon) there existed undoubtedly a black and ferocious race, averse to the Aryans and hostile to their mode of worship: their ramifications extended through the islands of the Archipelago, and some traces of them remain in Java to this day.
The Sanskrit-Indians, applying to this race a name expressive of hatred which occurs in the Vedas as the name of hostile, savage and detested beings, called it the RÁkshas race: it is against these RÁkshases that the expedition of RÁma which the RÁmÁyan celebrates is directed. The Sanskrit-Indians certainly altered in their traditions the real character of this race: they attributed to it physical and moral qualities not found in human nature; they transformed it into a race of giants; they represented it as monstrous, hideous, truculent, changing forms at will, blood-thirsty and ravenous, just as the Semites represented the races that opposed them as impious, horrible and of monstrous size. But notwithstanding these mythical exaggerations, which are partly due to the genius of the Aryans so prone to magnify everything without measure, the RÁmÁyan in the course of its epic narration has still preserved and noted here and there some traits and peculiarities of the race which reveal its true character. It represents the RÁkshases as black of hue, and compares them with black clouds and masses of black collyrium; it attributes to them curly woolly hair and thick lips, it depicts them as loaded with chains, collars and girdles of gold, and the other bright ornaments which their race has always loved, and in which the kindred races of the Soudan still delight. It describes them as worshippers of matter and force. They are hostile to the religion of the Aryans whose rites and sacrifices they disturb and ruin … Such is the RÁkshas race as represented in the RÁmÁyan; and the war of the Aryan RÁma forms the subject of the epic, a subject certainly real and historical as far as regards its substance, but greatly exaggerated by the ancient myth. In Sanskrit-Indian tradition are found traces of another struggle of the Aryans with the RÁkshas races, which preceded the war of RÁma. According to some pauranic legends, KÁrttavÍrya, a descendant of the royal tribe of the YÁdavas, contemporary with Parasurama and a little anterior to RÁma, attacked LankÁ and took RÁva? prisoner. This well shows how ancient and how deeply rooted in the Aryan race is the thought of this war which the RÁmÁyan celebrates.
[pg 562]
“But,” says an eminent Indianist1181 whose learning I highly appreciate, “the RÁmÁyan is an allegorical epic, and no precise and historical value can be assigned to it. SÍtÁ signifies the furrow made by the plough, and under this symbolical aspect has already appeared honoured with worship in the hymns of the Rig-veda; RÁma is the bearer of the plough (this assertion is entirely gratuitous); these two allegorical personages represented agriculture introduced to the southern regions of India by the race of the Kosalas from whom RÁma was descended; the RÁkshases on whom he makes war are races of demons and giants who have little or nothing human about them; allegory therefore predominates in the poem, and the exact reality of an historical event must not be looked for in it.” Such is Professor Weber's opinion. If he means to say that mythical fictions are mingled with real events,
Forsan in alcun vero suo arco percuote,
as Dante says, and I fully concede the point. The interweaving of the myth with the historical truth belongs to the essence, so to speak, of the primitive epopeia. If SÍtÁ is born, as the RÁmÁyan feigns, from the furrow which King Janak opened when he ploughed the earth, not a whit more real is the origin of Helen and Æneas as related in Homer and Virgil, and if the characters in the RÁmÁyan exceed human nature, and in a greater degree perhaps than is the case in analogous epics, this springs in part from the nature of the subject and still more from the symbol-loving genius of the orient. Still the characters of the RÁmÁyan, although they exceed more or less the limits of human nature, act notwithstanding in the course of the poem, speak, feel, rejoice and grieve according to the natural impulse of human passions. But if by saying that the RÁmÁyan is an allegorical epic, it is meant that its fundamental subject is nothing but allegory, that the war of the Aryan RÁma against the RÁkshas race is an allegory, that the conquest of the southern region and of the island of LankÁ is an allegory, I do not hesitate to answer that such a presumption cannot be admitted and that the thing is in my opinion impossible. Father PaolÍno da S. Bartolommeo,1182 had already, together with other strange opinions of his own on Indian matters, brought forward a similar idea, that is to say that the exploit of RÁma which is the subject of the RÁmÁyan was a symbol and represented the course of the sun: thus he imagined that BrahmÁ was the earth, Vish?u the water, and that his avatÁrs were the blessings brought by the fertilizing waters, etc. But such ideas, born at a time when Indo-sanskrit antiquities were enveloped in darkness, have been dissipated by the light of new studies. How could an epic so dear in India to the memory of the people, so deeply rooted for many centuries in the minds of all, so propagated and diffused through all the dialects and languages of those regions, which had become the source of many dramas which are still represented in India, which is itself represented every year with such magnificence and to such crowds of people in the neighbourhood of AyodhyÁ, a poem welcomed at its very birth with such favour, as the legend relates, that the recitation of it by the first wandering Rhapsodists has consecrated and made famous all the places celebrated [pg 563] by them, and where RÁma made a shorter or longer stay, how, I ask, could such an epic have been purely allegorical? How, upon a pure invention, upon a simple allegory, could a poem have been composed of about fifty thousand verses, relating with such force and power the events, and giving details with such exactness? On a theme purely allegorical there may easily be composed a short mythical poem, as for example a poem on Proserpine or Psyche: but never an epic so full of traditions and historical memories, so intimately connected with the life of the people, as the RÁmÁyan.1183 Excessive readiness to find allegory whenever some traces of symbolism occur, where the myth partly veils the historical reality, may lead and often has led to error. What poetical work of mythical times could stand this mode of trial? could there not be made, or rather has there not been made a work altogether allegorical, out of the Homeric poems? We have all heard of the ingenious idea of the anonymous writer, who in order to prove how easily we may pass beyond the truth in our wish to seek and find allegory everywhere, undertook with keen subtlety to prove that the great personality of Napoleon I. was altogether allegorical and represented the sun. Napoleon was born in an island, his course was from west to east, his twelve marshals were the twelve signs of the zodiac, etc.
I conclude then, that the fundamental theme of the RÁmÁyan, that is to say the war of the Aryan RÁma against the RÁkshases, an Hamitic race settled in the south, ought to be regarded as real and historical as far as regards its substance, although the mythic element intermingled with the true sometimes alters its natural and genuine aspect.
