The Rámáyan of Válmíki - 82

459 A demon slain by Indra.
460 Chitraratha, King of the Gandharvas.
461 Titanic.
462 The Sáriká is the Maina, a bird like a starling.
463 Mahákapála, Sthúláksha, Pramátha, Triśiras.
464 Vishṇu, who bears a _chakra_ or discus.
465 Śiva.
466 See _Additional Notes_—DAKSHA’S SACRIFICE.
467 Himálaya.
468 One of the mysterious weapons given to Ráma.
469 A periphrasis for the body.
470 Triśirás.
471 The Three-headed.
472 The demon who causes eclipses.
473 “This Asura was a friend of Indra, and taking advantage of his
friend’s confidence, he drank up Indra’s strength along with a
draught of wine and Soma. Indra then told the Aśvins and Sarasvatí
that Namuchi had drunk up his strength. The Aśvins in consequence
gave Indra a thunderbolt in the form of a foam, with which he smote
off the head of Namuchi.” GARRETT’S _Classical Dictionary of India_.
See also Book I. p. 39.
474 Indra.
475 Popularly supposed to cause death.
476 Garuḍ, the King of Birds, carried off the Amrit or drink of Paradise
from Indra’s custody.
477 A demon, son of Kaśyap and Diti, slain by Rudra or Śiva when he
attempted to carry off the tree of Paradise.
478 Namuchi and Vritra were two demons slain by Indra. Vritra
personifies drought, the enemy of Indra, who imprisons the rain in
the cloud.
479 Another demon slain by Indra.
480 The capital of the giant king Rávaṇ.
481 Kuvera, the God of gold.
482 In the great deluge.
483 The giant Márícha, son of Táḍaká. Táḍaká was slain by Ráma. See p.
39.
484 Indra’s elephant.
485 Bhogavatí, in Pátála in the regions under the earth, is the capital
of the serpent race whose king is Vásuki.
486 the grove of Indra.
487 Pulastya is considered as the ancestor of the Rakshases or giants,
as he is the father of Viśravas, the father of Rávaṇ and his
brethren.
488 Beings with the body of a man and the head of a horse.
489 Ájas, Maríchipas, Vaikhánasas, Máshas, and Bálakhilyas are classes
of supernatural beings who lead the lives of hermits.
490 “The younger brother of the giant Rávaṇ; when he and his brother had
practiced austerities for a long series of years, Brahmá appeared to
offer them boons: Vibhishaṇa asked that he might never meditate any
unrighteousness.… On the death of Rávaṇ Vibhishaṇa was installed as
Rája of Lanká.” GARRETT’S _Classical Dictionary of India_.
491 Serpent-gods.
492 See p. 33.
493 The Sanskrit words for car and jewels begin with _ra_.
494 A race of beings of human shape but with the heads of horses, like
centaurs reversed.
495 The favourite wife of the Moon.
496 The planet Saturn.
497 Another favourite of the Moon; one of the lunar mansions.
498 The Rudras, agents in creation, are eight in number; they sprang
from the forehead of Brahmá.
499 Maruts, the attendants of Indra.
500 Radiant demi-gods.
501 The mountain which was used by the Gods as a churning stick at the
Churning of the Ocean.
502 The story will be found in GARRETT’S _Classical Dictionary_. See
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
503 Mercury: to be carefully distinguished from Buddha.
504 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.
505 See The Descent of Gangá, Book I Canto XLIV.
506 See Book I Canto XXV.
_ 507 Aśoka_ is compounded of _a_ not and _śoka_ grief.
508 See Book I Canto XXXI.
509 An Asur or demon, king of Tripura, the modern Tipperah.
510 Śiva.
511 See Book I, Canto LIX.
512 The preceptor of the Gods.
513 From the root _vid_, to find.
514 Rávaṇ.
515 Or Curlews’ Wood.
516 Iron-faced.
517 Kabandha means a trunk.
518 A class of mythological giants. In the Epic period they were
probably personifications of the aborigines of India.
519 Peace, war, marching, halting, sowing dissensions, and seeking
protection.
