The Rámáyan of Válmíki - 83

others yellow, &c. Such different colours were perhaps peculiar and
distinctive characteristics of those various races.” GORRESSIO.
654 Susheṇ.
655 Tára.
656 Kesarí was the husband of Hanúmán’s mother, and is here called his
father.
657 “I here unite under one heading two animals of very diverse nature
and race, but which from some gross resemblances, probably helped by
an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo
myth … a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and
ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or
arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality,
capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all
characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as
well as in monkeys. In the _Rámáyaṇam_, the wise Jámnavant, the
Odysseus of the expedition of Lanká, is called now king of the bears
(rikshaparthivah), now great monkey (_Mahákapih_).” DE GUBERNATIS:
_Zoological Mythology_, Vol. II. p. 97.
658 Gandhamádana, Angad, Tára, Indrajánu, Rambha, Durmukha, Hanumán,
Nala, Da mukha, Śarabha, Kumuda, Vahni.
659 Daityas and Dánavas are fiends and enemies of the Gods, like the
Titans of Greek mythology.
660 I reduce the unwieldy numbers of the original to more modest
figures.
661 Sarayú now Sarjú is the river on which Ayodhyá was built.
662 Kauśikí is a river which flows through Behar, commonly called Kosi.
663 Bhagírath’s daughter is Gangá or the Ganges. The legend is told at
length in Book I Canto XLIV. _The Descent of Gangá_.
664 A mountain not identified.
665 The Jumna. The river is personified as the twin sister of Yáma, and
hence regarded as the daughter of the Sun.
666 The Sarasvatí (corruptly called Sursooty, is supposed to join the
Ganges and Jumna at Prayág or Allahabad. It rises in the mountains
bounding the north-east part of the province of Delhi, and running
in a south-westerly direction becomes lost in the sands of the great
desert.
667 The Sindhu is the Indus, the Sanskrit _s_ becoming _h_ in Persian
and being in this instance dropped by the Greeks.
668 The Sone which rises in the district of Nagpore and falls into the
Ganges above Patna.
669 Mahí is a river rising in Malwa and falling into the gulf of Cambay
after a westerly course of 280 miles.
670 There is nothing to show what parts of the country the poet intended
to denote as silk-producing and silver-producing.
671 Yavadwipa means the island of Yava, wherever that may be.
672 Śiśir is said to be a mountain ridge projecting from the base of
Meru on the south. Wilson’s _Vishnu Puráṇa_, ed. Hall, Vol. II. p.
117.
673 This appears to be some mythical stream and not the well-known Śone.
The name means red-coloured.
674 A fabulous thorny rod of the cotton tree used for torturing the
wicked in hell. The tree gives its name, Śálmalí, to one of the
seven Dwípas, or great divisions of the known continent: and also to
a hell where the wicked are tormented with the pickles of the tree.
675 The king of the feathered creation.
676 Viśvakarmá, the Mulciber of the Indian heaven.
677 “The terrific fiends named Mandehas attempt to devour the sun: for
Brahmá denounced this curse upon them, that without the power to
perish they should die every day (and revive by night) and therefore
a fierce contest occurs (daily) between them and the sun.” WILSON’S
Vishṇu Puráṇa. Vol. II. p. 250.
678 Said in the _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ to be a ridge projecting from the base
of Meru to the north.
679 Kinnars are centaurs reversed, beings with equine head and human
bodies.
680 Yakshas are demi-gods attendant on Kuvera the God of wealth.
681 Aurva was one of the descendants of Bhrigu. From his wrath proceeded
a flame that threatened to destroy the world, had not Aurva cast it
into the ocean where it remained concealed, and having the face of a
horse. The legend is told in the _Mahábhárat_. I. 6802.
682 The word Játarúpa means gold.
683 The celebrated mythological serpent king Sesha, called also Ananta
or the infinite, represented as bearing the earth on one of his
thousand heads.