How then did the Indo-Sanskrit epopeia form and complete itself? What elements did it interweave in its progress? How did it embody, how did it clothe the naked and simple primitive datum? We must first of all remember that the Indo-European races possessed the epic genius in the highest degree, and that they alone in the different regions they occupied produced epic poetry … But other causes and particular influences combined to nourish and develop the epic germ of the Sanskrit-Indians. Already in the Rig-veda are found hymns in which the Aryan genius preluded, so to speak, to the future epopeia, in songs that celebrated the heroic deeds of Indra, the combats and the victories of the tutelary Gods of the Aryan races over enemies secret or open, human or superhuman, the exploits and the memories of ancient heroes. More recently, at certain solemn occasions, as the very learned A. Weber remarks, at the solemnity, for example of the Asvamedha or sacrifice of the horse, the praises of the king who ordained the great rite were sung by bards and minstrels in songs composed for the purpose, the memories of past times were recalled and honourable mention was made of the just and pious kings of old. In the BrÁhma?as, a sort of prose commentaries annexed to the Vedas, are found recorded stories and legends which allude to historical events of the past ages, to ancient memories, and to mythical events. Such popular legends which the BrÁhma?as undoubtedly gathered from tradition admirably suited the epic tissue with which they were interwoven by successive hands.… Many and various mythico-historical traditions, suitable for epic development, were diffused among the Aryan races, those for example which are related [pg 564] in the four chapters containing the description of the earth, the Descent of the Ganges, etc. The epic genius however sometimes created beings of its own and gave body and life to ideal conceptions. Some of the persons in the RÁmÁyan must be, in my opinion, either personifications of the forces of nature like those which are described with such vigour in the ShÁhnÁmah, or if not exactly created, exaggerated beyond human proportions; others, vedic personages much more ancient than RÁma, were introduced into the epic and woven into its narrations, to bring together men who lived in different and distant ages, as has been the case in times nearer to our own, in the epics, I mean, of the middle ages.
In the introduction I have discussed the antiquity of the RÁmÁyan; and by means of those critical and inductive proofs which are all that an antiquity without precise historical dates can furnish I have endeavoured to establish with all the certainty that the subject admitted, that the original composition of the RÁmÁyan is to be assigned to about the twelfth century before the Christian era. Not that I believe that the epic then sprang to life in the form in which we now possess it; I think, and I have elsewhere expressed the opinion, that the poem during the course of its rhapsodical and oral propagation appropriated by way of episodes, traditions, legends and ancient myths.… But as far as regards the epic poem properly so called which celebrates the expedition of RÁma against the RÁkshases I think that I have sufficiently shown that its origin and first appearance should be placed about the twelfth century B.C.; nor have I hitherto met with anything to oppose this chronological result, or to oblige me to rectify or reject it.… But an eminent philologist already quoted, deeply versed in these studies, A. Weber, has expressed in some of his writings a totally different opinion; and the authority of his name, if not the number and cogency of his arguments, compels me to say something on the subject. From the fact or rather the assumption that Megasthenes1184 who lived some time in India has made no mention either of the MahÁbhÁrat or the RÁmÁyan Professor Weber argues that neither of these poems could have existed at that time; as regards the RÁmÁyan, the unity of its composition, the chain that binds together its different parts, and its allegorical character, show it, says Professor Weber, to be much more recent than the age to which I have assigned it, near to our own era, and according to him, later than the MahÁbhÁrat. As for Megasthenes it should be observed, that he did not write a history of India, much less a literary history or anything at all resembling one, but a simple description, in great part physical, of India: whence, from his silence on literary matters to draw inferences regarding the history of Sanskrit literature would be the same thing as from the silence of a geologist with respect to the literature of a country whose valleys, mountains, and internal structure he is exploring, to conjecture that such and such a poem or history not mentioned by him did not exist at his time. We have only to look at the fragments of Megasthenes collected and published by Schwanbeck to see what was the nature and scope of his Indica.… But only a few fragments of Megasthenes are extant; and to pretend that they should be argument and proof enough to judge the antiquity of a poem is to press the laws of criticism too far. To Professor Weber's argument as to the more or [pg 565] less recent age of the RÁmÁyan from the unity of its composition, I will make one sole reply, which is that if unity of composition were really a proof of a more recent age, it would be necessary to reduce by a thousand years at least the age of Homer and bring him down to the age of Augustus and Virgil; for certainly there is much more unity of composition, a greater accord and harmony of parts in the Iliad and the Odyssey than in the RÁmÁyan. But in the fine arts perfection is no proof of a recent age: while the experience and the continuous labour of successive ages are necessary to extend and perfect the physical or natural sciences, art which is spontaneous in its nature can produce and has produced in remote times works of such perfection as later ages have not been able to equal.”
“VÁlmÍki was the son of Varu?a, the regent of the waters, one of whose names is Prachetas. According to the AdhyÁtmÁ RÁmÁya?a, the sage, although a BrÁhman by birth, associated with foresters and robbers. Attacking on one occasion the seven Rishis, they expostulated with him successfully, and taught him the mantra of RÁma reversed, or MarÁ, MarÁ, in the inaudible repetition of which he remained immovable for thousands of years, so that when the sages returned to the same spot they found him still there, converted into a valmÍk or ant-hill, by the nests of the termites, whence his name of VÁlmÍki.”
Wilson. Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, Vol. I. p. 313.
“VÁlmÍki is said to have lived a solitary life in the woods: he is called both a muni and a rishi. The former word properly signifies an anchorite or hermit; the latter has reference chiefly to wisdom. The two words are frequently used promiscuously, and may both be rendered by the Latin vates in its earliest meaning of seer: VÁlmÍki was both poet and seer, as he is said to have sung the exploits of RÁma by the aid of divining insight rather than of knowledge naturally acquired.”Schlegel.
“This name may have been given to the father of VÁlmÍki allegorically. If we look at the derivation of the word (pra, before, and chetas, mind) it is as if the poet were called the son of Prometheus, the Forethinker.”Schlegel.
A divine saint, son of BrahmÁ. He is the eloquent messenger of the Gods, a musician of exquisite skill, and the inventor of the vÍ?Á or Indian lute. He bears a strong resemblance to Hermes or Mercury.
This mystic syllable, said to typify the supreme Deity, the Gods collectively, the Vedas, the three spheres of the world, the three holy fires, the three steps of Vish?u etc., prefaces the prayers and most venerated writings of the Hindus.
Called also SrÍ and LakshmÍ, the consort of Vish?u, the Queen of Beauty as well as the Dea Fortuna. Her birth “from the full-flushed wave” is described in Canto XLV of this Book.
One of the most prominent objects of worship in the Rig-veda, Indra was superseded in later times by the more popular deities Vish?u and Siva. He is the God of the firmament, and answers in many respects to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. See Additional Notes.
The second God of the TrimÚrti or Indian Trinity. Derived from the root vis to penetrate, the meaning of the name appears to be he who penetrates or pervades all things. An embodiment of the preserving power of nature, he is worshipped as a Saviour who has nine times been incarnate for the good of the world and will descend on earth once more. See Additional Notes and Muir's Sanskrit Texts passim.
In Sanskrit devarshi. Rishi is the general appellation of sages, and another word is frequently prefixed to distinguish the degrees. A Brahmarshi is a theologian or BrÁhmanical sage; a RÁjarshi is a royal sage or sainted king; a Devarshi is a divine or deified sage or saint.
TrikÁlaj?a. Literally knower of the three times. Both Schlegel and Gorresio quote Homer's.
?? ?d? t' ???ta, t? t' ?ss?e?a,
p?? t' ???ta.
“That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view,
The past, the present, and the future knew.”
