The Sanskrit Epics

by Delphi Classics

  Page 136.

  True is the ancient saw: the Neem

  Can ne’er distil a honeyed stream.

  The Neem tree, especially in the Rains, emits a strong unpleasant smell like that of onions. Its leaves however make an excellent cooling poultice, and the Extract of Neem is an admirable remedy for cutaneous disorders.

  Page 152.

  Who of Nisháda lineage came.

  The following account of the origin of the Nishádas is taken from Wilson’s Vishṇu Puráṇa, Book I. Chap. 15. “Afterwards the Munis beheld a great dust arise, and they said to the people who were nigh: ‘What is this?’ And the people answered and said: ‘Now that the kingdom is without a king, the dishonest men have begun to seize the property of their neighbours. The great dust that you behold, excellent Munis, is raised by troops of clustering robbers, hastening to fall upon their prey.’ The sages, hearing this, consulted, and together rubbed the thigh of the king (Vena), who had left no offspring, to produce a son. From the thigh, thus rubbed, came forth a being of the complexion of a charred stake, with flattened features like a negro, and of dwarfish stature. ‘What am I to do,’ cried he eagerly to the Munis. ‘Sit down (nishída),’ said they. And thence his name was Nisháda. His descendants, the inhabitants of the Vindhyá mountain, great Muni, are still called Nishádas and are characterized by the exterior tokens of depravity.” Professor Wilson adds, in his note on the passage: “The Matsya says that there were born outcast or barbarous races, Mlechchhas, as black as collyrium. The Bhágavata describes an individual of dwarfish stature, with short arms and legs, of a complexion as black as a crow, with projecting chin, broad flat nose, red eyes, and tawny hair, whose descendants were mountaineers and foresters. The Padma (Bhúmi Khaṇḍa) has a similar deccription; adding to the dwarfish stature and black complexion, a wide mouth, large ears, and a protuberant belly. It also particularizes his posterity as Nishádas, Kirátas, Bhillas, and other barbarians and Mlechchhas, living in woods and on mountains. These passages intend, and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Gonds, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests and mountains of Central India from Behar to Khandesh, and who are, not improbably, the predecessors of the present occupants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black, ill-shapen, and dwarfish, and have countenances of a very African character.”

  Manu gives a different origin of the Nishádas as the offspring of a Bráhman father and a Súdra mother. See Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p. 481.

  Page 157.

  Beneath a fig-tree’s mighty shade,

  With countless pendent shoots displayed.

  “So counselled he, and both together went

  Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose

  The fig-tree: not that kind for fruit renowned,

  But such as at this day, to Indians known,

  In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms

  Branching so broad and long, that in the ground

  The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow

  About the mother tree, a pillared shade

  High overarched, and echoing walks between.”

  Paradise Lost, Book IX.

  Page 161.

  Now, Lakshmaṇ, as our cot is made,

  Must sacrifice be duly paid.

  The rites performed in India on the completion of a house are represented in modern Europe by the familiar “house-warming.”

  Page 169.

  I longed with all my lawless will

  Some elephant by night to kill.

  One of the regal or military caste was forbidden to kill an elephant except in battle.

  Thy hand has made no Bráhman bleed.

  “The punishment which the Code of Manu awards to the slayer of a Brahman was to be branded in the forehead with the mark of a headless corpse, and entirely banished from society; this being apparently commutable for a fine. The poem is therefore in accordance with the Code regarding the peculiar guilt of killing Brahmans; but in allowing a hermit who was not a Divija (twice-born) to go to heaven, the poem is far in advance of the Code. The youth in the poem is allowed to read the Veda, and to accumulate merit by his own as well as his father’s pious acts; whereas the exclusive Code reserves all such privileges to Divijas invested with the sacred cord.” Mrs. Speir’s Life in Ancient India, p. 107.

  Page 174. The Praise Of Kings

  “Compare this magnificent eulogium of kings and kingly government with what Samuel says of the king and his authority: And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.

  And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen: and some shall run before his chariots.

  And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to work his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instrument of war, and instruments of his chariots.