520 See Book I, Canto XVI.
521 Or as the commentator Tírtha says, Śilápidháná, rock-covered, may be
the name of the cavern.
522 Pampá is said by the commentator to be the name both of a lake and a
brook which flows into it. The brook is said to rise in the hill
Rishyamúka.
523 Who was acting as Regent for Ráma and leading an ascetic life while
he mourned for his absent brother.
524 The Indian Cuckoo.
525 The Cassia Fistula or Amaltás is a splendid tree like a giant
laburnum covered with a profusion of chains and tassels of gold. Dr.
Roxburgh well describes it as “uncommonly beautiful when in flower,
few trees surpassing it in the elegance of its numerous long
pendulous racemes of large bright-yellow flowers intermixed with the
young lively green foliage.” It is remarkable also for its curious
cylindrical black seed-pods about two feet long, which are called
monkeys’ walking-sticks.
526 “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_.
527 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.
528 The Dewy Season is one of the six ancient seasons of the Indian
year, lasting from the middle of January to the middle of March.
529 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.
530 A tree with beautiful and fragrant blossoms.
531 A race of semi-divine musicians attached to the service of Kuvera,
represented as centaurs reversed with human figures and horses’
heads.
532 Butea Frondosa. A tree that bears a profusion of brilliant red
flowers which appear before the leaves.
533 I omit five _ślokas_ 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.”
534 A sacred stream often mentioned in the course of the poem. See Book
II, Canto XCV.
535 A daughter of Daksha who became one of the wives of Kaśyapa and
mother of the Daityas. She is termed the general mother of Titans
and malignant beings. See Book I Cantos XLV, XLVI.
536 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.
537 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.
538 Hanumán, Sugríva’s chief general, was the son of the God of Wind.
See Book I, Canto XVI.
539 A range of hills in Malabar; the Western Ghats in the Deccan.
540 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.
541 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 Lakshmaṇ.
542 The semi divine Hanumán possesses, like the Gods and demons, the
power of wearing all shapes at will. He is one of the _Kámarúpís_.
Like Milton’s good and bad angels “as they please
They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size
Assume as likes them best, condense or rare.”
543 Himálaya is of course _par excellence_ the Monarch of mountains, but
the complimentary title is frequently given to other hills as here
to Malaya.
544 Twisted up in a matted coil as was the custom of ascetics.
545 The sun and moon.
546 The rainbow.
547 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.
548 The chest, the throat, and the head.
549 “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
τον δ’αρ’ ὑποδρα ιδων, or τον δ’απαμειβομενος προσφη, &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.”
DE QUINCEY. _Homer and the Homeridæ_.
550 Bráhmans the sacerdotal caste. Kshatriyas the royal and military,
Vaiśyas the mercantile, and Śúdras the servile.
551 A protracted sacrifice extending over several days. See Book I, p.
24 Note.
552 Possessed of all the auspicious personal marks that indicate
capacity of universal sovereignty. See Book I. p. 2, and Note 3.
553 Kabandha. See Book III. Canto LXXIII.
554 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.”
“His owne two hands the holy knots did knit
That none but death forever can divide.
His owne two hands, for such a turn most fit,
The housling fire did kindle and provide.”
Faery Queen, Book I. XII. 37.
555 Indra.
556 Báli the king _de facto_.
557 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.
558 The Vedas stolen by the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha.
“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 Vishṇu
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.”
GORRESIO.
559 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.
560 He means that he has never ventured to raise his eyes to her arms
and face, though he has ever been her devoted servant.
561 The wood in which Skanda or Kártikeva was brought up:
“The Warrior-God
Whose infant steps amid the thickets strayed
Where the reeds wave over the holy sod.”
See also Book I, Canto XXIX.
562 “Sugríva’s story paints in vivid colours the manners, customs and
ideas of the wild mountain tribes which inhabited Kishkindhya or the
southern hills of the Deccan, of the people whom the poem calls
monkeys, tribes altogether different in origin and civilization from
the Indo-Sanskrit race.” GORRESIO.