684 Jambudwípa is in the centre of the seven great _dwípas_ or
continents into which the world is divided, and in the centre of
Jambudwípa is the golden mountain Meru 84,000 yojans high, and
crowned by the great city of Brahmá. See WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_,
Vol. II. p. 110.
685 Vaikhánases are a race of hermit saints said to have sprung from the
nails of Prajápati.
686 “The wife of Kratu, Samnati, brought forth the sixty thousand
Válakhilyas, pigmy sages, no bigger than a joint of the thumb,
chaste, pious, resplendent as the rays of the Sun.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu
Puráṇa_.
687 The continent in which Sudarśan or Meru stands, _i.e._ Jambudwíp.
688 The names of some historical peoples which occur in this Canto and
in the Cantos describing the south and north will be found in the
ADDITIONAL NOTES. They are bare lists, not susceptible of a metrical
version.
689 Suhotra, Śarári, Śaragulma, Gayá, Gaváksha, Gavaya, Susheṇa,
Gandhamádana, Ulkámukha, and Ananga.
690 The modern Nerbudda.
691 Krishṇaveṇí is mentioned in the _Vishṇu Puráṇa_ as “the deep
Krishṇaveṇí” but there appears to be no clue to its identification.
692 The modern Godavery.
693 The Mekhalas or Mekalas according to the Paráṇas live in the Vindhya
hills, but here they appear among the peoples of the south.
694 Utkal is still the native name of Orissa.
695 The land of the people of the “ten forts.” Professor Hall in a note
on WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 160 says: “The oral
traditions of the vicinity to this day assign the name of Daśárna to
a region lying to the east of the District of Chundeyree.”
696 Avantí is one of the ancient names of the celebrated Ujjayin or
Oujein in Central India.
697 Not identified.
698 Ayomukh means iron faced. The mountain is not identified.
699 The Káverí or modern Cauvery is well known and has always borne the
same appellation, being the Chaberis of Ptolemy.
700 One of the seven principal mountain chains: the southern portion of
the Western Gháts.
701 Agastya is the great sage who has already frequently appeared as
Ráma’s friend and benefactor.
702 Támraparṇí is a river rising in Malaya.
703 The Páṇḍyas are a people of the Deccan.
704 Mahendra is the chain of hills that extends from Orissa and the
northern Sircars to Gondwána, part of which near Ganjam is still
called Mahendra Malay or hills of Mahendra.
705 Lanká, Sinhaladvípa, Sarandib, or Ceylon.
706 The Flowery Hill of course is mythical.
707 The whole of the geography south of Lanká is of course mythical.
Súryaván means Sunny.
708 Vaidyut means connected with lightning.
709 Agastya is here placed far to the south of Lanká. Earlier in this
Canto he was said to dwell on Malaya.
710 Bhogavatí has been frequently mentioned: it is the capital of the
serpent Gods or demons, and usually represented as being in the
regions under the earth.
711 Vásuki is according to some accounts the king of the Nágas or
serpent Gods.
712 Śailúsha, Gramiṇi, Siksha, Suka, Babhru.
713 The distant south beyond the confines of the earth is the home of
departed spirits and the city of Yáma the God of Death.
714 Suráshṭra, the “good country,” is the modern Sura
715 A country north-west of Afghanistan, Baíkh.
716 The Moon-mountain here is mythical.
717 Sindhu is the Indus.
718 Páriyátra, or as more usually written Páripátra, is the central or
western portion of the Vindhya chain which skirts the province of
Malwa.
719 Vajra means both diamond and thunderbolt, the two substances being
supposed to be identical.
720 Chakraván means the discus-bearer.
721 The discus is the favourite weapon of Vishṇu.
722 The Indian Hephaistos or Vulcan.
723 Panchajan was a demon who lived in the sea in the form of a conch
shell. WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, V. 21.