  And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

  And he will take your fields, and your vineyards and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

  And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

  And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

  He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

  And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you. I. Samuel, VIII.

  In India kingly government was ancient and consecrated by tradition: whence to change it seemed disorderly and revolutionary: in Judæa theocracy was ancient and consecrated by tradition, and therefore the innovation which would substitute a king was represented as full of dangers.” Gorresio.

  Page 176. Sálmalí.

  According to the Bengal recension Śálmalí appears to have been another name of the Vipáśá. Śálmalí may be an epithet signifying rich in Bombax heptaphyllon. The commentator makes another river out of the word.

  Page 178. Bharat’s Return.

  “Two routes from Ayodhyá to Rájagriha or Girivraja are described. That taken by the envoys appears to have been the shorter one, and we are not told why Bharat returned by a different road. The capital of the Kekayas lay to the west of the Vipáśá. Between it and the Śatadru stretched the country of the Báhíkas. Upon the remaining portion of the road the two recensions differ. According to that of Bengal there follow towards the east the river Indamatí, then the town Ajakála belonging to the Bodhi, then Bhulingá, then the river Śaradaṇḍá. According to the other instead of the first river comes the Ikshumatí … instead of the first town Abhikála, instead of the second Kulingá, then the second river. According to the direction of the route both the above-mentioned rivers must be tributaries of the Śatadrú.… The road then crossed the Yamuná (Jumna), led beyond that river through the country of the Panchálas, and reached the Ganges at Hástinapura, where the ferry was. Thence it led over the Rámagangá and its eastern tributaries, then over the Gomati, and then in a southern direction along the Málini, beyond which it reached Ayodhyá. In Bharat’s journey the following rivers are passed from west to east: Kutikoshṭiká, Uttániká, Kuṭiká, Kapívatí, Gomatí according to Schlegel, and Hiraṇyavatí, Uttáriká, Kuṭilá, Kapívatí, Gomatí according to Gorresio. As these rivers are to be looked for on the east of the Ganges, the first must be the modern Koh, a small affluent of the Rámagangá, over which the highway cannot have gone as it bends too far to the north. The Uttániká or Uttáriká must be the Rámagangá, the Kuṭiká or Kuṭilá its eastern tributary, Kośilá, the Kapívatí the next tributary which on the maps has different names, Gurra or above Kailas, lower down Bhaigu. The Gomatí (Goomtee) retains its old name. The Máliní, mentioned only in the envoys’
journey, must have been the western tributary of the Sarayú now called Chuká.” Lassen’s Indische Alterthumskunde, Vol. II. P. 524.

  Page 183.

  What worlds await thee, Queen, for this?

  “Indian belief divided the universe into several worlds (lokáh). The three principal worlds were heaven, earth, and hell. But according to another division there were seven: Bhúrloka or the earth, Bhuvarloka or the space between the earth and the sun, the seat of the Munis, Siddhas, &c., Svarloka or the heaven of Indra between the sun and the polar star, and the seventh Brahmaloka or the world of Brahma. Spirits which reached the last were exempt from being born again.” Gorresio.

  Page 203.

  When from a million herbs a blaze

  Of their own luminous glory plays.

  This mention of lambent flames emitted by herbs at night may be compared with Lucan’s description of a similar phenomenon in the Druidical forest near Marseilles, (Pharsalia, III. 420.).

  Non ardentis fulgere incendia silvae.

  Seneca, speaking of Argolis, (Thyestes, Act IV), says: —

  Tota solet

  Micare flamma silva, et excelsae trabes

  Ardent sine igni.

  Thus also the bush at Horeb (Exod. II.) flamed, but was not consumed.

  The Indian explanation of the phenomenon is, that the sun before he sets deposits his rays for the night with the deciduous plants. See Journal of R. As. S. Bengal, Vol. II. p. 339.

  Page 219.

  We rank the Buddhist with the thief.