The Bombay edition reads trilokaj?a,who knows the three worlds (earth, air and heaven.) “It is by tapas (austere fervour) that rishis of subdued souls, subsisting on roots, fruits and air, obtain a vision of the three worlds with all things moving and stationary.”Manu, XI. 236.
Son of Manu, the first king of Kosala and founder of the solar dynasty or family of the Children of the Sun, the God of that luminary being the father of Manu.
The Indians paid great attention to the art of physiognomy and believed that character and fortune could be foretold not from the face only but from marks upon the neck and hands. Three lines under the chin like those at the mouth of a conch (Sankha) were regarded as a peculiarly auspicious sign indicating, as did also the mark of Vish?u's discus on the hand, one born to be a chakravartin or universal emperor. In the palmistry of Europe the line of fortune, as well as the line of life, is in the hand. Cardan says that marks on the nails and teeth also show what is to happen to us: “Sunt etiam in nobis vestigia quÆdam futurorum eventuum in unguibus atque etiam in dentibus.” Though the palmy days of Indian chiromancy have passed away, the art is still to some extent studied and believed in.
“Veda means originally knowing or knowledge, and this name is given by the BrÁhmans not to one work, but to the whole body of their most ancient sacred literature. Veda is the same word which appears in the Greek ??da, I know, and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit. The name of Veda is commonly given to four collections of hymns, which are respectively known by the names of Rig-veda, Yajur-veda, SÁma-veda, and Atharva-veda.”
“As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the ancestors of the Aryan race,—with those very people who at the rising and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening. These men were the true ancestors of our race, and the Veda is the oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany: not in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Palestine.”
As with the ancient Persians and Scythians, Indian princes were carefully instructed in archery which stands for military science in general, of which, among Hindu heroes, it was the most important branch.
The events here briefly mentioned will be related fully in the course of the poem. The first four cantos are introductory, and are evidently the work of a later hand than Valmiki's.
“Chandra, or the Moon, is fabled to have been married to the twenty-seven daughters of the patriarch Daksha, or AsvinÍ and the rest, who are in fact personifications of the Lunar Asterisms. His favourite amongst them was Rohi?Í to whom he so wholly devoted himself as to neglect the rest. They complained to their father, and Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. Padma, PurÁ?a, Swarga-Kha??a, Sec. II. Rohi?Í in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran.”Wilson, Specimens of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. p. 234.
“Mount Meru, situated like KailÁsa in the lofty regions to the north of the HimÁlayas, is celebrated in the traditions and myths of India. Meru and KailÁsa are the two Indian Olympi. Perhaps they were held in such veneration because the Sanskrit-speaking Indians remembered the ancient home where they dwelt with the other primitive peoples of their family before they descended to occupy the vast plains which extend between the Indus and the Ganges.”Gorresio.
The epithet dwija, or twice-born, is usually appropriate to BrÁhmans, but is applicable to the three higher castes. Investiture with the sacred thread and initiation of the neophyte into certain religious mysteries are regarded as his regeneration or second birth.
His shoes to be a memorial of the absent heir and to maintain his right. KÁlidÁsa (Raghuva?sa, XII. 17.) says that they were to be adhidevate or guardian deities of the kingdom.
Raghu was one of the most celebrated ancestors of RÁma whose commonest appellation is, therefore, RÁghava or descendant of Raghu. KÁlidÁsa in the Raghura?sa makes him the son of DilÍpa and great-grandfather of RÁma. See Idylls from the Sanskrit, “Aja” and “DilÍpa.”
“The BrÁhmans, with a system rather cosmogonical than chronological, divide the present mundane period into four ages or yugas as they call them: the Krita, the TretÁ, the DwÁpara, and the Kali. The Krita, called also the Deva-yuga or that of the Gods, is the age of truth, the perfect age, the TretÁ is the age of the three sacred fires, domestic and sacrificial; the DwÁpara is the age of doubt; the Kali, the present age, is the age of evil.”Gorresio.
There are several rivers in India of this name, now corrupted into Tonse. The river here spoken of is that which falls into the Ganges a little below Allahabad.
“In Book II, Canto LIV, we meet with a saint of this name presiding over a convent of disciples in his hermitage at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna. Thence the later author of these introductory cantos has borrowed the name and person, inconsistently indeed, but with the intention of enhancing the dignity of the poet by ascribing to him so celebrated a disciple.”Schlegel.
The poet plays upon the similarity in sound of the two words: soka, means grief, sloka, the heroic measure in which the poem is composed. It need scarcely be said that the derivation is fanciful.
BrahmÁ, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first person of the divine triad of India. The four heads with which he is represented are supposed to have allusion to the four corners of the earth which he is sometimes considered to personify. As an object of adoration BrahmÁ has been entirely superseded by Siva and Vish?u. In the whole of India there is, I believe, but one temple dedicated to his worship. In this point the first of the Indian triad curiously resembles the last of the divine fraternity of Greece, AÏdes the brother of Zeus and Poseidon. “In all Greece, says Pausanias, there is no single temple of AÏdes, except at a single spot in Elis.” See Gladstone's Juventus Mundi, p. 253.
The argha or arghya was a libation or offering to a deity, a BrÁhman, or other venerable personage. According to one authority it consisted of water, milk, the points of KÚsa-grass, curds, clarified butter, rice, barley, and white mustard, according to another, of saffron, bel, unbroken grain, flowers, curds, dÚrbÁ-grass, kÚsa-grass, and sesamum.
“I congratulate myself,” says Schlegel in the preface to his, alas, unfinished edition of the RÁmÁyan, “that, by the favour of the Supreme Deity, I have been allowed to begin so great a work; I glory and make my boast that I too after so many ages have helped to confirm that ancient oracle declared to VÁlmÍki by the Father of Gods and men:
The twin sons of RÁma and SÍtÁ, born after RÁma had repudiated SÍtÁ, and brought up in the hermitage of VÁlmÍki. As they were the first rhapsodists the combined name KusÍlava signifies a reciter of poems, or an improvisatore, even to the present day.
Eight flavours or sentiments are usually enumerated, love, mirth, tenderness, anger, heroism, terror, disgust, and surprise; tranquility or content, or paternal tenderness, is sometimes considered the ninth. Wilson. See the SÁhitya Darpa?a or Mirror of Composition translated by Dr. Ballantyne and BÁbÚ PramadÁdÁsa Mittra in the Bibliotheca Indica.
Saccharum Munja is a plant from whose fibres is twisted the sacred string which a BrÁhman wears over one shoulder after he has been initiated by a rite which in some respects answers to confirmation.
The ruins of the ancient capital of RÁma and the Children of the Sun may still be traced in the present AjudhyÁ near Fyzabad. AjudhyÁ is the Jerusalem or Mecca of the Hindus.
A legislator and saint, the son of BrahmÁ or a personification of BrahmÁ himself, the creator of the world, and progenitor of mankind. Derived from the root man to think, the word means originally man, the thinker, and is found in this sense in the Rig-veda.