563 A fiend slain by Báli.
564 Báli’s mountain city.
565 The canopy or royal umbrella, one of the usual Indian regalia.
566 Whisks made of the hair of the Yak or Bos grunniers, also regal
insignia.
567 Righteous because he never transgresses his bounds, and
“over his great tides
Fidelity presides.”
568 Himálaya, the Lord of Snow, is the father of Umá the wife of Śiva or
Śankar.
569 Indra’s celestial elephant.
570 Báli was the son of Indra. See p. 28.
571 An Asur slain by Indra. See p. 261 Note. He is, like Vritra, a form
of the demon of drought destroyed by the beneficent God of the
firmament.
572 Another name of Indra or Mahendra.
573 The Bengal recension makes it return in the form of a swan.
574 Varuṇa is one of the oldest of the Vedic Gods, corresponding in name
and partly in character to the Οὐρανός of the Greeks and is often
regarded as the supreme deity. He upholds heaven and earth,
possesses extraordinary power and wisdom, sends his messengers
through both worlds, numbers the very winkings of men’s eyes,
punishes transgressors whom he seizes with his deadly noose, and
pardons the sins of those who are penitent. In later mythology he
has become the God of the sea.
575 Budha, not to be confounded with the great reformer Buddha, is the
son of Soma or the Moon, and regent of the planet Mercury. Angára is
the regent of Mars who is called the red or the fiery planet. The
encounter between Michael and Satan is similarly said to have been
as if
“Two planets rushing from aspect malign
Of fiercest opposition in midsky
Should combat, and their jarring spheres compound.”
_Paradise Lost._ Book VI.
576 The Aśvins or Heavenly Twins, the Dioskuri or Castor and Pollux of
the Hindus, have frequently been mentioned. See p. 36, Note.
577 Called respectively Gárhapatya, Áhavaniya, and Dakshiṇa, household,
sacrificial, and southern.
578 The store of merit accumulated by a holy or austere life secures
only a temporary seat in the mansion of bliss. When by the lapse of
time this store is exhausted, return to earth is unavoidable.
579 The conflagration which destroys the world at the end of a Yuga or
age.
580 Himálaya.
581 Tárá means “star.” The poet plays upon the name by comparing her
beauty to that of the Lord of stars, the Moon.
582 Suparṇa, the Well-winged, is another name of Garuḍa the King of
Birds. See p. 28, Note.
583 The God of Death.
584 The flag-staff erected in honour of the God Indra is lowered when
the festival is over. Aśvíní in astronomy is the head of Aries or
the first of the twenty-eight lunar mansions or asterisms.
585 Indra the father of Báli.
586 It is believed that every creature killed by Ráma obtained in
consequence immediate beatitude.
“And blessed the hand that gave so dear a death.”
587 “Yayáti was invited to heaven by Indra, and conveyed on the way
thither by Mátali, Indra’s charioteer. He afterwards returned to
earth where, by his virtuous administration he rendered all his
subjects exempt from passion and decay.” GARRETT’S C. D. OF INDIA.
588 The ascetic’s dress which he wore during his exile.
589 There is much inconsistency in the passages of the poem in which the
Vánars are spoken of, which seems to point to two widely different
legends. The Vánars are generally represented as semi-divine beings
with preternatural powers, living in houses and eating and drinking
like men sometimes as here, as monkeys pure and simple, living is
woods and eating fruit and roots.
590 For a younger brother to marry before the elder is a gross violation
of Indian law and duty. The same law applied to daughters with the
Hebrews: “It must not be so done in our country to give the younger
before the first-born.” GENESIS xix. 26.
591 “The hedgehog and porcupine, the lizard, the rhinoceros, the
tortoise, and the rabbit or hare, wise legislators declare lawful
food among five-toed animals.” MANU, v. 18.
592 “He can not buckle his distempered cause
Within the belt of rule.”
MACBETH.
593 The _Ankuś_ or iron hook with which an elephant is driven and
guided.
