Reading section 109

602 “Our deeds still follow with us from afar. And what we have been makes us what we are.”

603 Sugríva and Angad.

604 Angad himself, being too young to govern, would be Yuvarája or heir-apparent.

605 Susheṇa was the son of Varuṇa the God of the sea.

606 A demon with the tail of a dragon, that causes eclipses by endeavouring to swallow the sun and moon.

607 The Lord of Stars is the Moon.

608 Or the passage may be interpreted: “Be neither too obsequious or affectionate, nor wanting in due respect or love.”

609 Sacrifices and all religious rites begin and end with ablution, and the wife of the officiating Bráhman takes an important part in the performance of the holy ceremonies.

610 Viśvarúpa, a son of Twashṭri or Viśvakarmá the heavenly architect, was a three-headed monster slain by Indra.

611 The Vánar chief, not to be confounded with Tárá.

612 Śrávaṇ: July-August. But the rains begin a month earlier, and what follows must not be taken literally. The text has _púrvo’ yam várshiko másah Śrávaṇah salilágamdh_. The Bengal recension has the same, and Gorresio translates: “Equesto ilmese Srâvana (luglio-agosto) primo della stagione piovosa, in cui dilagano le acque.”

613 Kártik: October-November.

614 “Indras, as the nocturnal sun, hides himself, transformed, in the starry heavens: the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or all-seeing (panoptês) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the cow beloved by Zeus, in the Hellenic equivalent of this form of Indras.” DE GUBERNATIS, _Zoological Mythology_, Vol. I, p. 418.

615 Baudháyana and others.

616 Sugríva appears to have been consecrated with all the ceremonies that attended the _Abhisheka_ or coronation of an Indian prince of the Aryan race. Compare the preparations made for Ráma’s consecration, Book II, Canto III. Thus Homer frequently introduces into Troy the rites of Hellenic worship.

617 Vitex Negundo.

618 Mályavat: “The name of this mountain appears to me to be erroneous, and I think that instead of Mályavat should be read Malayavat, Malaya is a group of mountains situated exactly in that southern part of India where Ráma now was, while Mályavat is placed to the north east.” GORRESIO.

619 Mantles of the skin of the black antelope were the prescribed dress of ascetics and religious students.

620 The sacred cord worn as the badge of religious initiation by men of the three twice-born castes.

621 The hum with which students conduct their tasks.

622 I omit here a long general description of the rainy season which is not found in the Bengal recension and appears to have been interpolated by a far inferior and much later hand than Valmiki’s. It is composed in a metre different from that of the rest of the Canto, and contains figures of poetical rhetoric and common-places which are the delight of more recent poets.

623 Praushthapada or Bhadra, the modern Bhadon, corresponds to half of August and half of September.

624 The Sáman or Sáma-veda, the third of the four Vedas, is really merely a reproduction of parts of the Rig-veda, transposed and scattered about piece-meal, only 78 verses in the whole being, it is said, untraceable to the present recension of the Rig-veda.

625 Áshádha is the month corresponding to parts of June and July.

626 Bharat, who was regent during Ráma’s absence.

627 Or with Gorresio, following the gloss of another commentary: “Has completed every holy rite and accumulated stores of merit.”

628 The river on which Ayodhyá was built.

629 I omit a _śloka_ or four lines on gratitude and ingratitude repeated word for word from the last Canto.

630 The Indian crane; a magnificent bird easily domesticated.

631 The troops who guard the frontiers on the north, south, east and west.

632 The Chátaka, Cuculus, Melanoleucus, is supposed to drink nothing but the water for the clouds.

633 The time for warlike expeditions began when the rains had ceased.

634 The rainbow.

635 Indra’s associates in arms, and musicians of his heaven.

636 Maireya, a spirituous liquor from the blossoms of the Lythrum fruticosum, with sugar, &c.

637 Their names are as follows: Angad, Maínda, Dwida, Gavaya, Gaváksha, Gaja, Śarabha, Vidyunmáli, Sampáti, Súryáksa, Hanumán, Vírabáhu, Subáhu, Nala, Kúmuda, Susheṇa, Tára, Jámbuvatu, Dadhivakra, Níla, Supátala, and Sunetra.

638 The Kalpadruma or Wishing-tree is one of the trees of Svarga or Indra’s Paradise: it has the power of granting all desires.

639 The meaning is that if a man promises to give a horse and then breaks his word he commits a sin as great as if he had killed a hundred horses.

640 The story is told in Book I, Canto LXIII, but the charmer there is called Menaká.

641 Rohiṇí is the name of the ninth Nakshatra or lunar asterism personified as a daughter of Daksha, and the favourite wife of the Moon. Aldebaran is the principal star in the constellation.

642 Válmíki and succeeding poets make the second vowel in this name long or short at their pleasure.

643 Some of the mountains here mentioned are fabulous and others it is impossible to identify. Sugríva means to include all the mountains of India from Kailás the residence of the God Kuvera, regarded as one of the loftiest peaks of the Himálayas, to Mahendra in the extreme south, from the mountain in the east where the sun is said to rise to Astáchal or the western mountain where he sets. The commentators give little assistance: that Maháśaila, &c. are certain mountains is about all the information they give.

644 One of the celestial elephants of the Gods who protect the four quarters and intermediate points of the compass.

645 Váyu or the Wind was the father of Hanumán.

646 The path or station of Vishṇu is the space between the seven Rishis or Ursa Major, and Dhruva or the polar star.

647 One of the seven seas which surround the earth in concentric circles.

648 The title of Maheśvar or Mighty Lord is sometimes given to Indra, but more generally to Śiva whom it here denotes.

649 See Book I, Canto XVI.

650 The numbers are unmanageable in English verse. The poet speaks of hundreds of _arbudas_; and an _arbuda_ is a hundred millions.

651 Anuhláda or Anuhráda is one of the four sons of the mighty Hiraṇyakaśipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kaśyapa and Diti and killed by Vishṇu in his incarnation of the Man-Lion _Narasinha_. According to the Bhágavata Puráṇa the Daitya or Asur Hiraṇyakaśipu and Hiraṇyáksha his brother, both killed by Vishṇu, were born again as Rávaṇ and Kumbhakarṇa his brother.

652 Puloma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in order to avert an imprecation. Paulomí is a patronymic denoting Śachí the daughter of Puloma.

653 “Observe the variety of colours which the poem attributes to all these inhabitants of the different mountainous regions, some white, 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.