724 Hayagríva, Horse-necked, is the name of a Daitya who at the
dissolution of the universe caused by Brahmá’s sleep, seized and
carried off the Vedas. Vishṇu slew him and recovered the sacred
treasures.
725 Meru stands in the centre of Jambudwípa and consequently of the
earth. “The sun travels round the world, keeping Meru always on his
right. To the spectator who fronts him, therefore, as he rises Meru
must be always on the north; and as the sun’s rays do not penetrate
beyond the centre of the mountain, the regions beyond, or to the
north of it must be in darkness, whilst those on the south of it
must be in light: north and south being relative, not absolute,
terms, depending on the position of the spectator with regard to the
Sun and Meru.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 243. Note.
726 The Viśvadevas are a class of deities to whom sacrifices should be
daily offered, as part of the ordinary worship of the householder.
According to the _Váyu Puráṇa_, this is a privilege conferred on
them by Brahmá and the Pitris as a reward for religious austerities
practised by them upon Himálaya.
727 The eight Vasus were originally personifications like other Vedic
deities, of natural phenomena, such as Fire, Wind, &c. Their
appellations are variously given by different authorities.
728 The Maruts or Storm-Gods, frequently addressed and worshipped as the
attendants and allies of Indra.
729 The mountain behind which the sun sets.
730 One of the oldest and mightiest of the Vedic deities; in later
mythology regarded as the God of the sea.
731 The knotted noose with which he seizes and punishes transgressors.
732 Sávarṇi is a Manu, offspring of the Sun by Chháyá.
733 The poet has not said who the sons of Yáma are.
734 The Lodhra or Lodh (Symplocos Racemosa) and the Devadáru or Deodar
are well known trees.
735 The hills mentioned are not identifiable. Soma means the Moon. Kála,
black; Sudaraśan, fair to see; and Devasakhá friend of the Gods.
736 The God of Wealth.
737 The nymphs of Paradise.
738 Kuvera the son of Viśravas.
739 A class of demigods who, like the Yakshas, are the attendants of
Kuvera, and the guardians of his treasures.
740 Situated in the eastern part of the Himálaya chain, on the north of
Assam. The mountain was torn asunder and the pass formed by the
War-God Kártikeya and Paraśuráma.
741 “The Uttara Kurus, it should be remarked, may have been a real
people, as they are mentioned in the Aitareya Bráhmaṇa, VIII. 14.…
Wherefore the several nations who dwell in this northern quarter,
beyond the Himavat, the Uttara Kurus and the Uttara Madras are
consecrated to glorious dominion, and people term them the glorious.
In another passage of the same work, however, the Uttara Kurus are
treated as belonging to the domain of mythology.” MUIR’S _Sanskrit
Texts_. Vol. I. p. 494. See ADDITIONAL NOTES.
742 The Moon-mountain.
743 The Rudras are the same as the storm winds, more usually called
Maruts, and are often associated with Indra. In the later mythology
the Rudras are regarded as inferior manifestations of Śiva, and most
of their names are also names of Śiva.
744 Canto IX.
745 Udayagiri or the hill from which the sun rises.
746 Asta is the mountain behind which the sun sets.
747 Himálaya, the Hills of Snow.
748 Canto XI.
749 Hanumán was the leader of the army of the south which was under the
nominal command of Angad the heir apparent.
750 The Bengal recension—Gorresio’s edition—calls this Asur or demon the
son of Márícha.
751 The skin of the black antelope was the ascetic’s proper garb.
752 Uśanas is the name of a sage mentioned in the Vedas. In the epic
poems he is identified with Śukra, the regent of the planet Venus,
and described as the preceptor of the Asuras or Daityas, and
possessor of vast knowledge.
753 Hemá is one of the nymphs of Paradise.
754 Merusávarṇi is a general name for the last four of the fourteen
Manus.
