by Tulsidas
Trishira: Literally, ‘three-headed’; a Rakshasa, and a brother, son, or friend of Ravan, killed by Ram.
twice-born: A man of any one of the three upper Hindu castes (but particularly a Brahman), whose investiture with the sacred thread upon puberty constitutes, religiously and metaphorically, his second birth.
Udayagiri: This is the eastern mountain from behind which the sun is supposed to rise; it is also called Udayachal.
Urmila: Janak’s and Sunayana’s daughter, Sita’s younger sister; she was married to Lakshman.
Vaikunth: The paradise or heaven of Vishnu; its site is sometimes described as in the Northern Ocean, sometimes it is said to be located on the eastern peak of Mount Meru. Vishnu himself is also sometimes designated by this term.
Valmik; Valmiki: The author of the Sanskrit Ramayana. Regarded as the first, or original poet, he is said to have invented poetry when he began to compose the Ramayana. Tradition maintains that before he became a sage and the author of the Ramayana, Valmiki was the dacoit Ratnakar, who would waylay travellers and then rob and mercilessly kill them. One day, he ran into the sage Narad, who asked him why he did what he did. Ratnakar replied that it was for his family; Narad asked him whether his family appreciated the burden of sin that he was accumulating for their sakes and whether they would share it. Ratnakar staunchly replied that they would, but when he asked his wife and children, they refused to accept the burden of his crimes. Ratnakar realized the folly of his ways and begged for forgiveness. Narad then gave him the mantra of Ram’s name, but since this was a mantra that could not be given to thieves and murderers, Narad told him to recite it backwards. Ratnakar did so, and meditated on the name, sitting so still and for so long that anthills grew around him. He continued his penance for many long years, till finally a divine voice declared him to be free of the guilt of his crimes, and renamed him Valmiki, or ‘the one born of anthills’.
Vamdev: A prominent rishi, attached to Dasharath’s court.
Varun: Amongst the oldest of the Vedic gods, Varun is the personification of the sky, the maker of earth and heaven. He is described as being furnished with snares and nooses, with which he seizes and binds evildoers. No mortal can escape from Varun’s snares.
Vasishtha: A celebrated Vedic sage, to whom many hymns are ascribed. According to the Vishnu Purana, he was the family priest of the house of Ishkvaku; he was contemporary not only with Ishkvaku himself, but with his descendants down to the sixty-first generation, including Dasharath and Ram.
Veda; Vedas: From vid, ‘know’; hence ‘divine knowledge’. The Vedas, composed in verse in an ancient form of Sanskrit some time between 1500 and 1000 BCE (though opinions vary considerably about their age, and many scholars believe that they can be pushed back at least another thousand years), are the foundation of Hindu belief and practice. It is believed that the Vedas emanated as the breath of the Supreme Being. It is agreed that they were revealed orally to the sages whose names they bear, and thus the whole body of the Veda—the entire body of divine knowledge—is known as ‘Sruti’ or ‘what was heard’. The Vedas are four in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharva. The Rig Veda is the oldest; in fact, it is the original Veda, from which the Yajur and Sama Vedas are mostly derived. The Atharva Veda was composed much later.
Vedant: ‘End of the Veda’; name of the complete Veda; name of a certain system of philosophy and theology based particularly on the Upanishads; and of works concerning this philosophy and in support of it.
Vedashira: One of the seven great rishis (Saptarishi), associated with the fourth Manwantara. (See Manu.)
vedi: A quadrangular space, with the sacred fire in the centre, where wedding rites are conducted.
vedika: Ground prepared for a sacrifice or ceremony, usually consisting of a raised floor or platform and covered with a roof supported by pillars.