Manu as a legislator is identified with the Cretan Minos, as progenitor of mankind with the German Mannus: “Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriÆ et annalium genus est, Tuisconem deum terra editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque.”Tacitus, Germania, Cap. II.
Schlegel thinks that this refers to the marble of different colours with which the houses were adorned. It seems more natural to understand it as implying the regularity of the streets and houses.
The SataghnÍi.e. centicide, or slayer of a hundred, is generally supposed to be a sort of fire-arms, or the ancient Indian rocket; but it is also described as a stone set round with iron spikes.
The NÁgas (serpents) are demigods with a human face and serpent body. They inhabit PÁtÁla or the regions under the earth. BhogavatÍ is the name of their capital city. Serpents are still worshipped in India. See Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship.
The Sanskrit word Sindhu is in the singular the name of the river Indus, in the plural of the people and territories on its banks. The name appears as Hidku in the cuneiform inscription of Darius' son of Hystaspes, in which the nations tributary to that king are enumerated.
The Hebrew form is Hodda (Esther, I. 1.). In Zend it appears as Hendu in a somewhat wider sense. With the Persians later the signification of Hind seems to have co-extended with their increasing acquaintance with the country. The weak Ionic dialect omitted the Persian h, and we find in HecatÆus and Herodotus ??d?? and ? ??d???. In this form the Romans received the names and transmitted them to us. The Arabian geographers in their ignorance that Hind and Sind are two forms of the same word have made of them two brothers and traced their decent from Noah. See Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde Vol. I. pp. 2, 3.
KÁmboja was probably still further to the north-west. Lassen thinks that the name is etymologically connected with Cambyses which in the cuneiform inscription of Behistun is written Ka(m)bujia.
“There are four kinds of elephants. 1 Bhaddar. It is well proportioned, has an erect head, a broad chest, large ears, a long tail, and is bold and can bear fatigue. 2 Mand. It is black, has yellow eyes, a uniformly sized body, and is wild and ungovernable. 3 Mirg. It has a whitish skin, with black spots. 4 Mir. It has a small head, and obeys readily. It gets frightened when it thunders.”AÍn-i-AkbarÍ.. Translated by H. Blochmann, AÍn 41, The Imperial Elephant Stables.
The people of Anga. “Anga is said in the lexicons to be Bengal; but here certainly another region is intended situated at the confluence of the SarjÚ with the Ganges, and not far distant from Dasaratha's dominions.”Gorresio. It comprised part of Behar and Bhagulpur.
The KoÏl or kokila (Cuculus Indicus) as the harbinger of spring and love is a universal favourite with Indian poets. His voice when first heard in a glorious spring morning is not unpleasant, but becomes in the hot season intolerably wearisome to European ears.
“Sons and Paradise are intimately connected in Indian belief. A man desires above every thing to have a son to perpetuate his race, and to assist with sacrifices and funeral rites to make him worthy to obtain a lofty seat in heaven or to preserve that which he has already obtained.”Gorresio.
It was essential that the horse should wander free for a year before immolation, as a sign that his master's paramount sovereignty was acknowledged by all neighbouring princes.
Called also Vidcha, later Tirabhukti, corrupted into the modern Tirhut, a province bounded on the west and east by the GaudakÍ and KausikÍ rivers, on the south by the Ganges, and on the north by the skirts of the HimÁlayas.
“The Pravargya ceremony lasts for three days, and is always performed twice a day, in the forenoon and afternoon. It precedes the animal and Soma sacrifices. For without having undergone it, no one is allowed to take part in the solemn Soma feast prepared for the gods.” Haug's Aitareya BrÁhma?am. Vol. II. p. 41. note q.v.
Upasads. “The Gods said, Let us perform the burnt offerings called Upasads (i.e. besieging). For by means of an Upasad, i.e. besieging, they conquer a large (fortified) town.”—Ibid. p. 32.
The Soma plant, or Asclepias Acida. Its fermented juice was drunk in sacrifice by the priests and offered to the Gods who enjoyed the intoxicating draught.
“Tum in cÆrimoniarum intervallis BrachmanÆ facundi, sollertes, crebros sermones de rerum causis instituebant, alter alterum vincendi cupidi. This public disputation in the assembly of BrÁhmans on the nature of things, and the almost fraternal connexion between theology and philosophy deserves some notice; whereas the priests of some religions are generally but little inclined to show favour to philosophers, nay, sometimes persecute them with the most rancorous hatred, as we are taught both by history and experience.… This sloka is found in the MSS. of different recensions of the RÁmÁyan, and we have, therefore, the most trustworthy testimony to the antiquity of philosophy among the Indians.”Schlegel.
In Sanskrit vilva, the Ægle Marmelos. “He who desires food and wishes to grow fat, ought to make his YÚpa (sacrificial post) of Bilva wood.” Haug's AÍtareya BrÁhmanam. Vol. II. p. 73.
A minute account of these ancient ceremonies would be out of place here. “Ágnish?oma is the name of a sacrifice, or rather a series of offerings to fire for five days. It is the first and principal part of the Jyotish?oma, one of the great sacrifices in which especially the juice of the Soma plant is offered for the purpose of obtaining Swarga or heaven.”GoldstÜcker's Dictionary. “The Ágnish?oma is Agni. It is called so because they (the gods) praised him with this Stoma. They called it so to hide the proper meaning of the word: for the gods like to hide the proper meaning of words.”
“On account of four classes of gods having praised Agni with four Stomas, the whole was called Chatush?oma (containing four Stomas).”
“It (the Ágnish?oma) is called Jyotish?oma, for they praised Agni when he had risen up (to the sky) in the shape of a light (jyotis).”
“This (Ágnish?oma) is a sacrificial performance which has no beginning and no end.”Haug'sAitareya BrÁhma?am.
The AtirÁtra, literally lasting through the night, is a division of the service of the Jyotish?oma.
The Abhijit, the everywhere victorious, is the name of a sub-division of the great sacrifice of the GavÁmanaya.
The Visvajit, or the all-conquering, is a similar sub-division.
Áyus is the name of a service forming a division of the Abhiplava sacrifice.
The AptoryÁm, is the seventh or last part of the Jyotish?oma, for the performance of which it is not essentially necessary, but a voluntary sacrifice instituted for the attainment of a specific desire. The literal meaning of the word would be in conformity with the Prau?hamanoramÁ, “a sacrifice which procures the attainment of the desired object.”GoldstÜcker's Dictionary.
“The Ukthya is a slight modification of the Ágnish?oma sacrifice. The noun to be supplied to it is kratu. It is a Soma sacrifice also, and one of the seven Sa?sthas or component parts of the Jyotish?oma. Its name indicates its nature. For Ukthya means ‘what refers to the Uktha,’ which is an older name for ShÁstra, i.e. recitation of one of the Hotri priests at the time of the Soma libations. Thus this sacrifice is only a kind of supplement to the Ágnish?oma.”Haug. Ai. B.