755 Svayamprabhá, the “self-luminous,” is according to DE GUBERNATIS the
moon: “In the _Svayamprabhá_ too, we meet with the moon as a good
fairy who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend
Hemá (the golden one:) is during a month the guide, in the vast
cavern of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in
the search of the dawn Sítá.” This is is not quite accurate: Hanumán
and his companions wander for a month in the cavern without a guide,
and then Svayamprabhá leads them out.
756 Purandara, the destroyer of cities; the cities being the clouds
which the God of the firmament bursts open with his thunderbolts, to
release the waters imprisoned in these fortresses of the demons of
drought.
757 Perceived that Angad had secured, through the love of the Vánars,
the reversion of Sugríva’s kingdom; or, as another commentator
explains it, perceived that Angad had obtained a new kingdom in the
enchanted cave which the Vánars, through love of him, would consent
to occupy.
758 Vṛihaspati, Lord of Speech, the Preceptor of the Gods.
759 Śukra is the regent of the planet Venus, and the preceptor of the
Daityas.
760 The name of various kinds of grass used at sacrificial ceremonies,
especially, of the Kuśa grass, Poa cynosuroides, which was used to
strew the ground in preparing for a sacrifice, the officiating
Brahmans being purified by sitting on it.
761 Sampáti is the eldest son of the celebrated Garuḍa the king of
birds.
762 Vivasvat or the Sun is the father of Yáma the God of Death.
763 Book III, Canto LI.
764 Daśaratha’s rash oath and fatal promise to his wife Kaikeyí.
765 Vritra, “the coverer, hider, obstructer (of rain)” is the name of
the Vedic personification of an imaginary malignant influence or
demon of darkness and drought supposed to take possession of the
clouds, causing them to obstruct the clearness of the sky and keep
back the waters. Indra is represented as battling with this evil
influence, and the pent-up clouds being practically represented as
mountains or castles are shattered by his thunderbolt and made to
open their receptacles.
766 Frequent mention has been made of the three steps of Vishṇu
typifying the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun.
767 For the _Churning of the Sea_, see Book I, Canto XLV.
768 Kuvera, the God of Wealth.
769 The architect of the gods.
770 Garuḍa, son of Vinatá, the sovereign of the birds.
771 “The well winged one,” Garuḍa.
772 The god of the sea.
773 Mahendra is chain of mountains generally identified with part of the
Gháts of the Peninsula.
774 Mátariśva is identified with Váyu, the wind.
775 Of course not equal to the whole earth, says the Commentator, but
equal to Janasthán.
776 This appears to be the Indian form of the stories of Phaethon and
Dædalus and Icarus.
777 According to the promise, given him by Brahmá. See Book I, Canto
XIV.
778 In the Bengal recension the fourth Book ends here, the remaining
Cantos being placed in the fifth.
779 Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he
can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty, and so
on up to ninety.
780 Prahláda, the son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for
his devotion to Vishṇu, and was on this account persecuted by his
father.
781 The Bengal recension calls him Aríshṭanemi’s brother. “The
commentator says ‘Aríshṭanemi is Aruṇa.’ Aruṇa the charioteer of the
sun is the son of Kaśyapa and Vinatá and by consequence brother of
Garuḍa, called Vainateya from Vinatá, his mother.” GORRESSIO.
782 A nymph of Paradise.
783 Hanu or Hanú means jaw. Hanumán or Hanúmán means properly one with a
large jaw.
784 Vishṇu, the God of the Three Steps.
785 Náráyaṇ, “He who moved upon the waters,” is Vishnu. The allusion is
to the famous three steps of that God.
786 The Milky Way.
787 This Book is called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it
is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in
repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches
which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of
whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the
Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place
description, lamentation, and long stories which have been again and
again repeated.
788 Brahmá the Self-Existent.
789 Maináka was the son of Himálaya and Mená or Menaká.
790 Thus Milton makes the hills of heaven self-moving at command:
“At his command the uprooted hills retired
Each to his place, they heard his voice and went
Obsequious”
791 The spirit of the mountain is separable from the mountain. Himalaya
has also been represented as standing in human form on one of his
own peaks.
