The Rámáyan of Válmíki - 80

(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.
131 The regent of the planet Jupiter.
132 Indra = Jupiter Tonans.
133 “_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.
134 A fish, the Zodiacal sign _Pisces_.
135 One of the constellations, containing stars in the wing of Pegasus.
136 Ráma means the Delight (of the World); Bharat, the Supporter;
Lakshmaṇ, the Auspicious; Śatrughna, the Slayer of Foes.
137 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.
138 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).
139 The son of Kuśik is Viśvámitra.
140 At the recollection of their former enmity, to be described
hereafter.
141 The Indian nectar or drink of the Gods.
142 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.
143 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.
144 Consisting of horse, foot, chariots, and elephants.
145 “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.
146 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.
147 Youths of the Kshatriya class used to leave unshorn the side locks
of their hair. These were called _Káka-paksha_, or raven’s wings.
148 The Rákshas or giant Rávaṇ, king of Lanká.
149 “The meaning of Aśvins (from _aśva_ a horse, Persian asp, Greek
ἵππος, Latin _equus_, Welsh ech) is Horsemen. They were twin deities
of whom frequent mention is made in the Vedas and the Indian myths.
The Aśvins 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 Aśviní, who is one of the lunar asterisms personified. In the
popular mythology they are regarded as the physicians of the Gods.”
GORRESIO.
150 The word Kumára (a young prince, a Childe) is also a proper name of
Skanda or Kártikeya God of War, the son of Śiva and Umá. The babe
was matured in the fire.
151 “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.
_ 152 Tripathaga_, _Three-path-go,_ flowing in heaven, on earth, and
under the earth. See Canto XLV.
153 Tennyson’s “Indian Cama,” the God of Love, known also by many other
names.
_ 154 Umá_, or _Parvatí_, was daughter of Himálaya, Monarch of mountains,
and wife of Śiva. See Kálidasa’s _Kumára Sambhava_, or _Birth of the
War-God_.
_ 155 Stháṇu_. The Unmoving one, a name of Śiva.
156 “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.
_ 157 The Bodiless one._
158 “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.
_ 159 Sarovar_ means best of lakes. This is another of the poet’s
fanciful etymologies.
160 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.
161 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 _Tiṇḍuka_ (Diospyrus).
162 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.
163 “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.
164 The famous pleasure-garden of Kuvera the God of Wealth.
165 “The whole of this Canto together with the following one, regards
the belief, formerly prevalent in India, that by virtue of certain
spells, to be learnt and muttered, secret knowledge and superhuman
powers might be acquired. To this the poet has already alluded in
Canto xxiii. These incorporeal weapons are partly represented
according to the fashion of those ascribed to the Gods and the
different orders of demi-gods, partly are the mere creations of
fancy; and it would not be easy to say what idea the poet had of
them in his own mind, or what powers he meant to assign to each.”
SCHLEGEL.
166 “In Sanskrit _Sankára_, a word which has various significations but
the primary meaning of which is _the act of seizing_. A magical
power seems to be implied of employing the weapons when and where
required. The remarks I have made on the preceding Canto apply with
still greater force to this. The MSS. greatly vary in the
enumeration of these _Sankáras_, and it is not surprising that
copyists have incorrectly written the names which they did not well
understand. The commentators throw no light upon the subject.”
SCHLEGEL. I have taken the liberty of omitting four of these which
Schlegel translates “Scleromphalum, Euomphalum, Centiventrem, and
Chrysomphalum.”
167 I omit, after this line, eight _ślokes_ which, as Schlegel allows,
are quite out of place.
168 This is the fifth of the _avatárs_, descents or incarnations of
Vishṇu.
169 This is a solar allegory. Vishṇu is the sun, the three steps being
his rising, culmination, and setting.
170 Certain ceremonies preliminary to a sacrifice.
171 A river which rises in Budelcund and falls into the Ganges near
Patna. It is called also _Hiraṇyaráhu_, Golden-armed, and
_Hiraṇyaráha_, Auriferous.
172 The modern Berar.
173 According to the Bengal recension the first (Kuśámba) is called
Kuśáśva, and his city Kauśáśví. This name does not occur elsewhere.
The reading of the northern recension is confirmed by Foê Kouê Ki;
p. 385, where the city _Kiaoshangmi_ is mentioned. It lay 500 _lis_
to the south-west of _Prayága_, on the south bank of the Jumna.
_Mahodaya_ is another name of Kanyakubja: _Dharmáraṇya_, the wood to
which the God of Justice is said to have fled through fear of Soma
the Moon-God was in Magadh. Girivraja was in the same neighbourhood.