594 Hayagríva, Horse-necked, is a form of Vishṇu.
595 “Aśvatara is the name of a chief of the Nágas or serpents which
inhabit the regions under the earth; it is also the name of a
Gandharva. Aśvatarí ought to be the wife of one of the two, but I am
not sure that this conjecture is right. The commentator does not say
who this Aśvatarí is, or what tradition or myth is alluded to.
Vimalabodha reads Aśvatarí in the nominative case, and explains,
Aśvatarí is the sun, and as the sun with his rays brings back the
moon which has been sunk in the ocean and the infernal regions, so
will I bring back Sítá.” GORRESIO.
596 That is, “Consider what answer you can give to your accusers when
they charge you with injustice in killing me.”
597 Manu, Book VIII. 318. “But men who have committed offences and have
received from kings the punishment due to them, go pure to heaven
and become as clear as those who have done well.”
598 Mándhátá was one of the earlier descendants of Ikshváku. His name is
mentioned in Ráma’s genealogy, p. 81.
599 I cannot understand how Válmíki could put such an excuse as this
into Ráma’s mouth. Ráma with all solemn ceremony, has made a league
of alliance with Báli’s younger brother whom he regards as a dear
friend and almost as an equal, and now he winds up his reasons for
killing Báli by coolly saying: “Besides you are only a monkey, you
know, after all, and as such I have every right to kill you how,
when, and where I like.”
600 A name of Garuḍa the king of birds, the great enemy of the Serpents.
601 Sugríva’s wife.
602 “Our deeds still follow with us from afar. And what we have been
makes us what we are.”
603 Sugríva and Angad.
604 Angad himself, being too young to govern, would be Yuvarája or
heir-apparent.
605 Susheṇa was the son of Varuṇa the God of the sea.
606 A demon with the tail of a dragon, that causes eclipses by
endeavouring to swallow the sun and moon.
607 The Lord of Stars is the Moon.
608 Or the passage may be interpreted: “Be neither too obsequious or
affectionate, nor wanting in due respect or love.”
609 Sacrifices and all religious rites begin and end with ablution, and
the wife of the officiating Bráhman takes an important part in the
performance of the holy ceremonies.
610 Viśvarúpa, a son of Twashṭri or Viśvakarmá the heavenly architect,
was a three-headed monster slain by Indra.
611 The Vánar chief, not to be confounded with Tárá.
612 Śrávaṇ: July-August. But the rains begin a month earlier, and what
follows must not be taken literally. The text has _púrvo’ yam
várshiko másah Śrávaṇah salilágamdh_. The Bengal recension has the
same, and Gorresio translates: “Equesto ilmese Srâvana
(luglio-agosto) primo della stagione piovosa, in cui dilagano le
acque.”
613 Kártik: October-November.
614 “Indras, as the nocturnal sun, hides himself, transformed, in the
starry heavens: the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or
all-seeing (panoptês) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the
cow beloved by Zeus, in the Hellenic equivalent of this form of
Indras.” DE GUBERNATIS, _Zoological Mythology_, Vol. I, p. 418.
615 Baudháyana and others.
616 Sugríva appears to have been consecrated with all the ceremonies
that attended the _Abhisheka_ or coronation of an Indian prince of
the Aryan race. Compare the preparations made for Ráma’s
consecration, Book II, Canto III. Thus Homer frequently introduces
into Troy the rites of Hellenic worship.
617 Vitex Negundo.
618 Mályavat: “The name of this mountain appears to me to be erroneous,
and I think that instead of Mályavat should be read Malayavat,
Malaya is a group of mountains situated exactly in that southern
part of India where Ráma now was, while Mályavat is placed to the
north east.” GORRESIO.
619 Mantles of the skin of the black antelope were the prescribed dress
of ascetics and religious students.
620 The sacred cord worn as the badge of religious initiation by men of
the three twice-born castes.
621 The hum with which students conduct their tasks.
622 I omit here a long general description of the rainy season which is
not found in the Bengal recension and appears to have been
interpolated by a far inferior and much later hand than Valmiki’s.