792 Ságar or the Sea is said to have derived its name from Sagar. The
story is fully told in Book I, Cantos XLII, XLIII, and XLIV.
793 Kritu is the first of the four ages of the world, the golden age,
also called Satya.
_ 794 Parvata_ means a mountain and in the Vedas a cloud. Hence in later
mythology the mountains have taken the place of the clouds as the
objects of the attacks of Indra the Sun-God. The feathered king is
Garuḍa.
795 “The children of Surasá were a thousand mighty many-headed serpents,
traversing the sky.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 73.
796 She means, says the Commentator, pursue thy journey if thou can.
797 If Milton’s spirits are allowed the power of infinite self-extension
and compression the same must be conceded to Válmíki’s supernatural
beings. Given the power as in Milton the result in Válmíki is
perfectly consistent.
798 “Daksha is the son of Brahmá and one of the Prajápatis or divine
progenitors. He had sixty daughters, twenty-seven of whom married to
Kaśyapa produced, according to one of the Indian cosmogonies, all
mundane beings. Does the epithet, Descendant of Daksha, given to
Surasá, mean that she is one of those daughters? I think not. This
epithet is perhaps an appellation common to all created beings as
having sprung from Daksha.” GORRESSIO.
799 Sinhiká is the mother of Ráhu the dragon’s head or ascending node,
the chief agent in eclipses.
800 According to De Gubernatis, the author of the very learned,
ingenious, and interesting though too fanciful _Zoological
Mythology_. Hanumán here represents the sun entering into and
escaping from a cloud. The biblical Jonah, according to him,
typifies the same phenomenon. Sá’dí, speaking of sunset, says _Yùnas
andar-i-dihán-imáhi shud_: Jonas was within the fish’s mouth. See
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
801 The Buchanania Latifolia.
802 The Bauhinia Variegata.
803 Through the power that Rávaṇ’s stern mortifications had won for him
his trees bore flowers and fruit simultaneously.
804 Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods.
805 So in Paradise Lost Satan when he has stealthily entered the garden
of Eden assumes the form of a cormorant.
806 Priests who fought only with the weapons of religion, the sacred
grass used like the verbena of the Romans at sacred rites and the
consecrated fire to consume the offering of ghee.
807 One of the Rákshas lords.
808 The brother Rávaṇ.
809 Indra’s elephant.
810 Rávaṇ’s palace appears to have occupied the whole extent of ground,
and to have contained within its outer walls the mansions of all the
great Rákshas chiefs. Rávaṇ’s own dwelling seems to have been
situated within the enchanted chariot Pushpak: but the description
is involved and confused, and it is difficult to say whether the
chariot was inside the palace or the palace inside the chariot.
811 Pushpak from _pushpa_ a flower. The car has been mentioned before in
Rávaṇ’s expedition to carry off Sítá, Book III, Canto XXXV.
812 Lakshmí is the wife of Vishṇu and the Goddess of Beauty and
Felicity. She rose, like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea. For an
account of her birth and beauty, see Book I, Canto XLV.
813 Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods, the Hephaestos or Mulciber
of the Indian heaven.
814 Rávaṇ in the resistless power which his long austerities had endowed
him with, had conquered his brother Kuvera the God of Gold and taken
from him his greatest treasure this enchanted car.
815 Like Milton’s heavenly car, “Itself instinct with spirit.”
816 Women, says Válmíki. But the Commentator says that automatic figures
only are meant. Women would have seen Hanumán and given the alarm.
817 Rávaṇ had fought against Indra and the Gods, and his body was still
scarred by the wounds inflicted by the tusks of Indra’s elephant and
by the fiery bolts of the Thunderer.
818 The Vasus are a class of eight deities, originally personifications
of natural phenomena.