  Schlegel says in his Preface: “Lubrico vestigio insistit V. Cl. Heerenius, prof. Gottingensis, in libro suo de commerciis veterum populorum (Opp. Vol. Hist. XII, pag. 129,) dum putat, ex mentione sectatorum Buddhae secundo libro Rameidos iniecta de tempore, quo totum carmen sit conditum, quicquam legitime concludi posse.… Sunt versus spurii, reiecti a Bengalis in sola commentatorum recensione leguntur. Buddhas quidem mille fere annis ante Christum natun vixit: sed post multa demumsecula, odiointernecivo inter Brachmanos et Buddhae sectatores orto, his denique ex India pulsis, fingi potuit iniquissima criminatio, eos animi immortalitatem poenasque et praemia in vita futura negare. Praeterea metrum, quo concinnati sunt hi versus, de quo metro mox disseram, recentiorem aetatem arguit.… Poenitet me nunc mei consilii, quod non statim ab initio, … eiecerim cuncta disticha diversis a sloco vulgari metris composita. Metra sunt duo: pariter ambo constant quatuor hemistichiis inter se aequalibus, alterum undenarum syllabarum, alterum duodenarum, hunc in modum:

  [-)] [-] [)] [-] | [-] [)] [)] [-] | [)] [-] [-)]

  [)] [-] [)] [-] | [-] [)] [)] [-] | [)] [-] [)] [-)]

  Cuius generis versus in primo et secundo Rameidos libro nusquam nisi ad finem capitum apposita inveniuntur, et huic loco unice sunt accommodata, quasi peroratio, lyricis numeris assurgens, quo magis canorae cadant clausulae: sicut musici in concentibus extremis omnium vocum instrumentorumque ictu fortiore aures percellere amant. Igitur disticha illa non ante divisionem per capita illatam addi potuerunt: hanc autem grammaticis deberi argumento est ipse recensionum dissensus, manifesto inde ortus, quod singuli editores in ea constituenda suo quisque iudicio usi sunt; praeterquam quod non credibile est, poetam artis suae peritum narrationem continuam in membra tam minuta dissecuisse. Porro discolor est dictio: magniloquentia affectatur, sed nimis turgida illa atque effusa, nec sententiarum pondere satis suffulta. Denique nihil fere novi affertur: ampli ficantur prius dicta, rarius aliquid ex capite sequente anticipatur. Si quis appendices hosce legendo transiliat, sentiet slocum ultimum cum primo capitis proximi apte coagmentatum, nec sine vi quadam inde avulsum. Eiusmodi versus exhibet utraque recensio, sed modo haec modo illa plures paucioresve numero, et lectio interdum magnopere variat.”

  “The narrative of Ráma’s exile in the jungle is one of the most obscure portions of the Rámáyana, inasmuch as it is difficult to discover any trace of the original tradition, or any illustration of actual life and manners, beyond the artificial life of self-mortification and selfdenial said to have been led by the Brahman sages of olden time. At the same time, however, the story throws some light upon the significance of the poem, and upon the character in which the Brahmanical author desired to represent Ráma; and consequently it deserves more serious consideration than the nature of the subject-matter would otherwise seem to imply.