Vena: Son of Anga by his queen, Sunita, and a descendant of Manu Swayambhuva. Vena grew up to be a cruel and vicious man, so much so that his father, unable to bear his atrocities, left the kingdom and disappeared, no one knew where. Seeing the kingdom without a king, the sages decided to put Vena upon the throne. Royal power made him worse, and in his arrogance, he banned offerings and performance of sacrifices to the gods, declaring that he alone was worthy of such worship. The sages reasoned with him, but he refused to listen; they admonished him more strongly, but he would not change his mind. Finally, they killed him with blades of consecrated grass. After his death, the sages saw clouds of dust in the distance, and were told that these were raised by men who had begun to loot and plunder because the country was now without a king. Since Vena was childless, the sages rubbed his left thigh to produce a son; from this arose a short, dark man with a flat nose. He was asked to sit, ‘nishida’; he did so and thus became a Nishad, from which sprang the tribe living in the Vindhya mountains. The sages then rubbed the right hand of Vena, and from this came forth his son Prithu. (See Prithuraj.) Vena’s story is told a little differently in the Padma Purana. This states that Vena was a good king at the start of his rule, but soon turned to the teachings of the Jains. For this heresy, the sages attacked and beat him, till from his left thigh came forth the Nishad tribe, and from his right arm came Prithu. Being freed of sin by the birth of the Nishad, he gave up his kingdom and retired to an ashram on the Narmada, where he engaged in penance. For this, Vishnu forgave him and made him one with himself.
Vibhishan: ‘The terrible’; a younger brother of Ravan, and ally of Ram. He was raised to the throne of Lanka by Ram after the defeat and death of Ravan.
Videh: ‘Bodiless’; the title born by the kings of the kingdom of Videha, including King Janak, Sita’s father.
Videha: The kingdom of King Janak, Sita’s father. Its capital city was the city of Mithila.
vina: An ancient multi-stringed musical instrument; it is supposed to have been invented by Narad.
Vinata: A daughter of Daksh, one of the thirteen wives of the sage Kashyap, and mother of Garud. From her were born all the birds.
Viradh: Also known as Tumburu, he was a Gandharva cursed by Kuber to become a horrible, man-eating Rakshasa. He is described as being as tall as a mountain peak, deformed, of dreadful aspect, clad in a tiger’s skin, smeared with fat, soaked in blood, like death with an open mouth, bearing three lions, four tigers, two wolves, ten deer and the great head of an elephant with tusks on the point of an iron pike. He had obtained from Brahma the boon of invulnerability. Ram, with Lakshman and Sita, encountered him in the Dandak forest. (This incident is told in detail in Valmiki’s Ramayana.) Viradh cursed and taunted the brothers, and grabbed Sita. Ram and Lakshman shot him with their arrows, proving that he was not invulnerable. But he caught them and throwing them over his shoulder, ran off with them as easily as if they had been children. They broke both his arms, beat him with their fists and threw him to the ground, but they could not kill him. So they dug a deep hole and buried him alive. Then there arose from the earth a beautiful form, who said he was a Gandharva cursed by Kuber to take on the form of a Rakshasa. Ram released him from the curse and sent him back to his own realm.
Vishnu: From vish, to pervade. The preserver and restorer, he is the second of the Hindu triad. He is also called Hari. In the Rig Veda, Vishnu is the manifestation of solar energy, and does not have the importance he acquired later as the great preserver of the universe. In the Puranas and the Mahabharata, he is the embodiment of mercy and goodness, which manifests itself as the preserving power, which is self-existent and all-pervading. He is therefore associated with water, which was everywhere before the creation of the world. He is represented in human form as reclining upon the serpent Shesh, and floating upon the Ocean of Milk. He is therefore also called Narayan or ‘floating upon the waters’. His consort is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and beauty. The river Ganga is said to spring from his toe. Vishnu is represented with four hands; one holds the Panchajanya, a shankha or conch-shell; the second the Sudarshan or Vajranabha, which is a chakra or discus; the third
