Reading section 104

325 The _Mainá_ or Gracula religiosa, a favourite cage-bird, easily taught to talk.

326 The Jumna.

327 The Hindu name of Allahabad.

328 The Langúr is a large monkey.

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

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

331 “We have often looked on that green hill: it is the holiest spot of that sect of the Hindu faith who devote themselves to this incarnation of Vishṇu. The whole neighbourhood is Ráma’s country. Every headland has some legend, every cavern is connected with his name; some of the wild fruits are still called _Sítáphal_, being the reputed food of the exile. Thousands and thousands annually visit the spot, and round the hill is a raised foot-path, on which the devotee, with naked feet, treads full of pious awe.” _Calcutta Review_, Vol. XXIII.

332 Deities of a particular class in which five or ten are enumerated. They are worshipped particularly at the funeral obsequies in honour of deceased progenitors.

333 “So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:”

“Ἵπποι δ’ Αἰακίδαο, μάχης ἀπάνευθεν ἐότες, Κλᾶιον, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα πυθέσθην ἡνιόχοιο Ἐν κονίνσι πεσόντος ὑφ’ Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο”

ILIAD. XVII. 426.

“Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man.” GORRESIO.

334 The lines containing this heap of forced metaphors are marked as spurious by Schlegel.

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

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

337 So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:

“Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk! My soul shall thine keep company to heaven: Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.”

_King Henry V, Act IV, 6._

338 Kauśalyá, daughter of the king of another Kośal.

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

340 The Kekayas or Kaikayas in the Punjab appear amongst the chief nations in the war of the Mahábhárata; their king being a kinsman of Krishṇa.

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

342 The Panchálas occupied the upper part of the Doab.

343 “Kurujángala and its inhabitants are frequently mentioned in the _Mahábhárata_, as in the _Ádi-parv._ 3789, 4337, _et al._” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa,_ Vol. II. p. 176. DR. HALL’S Note.

344 “The Ὁξύματις of Arrian. See _As. Res._ Vol. XV. p. 420, 421, also _Indische Alterthumskunde_, Vol. I. p. 602, first footnote.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. I. p. 421. DR. HALL’S Edition. The Ikshumatí was a river in Kurukshetra.

345 “The Báhíkas are described in the Mahábhárata, Karṇa Parvan, with some detail, and comprehend the different nations of the Punjab from the Sutlej to the Indus.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. I. p. 167.

346 The Beas, Hyphasis, or Bibasis.

347 It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos LXVIII and LXXII. Professor Wilson observes (_Vishṇu Puráṇa_, p. 139. Dr. Hall’s Edition) “States, and tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers, have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, Barnagore represents Baráhanagar, Dakshineśwar is metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaría into Willoughbury.… There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect.”

For further information regarding the road from Ayodhyá to Rájagriha, see _Additional Notes_.

348 “The Śatadrú, ‘the hundred-channeled’—the Zaradrus of Ptolemy, Hesydrus of Pliny—is the Sutlej.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 130.

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

_ 350 Súryamcha pratimehatu_, adversus solem mingat. An offence expressly forbidden by the Laws of Manu.

351 Bharat does not intend these curses for any particular person: he merely wishes to prove his own innocence by invoking them on his own head if he had any share in banishing Ráma.

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

353 Walking from right to left.

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

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

356 I follow in this stanza the Bombay edition in preference to Schlegel’s which gives the tears of joy to the courtiers.

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

358 Not Bharat’s uncle, but some councillor.

_ 359 Śatakratu_, Lord of a hundred sacrifices, the performance of a hundred _Aśvamedhas_ or sacrifices of a horse entitling the sacrificer to this exalted dignity.

360 The modern Malabar.

361 Now Sungroor, in the Allahabad district.

362 Ráma, Lakshmaṇ, and Sumantra.

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

364 When an army marched it was customary to burn the huts in which it had spent the night.

365 Yáma, Varuṇa, and Kuvera.

366 “A happy land in the remote north where the inhabitants enjoy a natural pefection attended with complete happiness obtained without exertion. There is there no vicissitude, nor decrepitude, nor death, nor fear: no distinction of virtue and vice, none of the inequalities denoted by the words best, worst, and intermediate, nor any change resulting from the succession of the four Yugas.” See MUIR’S _Sanskrit Texts_, Vol. I. p. 492.

367 The Moon.

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

369 These ten lines are a substitution for, and not a translation of the text which Carey and Marshman thus render: “This mountain adorned with mango, jumboo, usuna, lodhra, piala, punusa, dhava, unkotha, bhuvya, tinisha, vilwa, tindooka, bamboo, kashmaree, urista, uruna, madhooka, tilaka, vuduree, amluka, nipa, vetra, dhunwuna, veejaka, and other trees affording flowers, and fruits, and the most delightful shade, how charming does it appear!”

_ 370 Vidyadharis_, Spirits of Air, sylphs.

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

372 The Ganges of heaven.

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

374 This canto is allowed, by Indian commentators, to be an interpolation. It cannot be the work of Válmíki.

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

376 Bauhinea variegata, a species of ebony.

377 The rainbow is called the bow of Indra.

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