See Lasson’s I, A. Vol. I. p. 604.
174 That is, the City of the Bent Virgins, the modern Kanauj or Canouge.
175 Literally, Given by _Brahma_ or devout contemplation.
176 Now called Kośí (Cosy) corrupted from Kauśikí, daughter of Kuś]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.
177 One of the names of the Ganges considered as the daughter of Jahnu.
See Canto XLIV.
178 The Indian Crane.
179 Or, rather, geese.
180 A name of the God Śiva.
181 Garuḍa.
182 Ikshváku, the name of a king of Ayodhyá who is regarded as the
founder of the Solar race, means also a _gourd_. Hence, perhaps, the
myth.
183 “The region here spoken of is called in the Laws of Manu
_Madhyadeśa_ or the middle region. ‘The region situated between the
Himálaya and the Vindhya Mountains … is called _Madhyadeśa_, 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.
184 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.
185 Here used as a name of Vishṇu.
186 Kings are called the husbands of their kingdoms or of the earth;
“She and his kingdom were his only brides.” _Raghuvaṅśa._
“Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate
A double marriage, ’twixt my crown and me,
And then between me and my married wife.”
King Richard II. Act V. Sc. I.
187 The thirty-three Gods are said in the _Aitareya Bráhmaṇa_, 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.
188 “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:”
“adi semiustum fulmine corpus
Urgeri mole hac, ingentemque insuper Ætnam
Impositam, ruptis flammam expirare caminis;
Et fessum quoties mutat latus, intre mere omnem
iam, et cœlum subtexere fumo.”
Æneid. Lib. III. GORRESIO.
189 “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’S _Aitareya
Bráhmanam_, Vol. II, p. 33.
The debts here spoken of are a man’s religious obligations to the
Gods, the Pitaras or Manes, and men.
190 Vishṇu.
191 “It appears to me that this mythical story has reference to the
volcanic phenomena of nature. Kapil may very possibly be that hidden
fiery force which suddenly unprisons itself and bursts forth in
volcanic effects. Kapil is, moreover, one of the names of Agni the
God of Fire.” GORRESIO.
192 Garuḍ was the son of Kaśyap and Vinatá.
193 Garuḍ.
194 A famous and venerated region near the Malabar coast.
195 That is four fires and the sun.
196 Heaven.
197 Wind-Gods.
198 Śiva.
199 The lake Vindu does not exist. Of the seven rivers here mentioned
two only, the Ganges and the Sindhu or Indus, are known to
geographers. Hládiní means the Gladdener, Pávaní the Purifier,
Naliní the Lotus-Clad, and Suchakshu the Fair-eyed.
200 The First or Golden Age.
201 Diti and Aditi were wives of Kaśyap, and mothers respectively of
Titans and Gods.
202 One of the seven seas surrounding as many worlds in concentric
rings.
203 Śankar and Rudra are names of Śiva.
204 “Śárṅgin, literally _carrying a bow of horn_, is a constantly
recurring name of Vishṇu. The Indians also, therefore, knew the art
of making bows out of the hons of antelopes or wild goats, which
Homer ascribes to the Trojans of the heroic age.” SCHLEGEL.
205 Dhanvantari, the physician of the Gods.
206 The poet plays upon the word and fancifully derives it from _apsu_,
the locative case plural of _ap_, water, and _rasa_, taste.… The
word is probably derived from _ap_, water, and _sri_, to go, and
seems to signify _inhabitants of the water_, nymphs of the stream;
or, as Goldstücker thinks (Dict. s.v.) these divinities were
originally personifications of the vapours which are attracted by
the sun and form into mist or clouds.
207 “_Surá_, in the feminine comprehends all sorts of intoxicating
liquors, many kinds of which the Indians from the earliest times
distilled and prepared from rice, sugar-cane, the palm tree, and
various flowers and plants. Nothing is considered more disgraceful
among orthodox Hindus than drunkenness, and the use of wine is
forbidden not only to Bráhmans but the two other orders as well.… So
it clearly appears derogatory to the dignity of the Gods to have
received a nymph so pernicious, who ought rather to have been made
over to the Titans. However the etymological fancy has prevailed.
The word _Sura_, a God, is derived from the indeclinable _Swar_
heaven.” SCHLEGEL.
208 Literally, high-eared, the horse of Indra. Compare the production of
the horse from the sea by Neptune.
209 “And Kaustubha the best
Of gems that burns with living light
Upon Lord Vishṇu’s breast.”
_Churning of the Ocean._
210 “That this story of the birth of Lakshmí is of considerable
antiquity is evident from one of her names _Kshírábdhi-tanayá_,
daughter of the Milky Sea, which is found in _Amarasinha_ the most
ancient of Indian lexicographers. The similarity to the Greek myth
of Venus being born from the foam of the sea is remarkable.”
