Reading section 113

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.

847 “As the reason assigned in these passages for not addressing Sítá in Sanskrit such as a Bráhman would use is not that she would not understand it, but that it would alarm her and be unsuitable to the speaker, we must take them as indicating that Sanskrit, if not spoken by women of the upper classes at the time when the Rámáyaṇa was written (whenever that may have been), was at least understood by them, and was commonly spoken by men of the priestly class, and other educated persons. By the Sanskrit proper to an [ordinary] man, alluded to in the second passage, may perhaps be understood not a language in which words different from Sanskrit were used, but the employment of formal and elaborate diction.” MUIR’S _Sanskrit Texts_, Part II. p. 166.

848 Svayambhu, the Self-existent, Brahmá.

849 Vṛihaspati or Váchaspati, the Lord of Speech and preceptor of the Gods.

850 The Asurs were the fierce enemies of the Gods.

851 The Rudras are manifestations of Śiva.

852 The Maruts or Storm Gods.

853 Rohiṇí is an asterism personified as the daughter of Daksha and the favourite wife of the Moon. The chief star in the constellation is Aldebaran.

854 Arundhatí was the wife of the great sage Vaśishṭha, and regarded as the pattern of conjugal excellence. She was raised to the heavens as one of the Pleiades.

855 The Gods do not shed tears; nor do they touch the ground when they walk or stand. Similarly Milton’s angels marched above the ground and “the passive air upbore their nimble tread.” Virgil’s “vera incessu patuit dea” may refer to the same belief.

856 That a friend of Ráma would praise him as he should be praised, and that if the stranger were Rávaṇ in disguise he would avoid the subject.

857 Kuvera the God of Gold.

858 Sítá of course knows nothing of what has happened to Ráma since the time when she was carried away by Rávaṇ. The poet therefore thinks it necessary to repeat the whole story of the meeting between Ráma and Sugríva, the defeat of Bálí, and subsequent events. I give the briefest possible outline of the story.

859 DE GUBERNATIS thinks that this ring which the Sun Ráma sends to the Dawn Sítá is a symbol of the sun’s disc.

860 Śachí is the loved and lovely wife of Indra, and she is taken as the type of a woman protected by a jealous and all-powerful husband.

861 The mountain near Kishkindhá.

862 Airávat is the mighty elephant on which Indra delights to ride.

863 Vibhishaṇ is the wicked Rávaṇ’s good brother.

864 Her name is Kalá, or in the Bengal recension Nandá.

865 One of Rávaṇ’s chief councillors.

866 Hanumán when he entered the city had in order to escape observation condensed himself to the size of a cat.

867 The brook Mandákiní, not far from Chitrakúṭa where Ráma sojourned for a time.

868 The poet here changes from the second person to the third.

869 The whole long story is repeated with some slight variations and additions from Book II, Canto XCVI. I give here only the outline.

870 The expedients to vanquish an enemy or to make him come to terms are said to be four: conciliation, gifts, disunion, and force or punishment. Hanumán considers it useless to employ the first three and resolves to punish Rávaṇ by destroying his pleasure-grounds.

871 Kinkar means the special servant of a sovereign, who receives his orders immediately from his master. The Bengal recension gives these Rákshases an epithet which the Commentator explains “as generated in the mind of Brahmá.”

872 Ráma _de jure_ King of Kośal of which Ayodhyá was the capital.

_ 873 Chaityaprásáda_ is explained by the Commentator as the place where the Gods of the Rákshases were kept. Gorresio translates it by “un grande edificio.”

874 The bow of Indra is the rainbow.

875 We were told a few lines before that the chariot of Jambumáli was drawn by asses. Here horses are spoken of. The Commentator notices the discrepancy and says that by horses asses are meant.

876 Armed with the bow of Indra, the rainbow.

877 Rávaṇ’s son.

878 Conqueror of Indra, another of Rávaṇ’s sons.

879 The _śloka_ which follows is probably an interpolation, as it is inconsistent with the questioning in Canto L.:

He looked on Rávaṇ in his pride, And boldly to the monarch cried: “I came an envoy to this place From him who rules the Vánar race.”

880 The ten heads of Rávaṇ have provoked much ridicule from European critics. It should be remembered that Spenser tells us of “two brethren giants, the one of which had two heads, the other three;” and Milton speaks of the “four-fold visaged Four,” the four Cherubic shapes each of whom had four faces.

881 Durdhar, or as the Bengal recension reads Mahodara, Prahasta, Mahápárśva, and Nikumbha.

882 The chief attendant of Śiva.

883 Bali, not to be confounded with Báli the Vánar, was a celebrated Daitya or demon who had usurped the empire of the three worlds, and who was deprived of two thirds of his dominions by Vishṇu in the Dwarf-incarnation.

884 When Hanumán was bound with cords, Indrajít released his captive from the spell laid upon him by the magic weapon.

885 “One who murders an ambassador (_rája bhata_) goes to Taptakumbha, the hell of heated caldrons.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puraṇa_, Vol. II. p. 217.

886 The fire which is supposed to burn beneath the sea.

887 Sítá is likened to the fire which is an emblem of purity.

888 I omit two stanzas which continue the metaphor of the sea or lake of air. The moon is its lotus, the sun its wild-duck, the clouds are its water-weeds, Mars is its shark and so on. Gorresio remarks: “This comparison of a great lake to the sky and of celestial to aquatic objects is one of those ideas which the view and qualities of natural scenery awake in lively fancies. Imagine one of those grand and splendid lakes of India covered with lotus blossoms, furrowed by wild-ducks of the most vivid colours, mantled over here and there with flowers and water weeds &c. and it will be understood how the fancy of the poet could readily compare to the sky radiant with celestial azure the blue expanse of the water, to the soft light of the moon the inner hue of the lotus, to the splendour of the sun the brilliant colours of the wild-fowl, to the stars the flowers, to the cloud the weeds that float upon the water &c.”

889 Sunábha is the mountain that rose from the sea when Hanumán passed over to Lanká.

890 Three Cantos of repetition are omitted.

_ 891 Madhuvan_ the “honey-wood.”

892 Indra’s pleasure-ground or elysium.

893 Janak was king of Videha or Mithilá in Behar.

894 The original contains two more Cantos which end the Book. Canto LXVII begins thus: “Hanumán thus addressed by the great-souled son of Raghu related to the son of Raghu all that Sítá had said.” And the two Cantos contain nothing but Hanumán’s account of his interview with Sítá, and the report of his own speeches as well as of hers.

895 The Sixth Book is called in Sanskrit _Yuddha-Káṇḍa_ or _The War_, and _Lanká-Káṇda_. It is generally known at the present day by the latter title.

896 Váyu is the God of Wind.

897 Garuḍa the King of Birds.

898 Serpent-Gods.