holds Kaumodaki, a gada or club; and the fourth holds a Padma, or lotus. As the husband of Lakshmi (who is also known as Shri, Ramaa and Kamla), he is known as Shripati, Ramapati and Kamlapati; as the one who dwells with Lakshmi, he is known as Shrinivas, Ramanivas and Ramaniket. He is also known as Sarangpani, ‘the one who bears the bow called Sarang’. As the slayer of the demon Khar in his incarnation as Ramchandra, he is known as Kharari, ‘enemy of Khar’; as the slayer of the demons Madhu and Kaitabh he is known as Madhusudan and Kaitabhajit respectively. As the giver of liberation, he is called Mukund. He is also known as Anant, ‘the infinite’. Vishnu has ‘descended’ to earth, or taken incarnate form several times. His ‘descents’, or avatars, are usually said to be ten in number, though the Bhagavata Purana says that they are twenty-two, or innumerable. Vishnu’s ten avatars are as follows: (i) Matsya, ‘the fish’: this avatar is connected with the Hindu legend of the flood. The objective was to save Vaivaswata, the seventh Manu, who became the progenitor of all mankind. One day Manu found in the water he used for his ablutions a little fish which spoke to him and warned him of a great flood that was coming which would destroy all living creatures, and said that it would save him. The fish grew and grew till it was so huge that it had to be put into the ocean. The fish then instructed Manu to build a ship, and to take refuge in it when the flood came. Manu did so, and when the flood came, Manu embarked in the ship. The fish then swam to Manu, who, using the serpent Sheshnag tied the ship to the fish’s horn, and was towed to safety; (ii) Kurma, ‘the tortoise’: when the great flood subsided, the gods realized that many valuable things had been lost at the bottom of the ocean. So Vishnu appeared as a tortoise, and placed himself at the bottom of the Ocean of Milk, and took upon his back the mountain Mandar. The gods and demons wound the serpent Vasuki around the mountain. The gods took one end of the serpent, the demons the other, and in this way they churned the ocean until they recovered the lost objects; (iii) Varah, ‘the boar’: a Daitya called Hataklochan had dragged the earth to the bottom of the sea. In order to recover the earth, Vishnu took the form of a boar, and after a battle that lasted a thousand years, he killed the Daitya and carried the earth back to the surface on his tusks; (iv) Narsingh, Narhari, or Narkeshari ‘the man-lion’: Vishnu took on the form of half-lion, half-man to deliver the world from the Daitya Kanakakasipu. Kananakasipu’s son, Prahlad, was a devotee of Vishnu, and refused to obey his father’s order that he should worship him and not Vishnu. When Prahlad declared that Vishnu was all-pervading and everywhere, Kanakakasipu demanded to know if he was present even in the stone pillar in the hall of his palace. At this, to avenge Prahlad, Vishnu appeared out of the pillar in the form of Narsingh, half-man, half lion, and therefore neither man nor beast, and killed Kanakakasipu. The first four avatars are said to have taken place during the Satyayug, the first age of the world; (v) Vaman, ‘the dwarf’: in the Tretayug (the second age of the world), the Daitya king Bali became so powerful that he became king of the three worlds. The gods asked Vishnu to help them, so that may once again regain their pre-eminence in the world. So Vishnu descended to earth as a dwarf, and the son of Kashyap and Aditi. The dwarf begged Bali to give him as much land as he could cover in three strides. Bali, with his characteristic generosity, agreed. The dwarf took two strides by which he covered heaven and earth. Recognizing Bali’s virtue, he refrained from taking the third step, and left Patal, or the underworld to Bali. This avatar is also known as Tribikram or Trivikrama, literally ‘three strides’; (vi) Parashuram, ‘Ram with the axe’: he was born in the Tretayug, as the son of the Brahman Jamadagni, and his wife, Renuka. From his father’s side he was descended from Bhrigu. He appeared in the world for repressing the tyranny and violence of the Kshatriya or warrior caste. Though he appeared in this world before Ramchandra, Vishnu’s seventh avatar and the hero of the Ramayana, they were both living in this world at the same time. His weapon was the parashu or axe; (vii) Ram, or Ramchandra, the hero of the Ramayana and of Tulsi’s Ramcharitmanas, he was born in the Tretayug to destroy the demon Ravan. He was the son of Dasharath, king of Ayodhya; (viii) Krishna, ‘the dark’: he is considered to be the most perfect of all of Vishnu’s avatars. He is often regarded not as an avatar, but as Vishnu himself, when his elder brother Balram takes his place as the eighth avatar; (ix) Buddha: Buddha’s far-reaching influence as a religious leader caused the Hindu Brahmins to adopt him as an avatar of Vishnu, who encourages wicked men to disregard the Vedas and the gods, and so bring about their own destruction. In eastern India, the ninth avatar is Jagannath, ‘lord of the world’, a form of Krishna; (x) Kalki, ‘the white horse’: the last and tenth avatar is yet to come. Vishnu will appear at the end of the Kaliyug, the last and fourth age, mounted on a white horse, and carrying a fiery sword. He will finally destroy the wicked and rid the world of evil, and the cycle of creation will begin again with piety restored.
