The Five and Twenty Tales of the Genie (Penguin Classics)
Page 29
21. The river Narmadā or Rewā, rises in the eastern Vindhyas in central India and gathering the waters of many tributaries, flows across the peninsula in to the Arabian Sea.
22. The name Arimaulimaṇi compounded of the three words, Ari—mauli—Maṇi—, foe—head—jewel, can be understood in two ways: one who wears his foe as a crest jewel, or, one who. is worn by his foe as a crest jewel; that is one who conquers or is conquered.
23. Jnānī, is one who possesses Jnāna, knowledge or wisdom. In the two texts in this volume, the word is however used to signify a special type of knowledge; the knowledge of and proficiency in magic, and possession of skills in soothsaying, casting spells, performing exorcism etc.
24. An aspect of the Mother Goddess, the tutelary deity of a tribe known as Dadhi-parṇa.
25. It is not quite clear what precisely these two terms signify; two kinds of magic power presumably, white and black magic.
26. A yogī is commonly a person who acquires extraordinary and suprahuman powers by virtue of performing yoga and/or severe austerities of various sorts. The powers so gained might be used for good, for the integration of the self with the over-self, the supreme spirit, this being the common meaning of the term. But the powers could also be used for the advancement of the person’s self-interests in the material world, and acquisition of power, wealth, dominion. Kṣāntiśīla belongs to the latter category of yogīs. Power can always be used well or misused, as for instance, in the case of modern scientific knowledge, as in the control and use of atomic energy which can be put to destructive uses as well as constructive ones.
27. Ćakravartī, literally, one who turns the wheel of empire.
* This appears to be a scribal error in the Mss; comes in the wrong place.
* Palmyrashanks
** Pot-belly
* Datepalmshanks
*The opening sections of the text are missing in the available manuscripts.
* The author does not clearly state who is speaking here—it could be the author, the narrator or Viravara.