“Four classes of priests were required in India at the most solemn sacrifices. 1. The officiating priests, manual labourers, and acolytes, who had chiefly to prepare the sacrificial ground, to dress the altar, slay the victims, and pour out the libations. 2. The choristers, who chant the sacred hymns. 3. The reciters or readers, who repeat certain hymns. 4. The overseers or bishops, who watch and superintend the proceedings of the other priests, and ought to be familiar with all the Vedas. The formulas and verses to be muttered by the first class are contained in the Yajur-veda-sanhitÁ. The hymns to be sung by the second class are in the Sama-veda-sanhitÁ. The Atharva-veda is said to be intended for the Brahman or overseer, who is to watch the proceedings of the sacrifice, and to remedy any mistake that may occur. The hymns to be recited by the third class are contained in the Rigveda,”Chips from a German Workshop.
One of the most ancient and popular of the numerous names of Vish?u. The word has been derived in several ways, and may mean he who moved on the (primordial) waters, or he who pervades or influences men or their thoughts.
To walk round an object keeping the right side towards it is a mark of great respect. The Sanskrit word for the observance is pradakshi?Á, from pra pro, and daksha right, Greek de????, Latin dexter, Gaelic deas-il. A similar ceremony is observed by the Gaels.
“In the meantime she traced around him, with wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have thought has been derived from the Druidical mythology. It consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil walking three times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun.”
Gandharvas (Southey's Glendoveers) are celestial musicians inhabiting Indra's heaven and forming the orchestra at all the banquets of the principal deities.
Kimpurushas, demigods attached also to the service of Kuvera, celestial musicians, represented like centaurs reversed with human figures and horses' heads.
The bird and vehicle of Vish?u. He is generally represented as a being something between a man and a bird and considered as the sovereign of the feathered race. He may be compared with the Simurgh of the Persians, the 'AnkÁ of the Arabs, the Griffin of chivalry, the Phoenix of Egypt, and the bird that sits upon the ash Yggdrasil of the Edda.
This Canto will appear ridiculous to the European reader. But it should be remembered that the monkeys of an Indian forest, the “bough-deer” as the poets call them, are very different animals from the “turpissima bestia” that accompanies the itinerant organ-grinder or grins in the Zoological Gardens of London. Milton has made his hero, Satan, assume the forms of a cormorant, a toad, and a serpent, and I cannot see that this creation of semi-divine VÁnars, or monkeys, is more ridiculous or undignified.
Rishyasring, a BrÁhman, had married SÁntÁ who was of the Kshatriya or Warrior caste and an expiatory ceremony was necessary on account of this violation of the law.
“The poet no doubt intended to indicate the vernal equinox as the birthday of RÁma. For the month Chaitra is the first of the two months assigned to the spring; it corresponds with the latter half of March and the former half of April in our division of the year. Aditi, the mother of the Gods, is lady of the seventh lunar mansion which is called Punarvasu. The five planets and their positions in the Zodiac are thus enumerated by both commentators: the Sun in Aries, Mars in Capricorn, Saturn in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Venus in Pisces.… I leave to astronomers to examine whether the parts of the description agree with one another, and, if this be the case, thence to deduce the date. The Indians place the nativity of RÁma in the confines of the second age (tretÁ) and the third (dwÁpara): but it seems that this should be taken in an allegorical sense.… We may consider that the poet had an eye to the time in which, immediately before his own age, the aspects of the heavenly bodies were such as he has described.”Schlegel.
“Pushya is the name of a month; but here it means the eighth mansion. The ninth is called AsleshÁ, or the snake. It is evident from this that Bharat, though his birth is mentioned before that of the twins, was the youngest of the four brothers and RÁma's junior by eleven months.”Schlegel.
Schlegel, in the Indische Bibliothek, remarks that the proficiency of the Indians in this art early attracted the attention of Alexander's successors, and natives of India were so long exclusively employed in this service that the name Indian was applied to any elephant-driver, to whatever country he might belong.
The story of this famous saint is given at sufficient length in Cantos LI-LV.
This saint has given his name to the district and city to the east of Benares. The original name, preserved in a land-grant on copper now in the Museum of the Benares College, has been Moslemized into Ghazeepore (the City of the Soldier-martyr).
Great joy, according to the Hindu belief, has this effect, not causing each particular hair to stand on end, but gently raising all the down upon the body.
The RÁkshasas, giants, or fiends who are represented as disturbing the sacrifice, signify here, as often elsewhere, merely the savage tribes which placed themselves in hostile opposition to BrÁhmanical institutions.
“The Gandharvas, or heavenly bards, had originally a warlike character but were afterwards reduced to the office of celestial musicians cheering the banquets of the Gods. Dr. Kuhn has shown their identity with the Centaurs in name, origin and attributes.”Gorresio.
These mysterious animated weapons are enumerated in Cantos XXIX and XXX. Daksha was the son of BrahmÁ and one of the PrajÁpatis, Demiurgi, or secondary authors of creation.
“The meaning of Asvins (from asva a horse, Persian asp, Greek ?pp??, Latin equus, Welsh ech) is Horsemen. They were twin deities of whom frequent mention is made in the Vedas and the Indian myths. The Asvins have much in common with the Dioscuri of Greece, and their mythical genealogy seems to indicate that their origin was astronomical. They were, perhaps, at first the morning star and evening star. They are said to be the children of the sun and the nymph AsvinÍ, who is one of the lunar asterisms personified. In the popular mythology they are regarded as the physicians of the Gods.”Gorresio.
The word KumÁra (a young prince, a Childe) is also a proper name of Skanda or KÁrtikeya God of War, the son of Siva and UmÁ. The babe was matured in the fire.
“At the rising of the sun as well as at noon certain observances, invocations, and prayers were prescribed which might under no circumstances be omitted. One of these observances was the recitation of the SÁvitrÍ, a Vedic hymn to the Sun of wonderful beauty.”Gorresio.
“The practice of austerities, voluntary tortures, and mortifications was anciently universal in India, and was held by the Indians to be of immense efficacy. Hence they mortified themselves to expiate sins, to acquire merits, and to obtain superhuman gifts and powers; the Gods themselves sometimes exercised themselves in such austerities, either to raise themselves to greater power and grandeur, or to counteract the austerities of man which threatened to prevail over them and to deprive them of heaven.… Such austerities were called in India tapas (burning ardour, fervent devotion) and he who practised them tapasvin.”Gorresio.
“A celebrated lake regarded in India as sacred. It lies in the lofty region between the northern highlands of the HimÁlayas and mount KailÁsa, the region of the sacred lakes. The poem, following the popular Indian belief, makes the river SarayÚ (now SarjÚ) flow from the MÁnasa lake; the sources of the river are a little to the south about a day's journey from the lake. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumshunde, page 34.”Gorresio. Manas means mind; mÁnasa, mental, mind-born.
The confluence of two or more rivers is often a venerated and holy place. The most famous is PrayÁg or Allahabad, where the SarasvatÍ by an underground course is believed to join the Jumna and the Ganges.