“In this description of Lakshmí one thing only offends me, that she
is said to have four arms. Each of Vishṇu’s arms, single, as far as
the elbow, there branches into two; but Lakshmí in all the brass
seals that I possess or remember to have seen has two arms only. Nor
does this deformity of redundant limbs suit the pattern of perfect
beauty.” SCHLEGEL. I have omitted the offensive epithet.
211 Purandhar, a common title of Indra.
212 A few verses are here left untranslated on account of the subject
and language being offensive to modern taste.
213 “In this myth of Indra destroying the unborn fruit of Diti with his
thunderbolt, from which afterwards came the Maruts or Gods of Wind
and Storm, geological phenomena are, it seems, represented under
mythical images. In the great Mother of the Gods is, perhaps,
figured the dry earth: Indra the God of thunder rends it open, and
there issue from its rent bosom the Maruts or exhalations of the
earth. But such ancient myths are difficult to interpret with
absolute certainty.” GORRESIO.
214 Wind.
215 Indra, with _mahá_, great, prefixed.
216 The Heavenly Twins.
217 Not banished from heaven as the inferior Gods and demigods sometimes
were.
218 Kumárila says: “In the same manner, if it is said that Indra was the
seducer of Ahalyá this does not imply that the God Indra committed
such a crime, but Indra means the sun, and Ahalyá (from ahan and lí)
the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the
morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalyá.” MAX
MULLER, _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 530_.
219 “The preceding sixteen lines have occurred before in Canto XLVIII.
This Homeric custom of repeating a passage of several lines is
strange to our poet. This is the only instance I remember. The
repetition of single lines is common enough.” SCHLEGEL.
220 Divine personages of minute size produced from the hair of Brahmá,
and probably the origin of
“That small infantry
Warred on by cranes.”
221 Sweet, salt, pungent, bitter, acid, and astringent.
222 “Of old hoards and minerals in the earth, the king is entitled to
half by reason of his general protection, and because he is the lord
paramount of the soil.” MANU, Book VIII. 39.
223 Ghí or clarified butter, “holy oil,” being one of the essentials of
sacrifice.
224 “A Bráhman had five principal duties to discharge every day: study
and teaching the Veda, oblations to the manes or spirits of the
departed, sacrifice to the Gods, hospitable offerings to men, and _a
gift of food to all creatures_. The last consisted of rice or other
grain which the Bráhman was to offer every day outside his house in
the open air. MANU, Book III. 70.” GORRESIO.
225 These were certain sacred words of invocation such a _sváhá_,
_vashaṭ_, etc., pronounced at the time of sacrifice.
226 “It is well known that the Persians were called Pahlavas by the
Indians. The _Śakas_ are nomad tribes inhabiting Central Asia, the
Scythes of the Greeks, whom the Persians also, as Herodotus tells
us, called Sakæ just as the Indians did. Lib. VII 64 ὁι γὰρ Πέρσαι
πάντας τοὺς Σύθας. καλέουσι Σάκας. The name Yavans seems to be used
rather indefinitely for nations situated beyond Persia to the west.…
After the time of Alexander the Great the Indians as well as the
Persians called the Greeks also Yavans.” SCHLEGEL.
Lassen thinks that the Pahlavas were the same people as the Πάκτυες
of Herodotus, and that this non-Indian people dwelt on the
north-west confines of India.
227 See page 13, note 6.
228 Barbarians, non-Sanskrit-speaking tribes.
229 A comprehensive term for foreign or outcast races of different faith
and language from the Hindus.
230 The Kirátas and Hárítas are savage aborigines of India who occupy
hills and jungles and are altogether different in race and character
from the Hindus. Dr. Muir remarks in his Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p.
488 (second edition) that it does not appear that it is the object
of this legend to represent this miraculous creation as the origin
of these tribes, and that nothing more may have been intended than
that the cow called into existence large armies, of the same stock
with particular tribes previously existing.
231 The Great God, Śiva.
232 Nandi, the snow-white bull, the attendant and favourite vehicle of
Śiva.
233 “The names of many of these weapons which are mythical and partly
allegorical have occurred in Canto XXIX. The general signification
of the story is clear enough. It is a contest for supremacy between
the regal or military order and Bráhmanical or priestly authority,
like one of those struggles which our own Europe saw in the middle
ages when without employing warlike weapons the priesthood
frequently gained the victory.” SCHLEGEL.
For a full account of the early contests between the Bráhmans and
the Kshattriyas, see Muir’s Original Sanskrit Texts (Second edition)
Vol. I. Ch. IV.