Vishvakarma: A son of Brahma, and the chief architect and artist of the gods.
Vishvamitra: A celebrated sage, and the companion and counsellor of the young Ram. He was born a Kshatriya, and was the king of Kanauj, but through long and intense austerities, successfully elevated himself to the caste of Brahman and became one of the seven great Rishis. According to the Rig Veda, he was the son of a king named Kushika, because of which he is called Kaushik. Later sources make him the son of Gadhi, king of Kanyakubja and a descendant of Puru. He is therefore also called Gadhij, ‘born of Gadhi’ or, Gadhinandan, ‘Gadhi’s son’.
Vyas: Literally, ‘an arranger’, this title is common to many ancient authors, but is especially applied to Veda Vyas, the arranger of the Vedas. The name is also given to the compiler of the Mahabharata, and the arranger of the Puranas.
Yaksha: Yakshas are semi-divine beings who protect forests and other wild places, and are generally harmless, though they may, on rare occasions, be evil. They are the attendants of the god of wealth, Kuber.
Yayati: Son of Nahush, and the fifth king of the Lunar dynasty. He had two wives, Devyani and Sarmishtha. From Devyani was born his son Yadu, and from Sarmishtha his son Puru, the respective founders of the Yadavas and the Pauravas. In all he had five sons, the three others being Druhyu, Turvasu and Anu. Yayati was fond of women, and for his infidelity to Devyani, he was cursed with old age and infirmity by her father, Shukra. This curse Shukra consented to transfer to any of his sons who would agree to bear it. All refused, except Puru, who gave up his youth to his father and took on his curse of decrepitude. Yayati spent a thousand years enjoying the pleasures of the senses, after which he restored his youth to Puru and made him his successor. This story is told in the Mahabharata, as well as in the Vishnu Purana. The version in the Padma Purana is different. Yayati was invited to heaven by Indra, who sent his charioteer Matali to fetch him. On the way, they had a philosophical discussion, which had such an impact on Yayati that when he returned to earth, he, by his virtuous rule, made all his subjects free from passion and decay. Yama, the god of Death, complained that men no longer died. So Indra sent Kamdev, the god of love, and his daughter, Asruvindumati, to tempt Yayati with desire. They succeeded, and Yayati, deeply enamoured of the youthful Asruvindumati and in order to become a fit husband for her, asked each of his sons to exchange their youth for his old age. All refused, except Puru, who gave his manly vigour to his father and assumed his decrepitude. After some time, Asruvindumati persuaded Yayati to return to heaven, and he then gave Puru back his youth. According to the Mahabharata, King Yayati, at the end of his life, gave up his throne to Puru and retired to the forest to lead the life of an ascetic. There, the king lived on fruits and roots for some time, and practised austerities, attaining complete control of his mind and his senses. He also performed fire sacrifices to honour his ancestors and the gods, and followed every prescribed rite and tradition for one in the third or forest-dwelling stage of life (See four stages of life). He then lived on scattered seeds that he gathered for a thousand years, and then for another year observing the vow of silence and living
upon air alone and without sleep. He passed another year practising the most severe austerities, with four fires burning around him and the sun above, and then, living upon air alone, stood upon one leg for six months. These austerities earned him a place in heaven. He lived in heaven for a long time, where he was held in great reverence by the gods and other celestial beings. One day, Yayati went to meet Indra, the king of the gods, and in the course of conversation, Indra asked him to whom he was equal in the austerities he had practised. Yayati’s boastful answer, that he did not, in the matter of austerities, behold any who was his equal amongst men, gods, Gandharvas and rishis, led to a diminishing of his virtues, and he was hurled from the heavens back into the world of men.
yojan: A measure of distance, equivalent to 4 kos or about 9 miles.
Acknowledgements
Many people have stood by me in the five long years it has taken to complete this translation. Of these, my thanks first and foremost to R. Sivapriya, who made this project possible, and to Ambar Sahil Chatterjee, who has seen this through from the very beginning to the end. My gratitude also, to Shantanu Rai Chaudhuri, for his patient and meticulous editing.