The botanical names of the trees mentioned in the text are Grislea Tormentosa, Shorea Robusta, Echites Antidysenterica, Bignonia Suaveolens, Œgle Marmelos, and Diospyrus Glutinosa. I have omitted the Kutaja (Echites) and the Ti??uka (Diospyrus).
Here we meet with a fresh myth to account for the name of these regions. Malaja is probably a non-Aryan word signifying a hilly country: taken as a Sanskrit compound it means sprung from defilement. The word KarÚsha appears to have a somewhat similar meaning.
“This is one of those indefinable mythic personages who are found in the ancient traditions of many nations, and in whom cosmogonical or astronomical notions are generally figured. Thus it is related of Agastya that the Vindhyan mountains prostrated themselves before him; and yet the same Agastya is believed to be regent of the star Canopus.”Gorresio.
He will appear as the friend and helper of RÁma farther on in the poem.
Now called KosÍ (Cosy) corrupted from KausikÍ, daughter of Kus]a.
“This is one of those personifications of rivers so frequent in the Grecian mythology, but in the similar myths is seen the impress of the genius of each people, austere and profoundly religious in India, graceful and devoted to the worship of external beauty in Greece.”Gorresio.
“The region here spoken of is called in the Laws of Manu Madhyadesa or the middle region. ‘The region situated between the HimÁlaya and the Vindhya Mountains … is called Madhyadesa, or the middle region; the space comprised between these two mountains from the eastern to the western sea is called by sages ÁryÁvartta, the seat of honourable men.’ (Manu, II, 21, 22.) The Sanskrit Indians called themselves Áryans, which means honourable, noble, to distinguish themselves from the surrounding nations of different origin.”Gorresio.
Said to be so called from the Jambu, or Rose Apple, abounding in it, and signifying according to the PurÁnas the central division of the world, the known world.
The thirty-three Gods are said in the Aitareya BrÁhma?a, Book I. ch. II. 10. to be the eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras, the twelve Ádityas, PrajÁpati, either BrahmÁ or Daksha, and VashatkÁra or deified oblation. This must have been the actual number at the beginning of the Vedic religion gradually increased by successive mythical and religious creations till the Indian Pantheon was crowded with abstractions of every kind. Through the reverence with which the words of the Veda were regarded, the immense host of multiplied divinities, in later times, still bore the name of the Thirty-three Gods.
“One of the elephants which, according to an ancient belief popular in India, supported the earth with their enormous backs; when one of these elephants shook his wearied head the earth trembled with its woods and hills. An idea, or rather a mythical fancy, similar to this, but reduced to proportions less grand, is found in Virgil when he speaks of Enceladus buried under Ætna:”
“The Devas and Asuras (Gods and Titans) fought in the east, the 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'sAitareya 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.
“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.
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.
“SÁr?gin, literally carrying a bow of horn, is a constantly recurring name of Vish?u. 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.
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.
“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.
“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 Vish?u'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.
“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.
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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“It is well known that the Persians were called Pahlavas by the Indians. The Sakas 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 ?? ??? ???sa? p??ta? t??? S??a?. ?a????s? S??a?. 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 ???t?e? of Herodotus, and that this non-Indian people dwelt on the north-west confines of India.
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.
“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.
“Trisanku, king of AyodhyÁ, was seventh in descent from IkshvÁku, and Dasaratha 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 Vasish?ha and VisvÁmitra, actors in these occurences, still alive in Rama's time.”
“It does not appear how Trisanku, in asking the aid of Vasish?ha's sons after applying in vain to their father, could be charged with resorting to another sÁkhÁ (School) in the ordinary sense of that word; as it is not conceivable that the sons should have been of another SÁkhÁ from the father, whose cause they espouse with so much warmth. The commentator in the Bombay edition explains the word SÁkhantaram as YÁjanÁdinÁ rakshÁntaram, ‘one who by sacrificing for thee, etc., will be another protector.’ Gorresio's Gau?a 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 uts?ijya kasmÁt tvam sÁkhÁsv ichhasi lambitum. ‘Why, forsaking the root, dost thou desire to hang upon the branches?’ ”Muir, Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I., p. 401.
“The Cha??Ála was regarded as the vilest and most abject of the men sprung from wedlock forbidden by the law (MÁnavadharmasÁstra, Lib. X. 12.); a kind of social malediction weighed upon his head and rejected him from human society.”Gorresio.
“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 VisvÁmitra should be seven new southern stars, a sort of new Ursa. Von Schlegel thinks that this mythical fiction of new stars created by VisvÁmitra 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.
“This cannot refer to the events just related: for VisvÁmitra was successful in the sacrifice performed for Trisanku. 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 VisvÁmitra 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.
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 ?e??e??t??, the earliest place of pilgrimage mentioned by name, is not to be confounded with the modern Pushkara in Ajmere.
“AmbarÍsha is the twenty-ninth in descent from IkshvÁku, and is therefore separated by an immense space of time from Trisanku in whose story VisvÁmitra 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 VisvÁmitra. 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.
“The same as she whose praises VisvÁmitra 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, KausikÍ was preserved by the river into which she is said to have been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kusa and KusÍ. 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, (Hira?yavÁha) 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.
“Daksha was one of the ancient Progenitors or PrajÁpatis created by BrahmÁ. The sacrifice which is here spoken of and in which Sankar or Siva (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 Siva, to its increase and to the struggle it maintained with other older forms of worship.”Gorresio.
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 Vasish?ha.
“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.
This is another RÁma, son of Jamadagni, called ParasurÁma, 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.
“The author of the Raghuva?sa 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. Raghuva?sa, VI. 51.”Schlegel.
RÁhu, the ascending node, is in mythology a demon with the tail of a dragon whose head was severed from his body by Vish?u, 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.
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.
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.
The sloka 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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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:
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.
“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 ChitrakÚ?. It is this that gives the RÁmÁyan a strange interest, the story still lives.”Calcutta Review: Vol. XXIII.
“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 Vish?u. 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.
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.
“KurujÁngala and its inhabitants are frequently mentioned in the MahÁbhÁrata, as in the Ádi-parv. 3789, 4337, et al.”Wilson'sVish?u PurÁ?a, Vol. II. p. 176. Dr. Hall's Note.
“The ???at?? of Arrian. See As. Res. Vol. XV. p. 420, 421, also Indische Alterthumskunde, Vol. I. p. 602, first footnote.”Wilson'sVish?u PurÁ?a, Vol. I. p. 421. Dr. Hall's Edition. The IkshumatÍ was a river in Kurukshetra.
“The BÁhÍkas are described in the MahÁbhÁrata, Kar?a Parvan, with some detail, and comprehend the different nations of the Punjab from the Sutlej to the Indus.”Wilson'sVish?u PurÁ?a, Vol. I. p. 167.
It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos LXVIII and LXXII. Professor Wilson observes (Vish?u PurÁ?a, 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, Dakshineswar 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.
