Reading section 107

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.