234 “Triśanku, king of Ayodhyá, was seventh in descent from Ikshváku,
and Daśaratha holds the thirty-fourth place in the same genealogy.
See Canto LXX. We are thrown back, therefore, to very ancient times,
and it occasions some surprise to find Vaśishṭha and Viśvámitra,
actors in these occurences, still alive in Rama’s time.”
235 “It does not appear how Triśanku, in asking the aid of Vaśishṭha’s
sons after applying in vain to their father, could be charged with
resorting to another _śákhá_ (School) in the ordinary sense of that
word; as it is not conceivable that the sons should have been of
another Śákhá from the father, whose cause they espouse with so much
warmth. The commentator in the Bombay edition explains the word
_Śákhantaram_ as Yájanádiná rakshántaram, ‘one who by sacrificing
for thee, etc., will be another protector.’ Gorresio’s Gauḍa text,
which may often be used as a commentary on the older one, has the
following paraphrase of the words in question, ch. 60, 3. Múlam
utsṛijya kasmát tvam sákhásv ichhasi lambitum. ‘Why, forsaking the
root, dost thou desire to hang upon the branches?’ ” MUIR, Sanskrit
Texts, Vol. I., p. 401.
236 A Chaṇḍála was a man born of the illegal and impure union of a Śúdra
with a woman of one of the three higher castes.
237 “The Chaṇḍála was regarded as the vilest and most abject of the men
sprung from wedlock forbidden by the law (Mánavadharmaśástra, Lib.
X. 12.); a kind of social malediction weighed upon his head and
rejected him from human society.” GORRESIO.
238 This appellation, occuring nowhere else in the poem except as the
name of a city, appears twice in this Canto as a name of Vaśishṭha.
239 “The seven ancient rishis or saints, as has been said before, were
the seven stars of Ursa Major. The seven other new saints which are
here said to have been created by Viśvámitra should be seven new
southern stars, a sort of new Ursa. Von Schlegel thinks that this
mythical fiction of new stars created by Viśvámitra may signify that
these southern stars, unknown to the Indians as long as they
remained in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, became known to them at
a later date when they colonized the southern regions of India.”
GORRESIO.
240 “This cannot refer to the events just related: for Viśvámitra was
successful in the sacrifice performed for Triśanku. And yet no other
impediment is mentioned. Still his restless mind would not allow him
to remain longer in the same spot. So the character of Viśvámitra is
ingeniously and skilfully shadowed forth: as he had been formerly a
most warlike king, loving battle and glory, bold, active, sometimes
unjust, and more frequently magnanimous, such also he always shows
himself in his character of anchorite and ascetic.” SCHLEGEL.
241 Near the modern city of Ajmere. The place is sacred still, and the
name is preserved in the Hindí. Lassen, however, says that this
Pushkala or Pushkara, called by the Grecian writers Πευκελίτις, the
earliest place of pilgrimage mentioned by name, is not to be
confounded with the modern Pushkara in Ajmere.
242 “Ambarísha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshváku, and is
therefore separated by an immense space of time from Triśanku in
whose story Viśvámitra had played so important a part. Yet Richíka,
who is represented as having young sons while Ambarísha was yet
reigning being himself the son of Bhrigu and to be numbered with the
most ancient sages, is said to have married the younger sister of
Viśvámitra. But I need not again remark that there is a perpetual
anachronism in Indian mythology.” SCHLEGEL..
“In the mythical story related in this and the following Canto we
may discover, I think, some indication of the epoch at which the
immolation of lower animals was substituted for human sacrifice.… So
when Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed at Aulis, one legend tells
us that a hind was substituted for the virgin.” GORRESIO.
So the ram caught in the thicket took the place of Isaac, or, as the
Musalmáns say, of Ishmael.
243 The Indian Cupid.
244 “The same as she whose praises Viśvámitra has already sung in Canto
XXXV, and whom the poet brings yet alive upon the scene in Canto
LXI. Her proper name was _Satyavatí_ (Truthful); the patronymic,
Kauśikí was preserved by the river into which she is said to have
been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kuśa
and Kuśí. The river flows from the heights of the Himálaya towards
the Ganges, bounding on the east the country of Videha (Behar). The
name is no doubt half hidden in the _Cosoagus_ of Pliny and the
_Kossounos_ of Arrian. But each author has fallen into the same
error in his enumeration of these rivers (Condochatem, Erannoboam,
Cosoagum, Sonum). The Erannoboas, (Hiraṇyaváha) and the Sone are not
different streams, but well-known names of the same river. Moreover
the order is disturbed, in which on the right and left they fall