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.
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.
“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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
Gorresio observes that Dasaratha 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. Dasaratha though in heaven still took a loving interest in the fortunes of his son.
“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 Gau?a 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 PÁ?ini 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, MÁrga?apriyÁm, AnÚpÁm, SubhagÁm, BhÁsÍm iti, PrÁdhÁ vyajayata. PrÁdhÁ (daughter of Daksha) bore AnavadyÁ, Manu, VansÁ, MÁrga?apriyÁ, AnÚpÁ, SubhagÁ. and BhÁsÍ.’ ”Muir's Sanskrit Text, Vol. I. p. 116.
The text reads Kasyapa, “a descendant of Kasyapa,” 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 Kasyapa's eight wives, we must here read Kasyap. 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.
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 tinisa (Dalbergia ougeiniensis), punnÁga (Rottleria tinctoria), tilaka (not named), syandana (Dalbergia ougeiniensis again), vandana (unknown), nÍpa (Nauclea Kadamba), lakucha (Artoearpus lacucha), dhava (Grislea tomentosa), Asvakarna (another name for the SÁl), SamÍ (Acacia Suma), khadira (Mimosa catechu), kinsuka (Butea frondosa), pÁtala (Bignonia suaveolens).
“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 Asvins and SarasvatÍ that Namuchi had drunk up his strength. The Asvins in consequence gave Indra a thunderbolt in the form of a foam, with which he smote off the head of Namuchi.”Garrett'sClassical Dictionary of India. See also Book I. p. 39.
“The younger brother of the giant RÁva?; when he and his brother had practiced austerities for a long series of years, BrahmÁ appeared to offer them boons: Vibhisha?a asked
that he might never meditate any unrighteousness.… On the death of RÁva? Vibhisha?a was installed as RÁja of LankÁ.”Garrett'sClassical Dictionary of India.
The spirits of the good dwell in heaven until their store of accumulated merit is exhausted. Then they redescend to earth in the form of falling stars.
PampÁ is said by the commentator to be the name both of a lake an
“The Jonesia Asoca is a tree of considerable size, native of southern India. It blossoms in February and March with large erect compact clusters of flowers, varying in colour from pale-orange to scarlet, almost to be mistaken, on a hasty glance, for immense trusses of bloom of an Ixora. Mr. Fortune considered this tree, when in full bloom, superior in beauty even to the Amherstia.
The first time I saw the Asoc in flower was on the hill where the famous rock-cut temple of KÁrlÍ is situated, and a large concourse of natives had assembled for the celebration of some Hindoo festival. Before proceeding to the temple the Mahratta women gathered from two trees, which were flowering somewhat below, each a fine truss of blossom, and inserted it in the hair at the back of her head.… As they moved about in groups it is impossible to imagine a more delightful effect than the rich scarlet bunches of flowers presented on their fine glossy jet-black hair.”Firminger, Gardening for India.
No other word can express the movements of peafowl under the influence of pleasing excitement, especially when after the long drought they hear the welcome roar of the thunder and feel that the rain is near.
RÁma appears to mean that on a former occasion a crow flying high overhead was an omen that indicated his approaching separation from SÍtÁ; and that now the same bird's perching on a tree near him may be regarded as a happy augury that she will soon be restored to her husband.
I omit five slokas which contain nothing but a list of trees for which, with one or two exceptions, there are no equivalent names in English. The following is Gorresio's translation of the corresponding passage in the Bengal recension:—
“Oh come risplendono in questa stagione di primavera i vitici, le galedupe, le bassie, le dalbergie, i diospyri … le tile, le michelie, le rottlerie, le pentaptere ed i pterospermi, i bombaci, le grislee, gli abri, gli amaranti e le dalbergie; i sirii, le galedupe, le barringtonie ed i palmizi, i xanthocymi, il pepebetel, le verbosine e le ticaie, le nauclee le erythrine, gli asochi, e le tapie fanno d'ogni intorno pompa de' lor fiori.”
A daughter of Daksha who became one of the wives of Kasyapa and mother of the Daityas. She is termed the general mother of Titans and malignant beings. See Book I Cantos XLV, XLVI.
SugrÍva, the ex-king of the VÁnars, foresters, or monkeys, an exile from his home, wandering about the mountain RishyamÚka with his four faithful ex-ministers.
The hermitage of the Saint Matanga which his curse prevented BÁli, the present king of the VÁnars, from entering. The story is told at length in Canto XI of this Book.
VÁlmÍki makes the second vowel in this name long or short to suit the exigencies of the verse. Other Indian poets have followed his example, and the same licence will be used in this translation.
I omit a recapitulatory and interpolated verse in a different metre, which is as follows:—Reverencing with the words, So be it, the speech of the greatly terrified and unequalled monkey king, the magnanimous HanumÁn then went where (stood) the very mighty RÁma with Lakshma?.
The Vedas are four in number, the Rich or Rig-veda, the Yajush or Yajur-veda; the SÁman or SÁma-veda, and the Atharvan or Atharva-veda. See p. 3. Note.
“In our own metrical romances, or wherever a poem is meant not for readers but for chanters and oral reciters, these formulÆ, to meet the same recurring case, exist by scores. Thus every woman in these metrical romances who happens to be young, is described as ‘so bright of ble,’ or complexion; always a man goes ‘the mountenance of a mile’ before he overtakes or is overtaken. And so on through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit Homer has his eternal t?? d'a?' ?p?d?a ?d??, or t?? d'apae??e??? p??sf?, &c.
To a reader of sensibility, such recurrences wear an air of child-like simplicity, beautifully recalling the features of Homer's primitive age. But they would have appeared faults to all commonplace critics in literary ages.”
Fire for sacred purposes is produced by the attrition of two pieces of wood. In marriage and other solemn covenants fire is regarded as the holy witness in whose presence the agreement is made. Spenser in a description of a marriage, has borrowed from the Roman rite what he calls the housling, or “matrimonial rite.”
With the Indians, as with the ancient Greeks, the throbbing of the right eye in a man is an auspicious sign, the throbbing of the left eye is the opposite. In a woman the significations of signs are reversed.
The Vedas stolen by the demons Madhu and Kai?abha.
“The text has [Sanskrit text] which signifies literally ‘the lost vedic tradition.’ It seems that allusion is here made to the Vedas submerged in the depth of the sea, but promptly recovered by Vish?u in one of his incarnations, as the brahmanic legend relates, with which the orthodoxy of the BrÁhmans intended perhaps to allude to the prompt restoration and uninterrupted continuity of the ancient vedic tradition.”
Like the wife of a NÁga or Serpent-God carried off by an eagle. The enmity between the King of birds and the serpent is of very frequent occurrence. It seems to be a modification of the strife between the Vedic Indra and the Ahi, the serpent or drought-fiend; between ApollÔn and the Python, Adam and the Serpent.
“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.
Varu?a is one of the oldest of the Vedic Gods, corresponding in name and partly in character to the ???a??? 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.