  “According to the Rámáyana, the hero Ráma spent more than thirteen years of his exile in wandering amongst the different Brahmanical settlements, which appear to have been scattered over the country between the Ganges and the Godáveri; his wanderings extending from the hill of Chitra-kúṭa in Bundelkund, to the modern town of Nasik on the western side of India, near the source of the Godáveri river, and about seventy-five miles to the north-west of Bombay. The appearance of these Brahmanical hermitages in the country far away to the south of the Raj of Kasala, seems to call for critical inquiry. Each hermitage is said to have belonged to some particular sage, who is famous in Brahmanical tradition. But whether the sages named were really contemporaries of Ráma, or whether they could possibly have flourished at one and the same period, is open to serious question. It is of course impossible to fix with any degree of certainty the relative chronology of the several sages, who are said to have been visited by Ráma; but still it seems tolerably clear that some belonged to an age far anterior to that in which the Rámáyana was composed, and probably to an age anterior to that in which Ráma existed as a real and living personage; whilst, at least, one sage is to be found who could only have existed in the age during which the Rámáyana was produced in its present form. The main proofs of these inferences are as follows. An interval of many centuries seems to have elapsed between the composition of the Rig-Veda and that of the Rámáyana: a conclusion which has long been proved by the evidence of language, and is generally accepted by Sanskrit scholars. But three of the sages, said to have been contemporary with Ráma, namely, Viśvámitra, Atri and Agastya, are frequently mentioned in the hymns of the Rig-Veda; whilst Válmíki, the sage dwelling at Chitra-kúṭa, is said to have been himself the composer of the Rámáyana. Again, the sage Atri, whom Ráma visited immediately after his departure from Chitra-kúṭa, appears in the genealogical list preserved in the Mahá Bhárata, as the progenitor of the Moon, and consequently as the first ancestor of the Lunar race: whilst his grandson Buddha [Budha] is said to have married Ilá, the daughter of Ikhsváku who was himself the remote ancestor of the Solar race of Ayodhyá, from whom Ráma was removed by many generations. These conclusions are not perhaps based upon absolute proof, because they are drawn from untrustworthy authorities; but still the chronological difficulties have been fully apprehended by the Pundits, and an attempt has been made to reconcile all contradictions by representing the sages to have lived thousands of years, and to have often re-appeared upon earth in different ages widely removed from each other. Modern science refuses to accept such explanations; and consequently it is impossible to escape the conclusion that if Válmíki composed the Rámáyana in the form of Sanskrit in which it has been preserved, he could not have flourished in the same age as the sages who are named in the Rig-Veda.” Wheeler’s History of India, Vol. II, 229.

  Page 249.

  And King Himálaya’s Child.

  Umá or Párvatí, was the daughter of Himálaya and Mená. She is the heroine of Kálidása’s Kumára-Sambhava or Birth of the War-God.

  Page 250.

  Strong Kumbhakarṇa slumbering deep

  In chains of never-ending sleep.

  “Kumbhakarṇa, the gigantic brother of the titanic Rávaṇ, — named from the size of his ears which could contain a Kumbha or large water-jar — had such an appetite that he used to consume six months’ provisions in a single day. Brahmá, to relieve the alarm of the world, which had begun to entertain serious apprehensions of being eaten up, decreed that the giant should sleep six months at a time and wake for only one day during which he might consume his six months’ allowance without trespassing unduly on the reproductive capabilities of th
e “ Scenes front the Rámáyan, p. 153, 2nd Edit.

  Page 257.

  Like Śiva when his angry might

  Stayed Daksha’s sacrificial rite.

  The following spirited version of this old story is from the pen of Mr. W. Waterfield:

  “This is a favorite subject of Hindú sculpture, especially on the temples of Shiva, such as the caves of Elephanta and Ellora. It, no doubt, is an allegory of the contest between the followers of Shiva and the worshippers of the Elements, who observed the old ritual of the Vedas; in which the name of Shiva is never mentioned.

  Daksha for devotion

  Made a mighty feast:

  Milk and curds and butter,

  Flesh of bird and beast,

  Rice and spice and honey,

  Sweetmeats ghí and gur,1038

  Gifts for all the Bráhmans,

  Food for all the poor.

  At the gates of Gangá1039

  Daksha held his feast;

  Called the gods unto it,

  Greatest as the least.

  All the gods were gathered

  Round with one accord;

  All the gods but Umá,

  All but Umá’s lord.

  Umá sat with Shiva

  On Kailása hill:

  Round them stood the Rudras

  Watching for their will.

  Who is this that cometh

  Lilting to his lute?

  All the birds of heaven

  Heard his music, mute.

  Round his head a garland

  Rich of hue was wreathed:

  Every sweetest odour

  From its blossoms breathed.

  ’Tis the Muni Nárad;

  ‘Mong the gods he fares,

  Ever making mischief

  By the tales he bears.

  “Hail to lovely Umá!

  Hail to Umá’s lord!

  Wherefore are they absent

  For her father’s board?

  Multiplied his merits

  Would be truly thrice,

  Could he gain your favour

  For his sacrifice.”

  Worth of heart was Umá;