It is composed in a metre different from that of the rest of the
Canto, and contains figures of poetical rhetoric and common-places
which are the delight of more recent poets.
623 Praushthapada or Bhadra, the modern Bhadon, corresponds to half of
August and half of September.
624 The Sáman or Sáma-veda, the third of the four Vedas, is really
merely a reproduction of parts of the Rig-veda, transposed and
scattered about piece-meal, only 78 verses in the whole being, it is
said, untraceable to the present recension of the Rig-veda.
625 Áshádha is the month corresponding to parts of June and July.
626 Bharat, who was regent during Ráma’s absence.
627 Or with Gorresio, following the gloss of another commentary: “Has
completed every holy rite and accumulated stores of merit.”
628 The river on which Ayodhyá was built.
629 I omit a _śloka_ or four lines on gratitude and ingratitude repeated
word for word from the last Canto.
630 The Indian crane; a magnificent bird easily domesticated.
631 The troops who guard the frontiers on the north, south, east and
west.
632 The Chátaka, Cuculus, Melanoleucus, is supposed to drink nothing but
the water for the clouds.
633 The time for warlike expeditions began when the rains had ceased.
634 The rainbow.
635 Indra’s associates in arms, and musicians of his heaven.
636 Maireya, a spirituous liquor from the blossoms of the Lythrum
fruticosum, with sugar, &c.
637 Their names are as follows: Angad, Maínda, Dwida, Gavaya, Gaváksha,
Gaja, Śarabha, Vidyunmáli, Sampáti, Súryáksa, Hanumán, Vírabáhu,
Subáhu, Nala, Kúmuda, Susheṇa, Tára, Jámbuvatu, Dadhivakra, Níla,
Supátala, and Sunetra.
638 The Kalpadruma or Wishing-tree is one of the trees of Svarga or
Indra’s Paradise: it has the power of granting all desires.
639 The meaning is that if a man promises to give a horse and then
breaks his word he commits a sin as great as if he had killed a
hundred horses.
640 The story is told in Book I, Canto LXIII, but the charmer there is
called Menaká.
641 Rohiṇí is the name of the ninth Nakshatra or lunar asterism
personified as a daughter of Daksha, and the favourite wife of the
Moon. Aldebaran is the principal star in the constellation.
642 Válmíki and succeeding poets make the second vowel in this name long
or short at their pleasure.
643 Some of the mountains here mentioned are fabulous and others it is
impossible to identify. Sugríva means to include all the mountains
of India from Kailás the residence of the God Kuvera, regarded as
one of the loftiest peaks of the Himálayas, to Mahendra in the
extreme south, from the mountain in the east where the sun is said
to rise to Astáchal or the western mountain where he sets. The
commentators give little assistance: that Maháśaila, &c. are certain
mountains is about all the information they give.
644 One of the celestial elephants of the Gods who protect the four
quarters and intermediate points of the compass.
645 Váyu or the Wind was the father of Hanumán.
646 The path or station of Vishṇu is the space between the seven Rishis
or Ursa Major, and Dhruva or the polar star.
647 One of the seven seas which surround the earth in concentric
circles.
648 The title of Maheśvar or Mighty Lord is sometimes given to Indra,
but more generally to Śiva whom it here denotes.
649 See Book I, Canto XVI.
650 The numbers are unmanageable in English verse. The poet speaks of
hundreds of _arbudas_; and an _arbuda_ is a hundred millions.
651 Anuhláda or Anuhráda is one of the four sons of the mighty
Hiraṇyakaśipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kaśyapa and Diti and
killed by Vishṇu in his incarnation of the Man-Lion _Narasinha_.
According to the Bhágavata Puráṇa the Daitya or Asur Hiraṇyakaśipu
and Hiraṇyáksha his brother, both killed by Vishṇu, were born again
as Rávaṇ and Kumbhakarṇa his brother.
652 Puloma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in
order to avert an imprecation. Paulomí is a patronymic denoting
Śachí the daughter of Puloma.
653 “Observe the variety of colours which the poem attributes to all
these inhabitants of the different mountainous regions, some white,