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.”
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.
The flag-staff erected in honour of the God Indra is lowered when the festival is over. AsvÍnÍ in astronomy is the head of Aries or the first of the twenty-eight lunar mansions or asterisms.
“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.
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.
“Asvatara 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. AsvatarÍ 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 AsvatarÍ is, or what tradition or myth is alluded to. Vimalabodha reads AsvatarÍ in the nominative case, and explains, AsvatarÍ 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.
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.”
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.”
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.
SrÁva?: July-August. But the rains begin a month earlier, and what follows must not be taken literally. The text has pÚrvo' yam vÁrshiko mÁsah SrÁva?ah salilÁgamdh. The Bengal recension has the same, and Gorresio translates: “Equesto ilmese SrÂvana (luglio-agosto) primo della stagione piovosa, in cui dilagano le acque.”
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rohi?Í 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.
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 MahÁsaila, &c. are certain mountains is about all the information they give.
AnuhlÁda or AnuhrÁda is one of the four sons of the mighty Hira?yakasipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kasyapa and Diti and killed by Vish?u in his incarnation of the Man-Lion Narasinha. According to the BhÁgavata PurÁ?a the Daitya or Asur Hira?yakasipu and Hira?yÁksha his brother, both killed by Vish?u, were born again as RÁva? and Kumbhakar?a his brother.
Puloma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in order to avert an imprecation. PaulomÍ is a patronymic denoting SachÍ the daughter of Puloma.
“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.
“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 RÁmÁya?am, 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.
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.
A fabulous thorny rod of the cotton tree used for torturing the wicked in hell. The tree gives its name, SÁlmalÍ, 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.
“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 Vish?u PurÁ?a. Vol. II. p. 250.
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.
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'sVi
sh?u PurÁ?a, Vol. II. p. 110.
“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'sVish?u PurÁ?a.
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.
The land of the people of the “ten forts.” Professor Hall in a note on Wilson'sVish?u PurÁ?a, Vol. II. p. 160 says: “The oral traditions of the vicinity to this day assign the name of Da?Árna to a region lying to the east of the District of Chundeyree.”
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.
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.
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.<
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.
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 Garu?a.
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.
“Daksha is the son of BrahmÁ and one of the PrajÁpatis or divine progenitors. He had sixty daughters, twenty-seven of whom married to Kasyapa 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.
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.
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.
RÁva?'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. RÁva?'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.
LakshmÍ is the wife of Vish?u 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.
RÁva? 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.
RÁva? 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.
The Ádityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom Varu?a is the chief. The name Áditya was afterwards given to any God, specially to SÚrya the Sun.
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. Jyotish?om, Astronomy, or rather the Vedic Calendar: 6. Kalpa, ceremonial.
RÁva? 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.
Hira?yakasipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vish?u the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.
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.”
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.
“This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the Rig-veda. In Ash?aka I. SÚkta XXXIV, the Rishi Hira?yastÚpa invoking the Asvins says: Á NÁsatyÁ tribhirekÁdasairiha devebniryÁtam: ‘O NÁsatyas (Asvins) 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.
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.
“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 RÁmÁya?a 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'sSanskrit Texts, Part II. p. 166.
ArundhatÍ was the wife of the great sage Vasish?ha, and regarded as the pattern of conjugal excellence. She was raised to the heavens as one of the Pleiades.
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.
SÍtÁ of course knows nothing of what has happened to RÁma since the time when she was carried away by RÁva?. 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.
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 RÁva? by destroying his pleasure-grounds.
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.”
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.
The ten heads of RÁva? 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.
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 Vish?u in the Dwarf-incarnation.
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.”
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.
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.
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. Vibhisha? is kicked from his seat by RÁva?, and then, after telling his mother what has happened, he flies to Mount KailÁsa where he has an interview with Siva, and by his advice seeks RÁma and the VÁnar army.
According to a Pauranik legend KesarÍ 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.
I omit the rest of this canto, which is mere repetition. RÁva? 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 SÁrdÚla to tell him the names of the VÁnar chieftains whom he has seen in RÁma's army. These have already been mentioned by Suka and SÁra?.
The Kinsuk, also called PalÁsa, is Butea Frondosa, a tree that bears beautiful red crescent shaped blossoms and is deservedly a favorite with poets. The Seemal or SÁlmalÍ is the silk cotton tree which also bears red blossoms.
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.
The daughter of King Kusadhwaja. She became an ascetic, and being insulted by RÁva? 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.
NandÍsvara was Siva's chief attendant. RÁva? had despised and laughed at him for appearing in the form of a monkey and the irritated NandÍsvara cursed him and foretold his destruction by monkeys.
RÁva? once upheaved and shook Mount KailÁsa the favourite dwelling place of Siva the consort of UmÁ, and was cursed in consequence by the offended Goddess.
PunjikasthalÁ was the daughter of Varu?. RÁva? himself has mentioned in this book his insult to her, and the curse pronounced in consequence by BrahmÁ.
The Bengal recension assigns a very different speech to Kumbhakar?a and makes him say that NÁrad the messenger of the Gods had formerly told him that Vish?u himself incarnate as Dasaratha's son should come to destroy RÁva?.
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 Kumbhakar?a, 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.
KÁrtikeya the God of War, and the hero and incarnation ParasurÁma 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.
Literally, weighing a thousand bhÁras. The bhÁra is a weight equal to 2000 palas, the pala is equal to four karsas, and the karsa to 11375 French grammes or about 176 grains troy. The spear seems very light for a warrior of Kumbhakar?a's strength and stature and the work performed with it.
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.
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 sloka prak shipta iti bahavah, “This sloka or verse is in the opinion of many interpolated.”
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.
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.
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, Varu?a, of the West; 6, Pavana or VÁyu, of the North-west; 7, Kuvera, of the North; 8, Soma or Chandra, of the North-east.
The chariots of RÁva?'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.”
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.
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.
As Garu? 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 RÁva?.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have omitted the chieftains' names as they could not be introduced without padding. They are Mainda, Dwivid, NÍla, Rishabh, Sushe?, Nala, GavÁksha, GandhamÁdan, ?arabh, and Panas.
The following addition is found in the Bengal recension: But Vai?rava? (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.
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.”
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 UttarakÁ??a,” Mr. Cowell remarks, “bears the same relation to the RÁmÁya?a 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 UttarakÁ??a is intended to complete the RÁmÁya?a, 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 RÁva?a 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.”
“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, umbr 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.”
“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'sVish?u PurÁ?a, Vol. II. 159, Note.
Dr. Hall observes that “in the Bengal recension of the RÁmÁya?a the Pulindas appear both in the south and in the north. The real RÁmÁya?a K.-k., XLIII., speaks of the northern Pulindas.”
“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, Sakas &c., in the RÁmÁya?a. MahÁbhÁrata, PurÁnas, Manu, and in various poems and plays.”Wilson'sVish?u PurÁ?a Vol. II. p. 181, Note.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
