Reading section 108

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.