819 The Maruts are the winds or Storm-Gods.
820 The Ádityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom
Varuṇa is the chief. The name Áditya was afterwards given to any
God, specially to Súrya the Sun.
821 The Aśvins are the Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the
Hindus.
822 The poet forgets that Hanumán has reduced himself to the size of a
cat.
823 Sítá “not of woman born,” was found by King Janak as he was turning
up the ground in preparation for a sacrifice. See Book II, Canto
CXVIII.
824 The six _Angas_ or subordinate branches of the Vedas are 1.
_Sikshá_, the science of proper articulation and pronunciation: 2.
_Chhandas_, metre: 3. _Vyákarana_, linguistic analysis or grammar:
4. _Nirukta_, explanation of difficult Vedic words: 5. _Jyotishṭom_,
Astronomy, or rather the Vedic Calendar: 6. _Kalpa_, ceremonial.
825 There appears to be some confusion of time here. It was already
morning when Hanumán entered the grove, and the torches would be
needless.
826 Rávaṇ is one of those beings who can “climb them as they will,” and
can of course assume the loveliest form to please human eyes as well
as the terrific shape that suits the king of the Rákshases.
827 White and lovely as the Arant or nectar recovered from the depths of
the Milky Sea when churned by the assembled Gods. See Book I, Canto
XLV.
828 Rávaṇ in his magic car carrying off the most beautiful women reminds
us of the magician in _Orlando Furioso_, possesor of the flying
horse.
“Volando talor s’alza ne le stelle,
E poi quasi talor la terra rade;
E ne porta con lui tutte le belle
Donne che trova per quelle contrade.”
829 Indian women twisted their long hair in a single braid as a sign of
mourning for their absent husbands.
830 Janak, king of Míthilá, was Sítá’s father.
831 Hiraṇyakaśipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his
blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishṇu
the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the
incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.
832 Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a
precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. This charity
is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: “He
prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.”
833 It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their
ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of
honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at
him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the
first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been
so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable
epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or
allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem.
834 This threat in the same words occurs in Book III, Canto LVI.
835 Rávaṇ carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses
but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas.
836 The wife of Indra.
837 These four lines have occurred before. Book III, Canto LVI.
838 Prajápatis are the ten lords of created beings first created by
Brahmá; somewhat like the Demiurgi of the Gnostics.
839 “This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the
Rig-veda. In Ashṭaka I. Súkta XXXIV, the Rishi Hiraṇyastúpa invoking
the Aśvins says: Á Násatyá tribhirekádaśairiha devebniryátam: ‘O
Násatyas (Aśvins) come hither with the thrice eleven Gods.’ And in
Súkta XLV, the Rishi Praskanva addressing his hymn to Agni (ignis,
fire), thus invokes him: ‘Lord of the red steeds, propitiated by our
prayers lead hither the thirty-three Gods.’ This number must
certainly have been the actual number in the early days of the Vedic
religion: although it appears probable enough that the thirty-three
Vedic divinities could not then be found co-ordinated in so
systematic a way as they were arranged more recently by the authors
of the Upanishads. In the later ages of Bramanism the number went on
increasing without measure by successive mythical and religious
creations which peopled the Indian Olympus with abstract beings of
every kind. But through lasting veneration of the word of the Veda
the custom regained of giving the name of ‘the thirty-three Gods’ to
the immense phalanx of the multiplied deities.” GORRESIO.
840 Serpent-Gods who dwell in the regions under the earth.
841 In the mythology of the epics the Gandharvas are the heavenly
singers or musicians who form the orchestra at the banquets of the
Gods, and they belong to the heaven of India in whose battles they
share.
842 The mother of Ráma.
843 The mother of Lakshmaṇ.
844 In the south is the region of Yáma the God of Death, the place of
departed spirits.
845 Kumbhakarṇa was one of Rávaṇ’s brothers.
846 The guards are still in the grove, but they are asleep; and Sítá has
crept to a tree at some distance from them.