The Sanskrit Epics
Page 154
747
Himálaya, the Hills of Snow.
748
Canto XI.
749
Hanumán was the leader of the army of the south which was under the nominal command of Angad the heir apparent.
750
The Bengal recension — Gorresio’s edition — calls this Asur or demon the son of Márícha.
751
The skin of the black antelope was the ascetic’s proper garb.
752
Uśanas is the name of a sage mentioned in the Vedas. In the epic poems he is identified with Śukra, the regent of the planet Venus, and described as the preceptor of the Asuras or Daityas, and possessor of vast knowledge.
753
Hemá is one of the nymphs of Paradise.
754
Merusávarṇi is a general name for the last four of the fourteen Manus.
755
Svayamprabhá, the “self-luminous,” is according to De Gubernatis the moon: “In the Svayamprabhá too, we meet with the moon as a good fairy who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend Hemá (the golden one:) is during a month the guide, in the vast cavern of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in the search of the dawn Sítá.” This is is not quite accurate: Hanumán and his companions wander for a month in the cavern without a guide, and then Svayamprabhá leads them out.
756
Purandara, the destroyer of cities; the cities being the clouds which the God of the firmament bursts open with his thunderbolts, to release the waters imprisoned in these fortresses of the demons of drought.
757
Perceived that Angad had secured, through the love of the Vánars, the reversion of Sugríva’s kingdom; or, as another commentator explains it, perceived that Angad had obtained a new kingdom in the enchanted cave which the Vánars, through love of him, would consent to occupy.
758
Vṛihaspati, Lord of Speech, the Preceptor of the Gods.
759
Śukra is the regent of the planet Venus, and the preceptor of the Daityas.
760
The name of various kinds of grass used at sacrificial ceremonies, especially, of the Kuśa grass, Poa cynosuroides, which was used to strew the ground in preparing for a sacrifice, the officiating Brahmans being purified by sitting on it.
761
Sampáti is the eldest son of the celebrated Garuḍa the king of birds.
762
Vivasvat or the Sun is the father of Yáma the God of Death.
763
Book III, Canto LI.
764
Daśaratha’s rash oath and fatal promise to his wife Kaikeyí.
765
Vritra, “the coverer, hider, obstructer (of rain)” is the name of the Vedic personification of an imaginary malignant influence or demon of darkness and drought supposed to take possession of the clouds, causing them to obstruct the clearness of the sky and keep back the waters. Indra is represented as battling with this evil influence, and the pent-up clouds being practically represented as mountains or castles are shattered by his thunderbolt and made to open their receptacles.
766
Frequent mention has been made of the three steps of Vishṇu typifying the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun.
767
For the Churning of the Sea, see Book I, Canto XLV.
768
Kuvera, the God of Wealth.
769
The architect of the gods.
770
Garuḍa, son of Vinatá, the sovereign of the birds.
771
“The well winged one,” Garuḍa.
772
The god of the sea.
773
Mahendra is chain of mountains generally identified with part of the Gháts of the Peninsula.
774
Mátariśva is identified with Váyu, the wind.
775
Of course not equal to the whole earth, says the Commentator, but equal to Janasthán.
776
This appears to be the Indian form of the stories of Phaethon and Dædalus and Icarus.
777
According to the promise, given him by Brahmá. See Book I, Canto XIV.
778
In the Bengal recension the fourth Book ends here, the remaining Cantos being placed in the fifth.
779
Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty, and so on up to ninety.
780
Prahláda, the son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for his devotion to Vishṇu, and was on this account persecuted by his father.
781
The Bengal recension calls him Aríshṭanemi’s brother. “The commentator says ‘Aríshṭanemi is Aruṇa.’ Aruṇa the charioteer of the sun is the son of Kaśyapa and Vinatá and by consequence brother of Garuḍa, called Vainateya from Vinatá, his mother.” Gorressio.
782
A nymph of Paradise.
783
Hanu or Hanú means jaw. Hanumán or Hanúmán means properly one with a large jaw.
784
Vishṇu, the God of the Three Steps.
785
Náráyaṇ, “He who moved upon the waters,” is Vishnu. The allusion is to the famous three steps of that God.
786
The Milky Way.
787
This Book is called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place description, lamentation, and long stories which have been again and again repeated.
788
Brahmá the Self-Existent.
789
Maináka was the son of Himálaya and Mená or Menaká.
790
Thus Milton makes the hills of heaven self-moving at command:
“At his command the uprooted hills retired
Each to his place, they heard his voice and went
Obsequious”
791
The spirit of the mountain is separable from the mountain. Himalaya has also been represented as standing in human form on one of his own peaks.
792
Ságar or the Sea is said to have derived its name from Sagar. The story is fully told in Book I, Cantos XLII, XLIII, and XLIV.
793
Kritu is the first of the four ages of the world, the golden age, also called Satya.
794
Parvata means a mountain and in the Vedas a cloud. Hence in later mythology the mountains have taken the place of the clouds as the objects of the attacks of Indra the Sun-God. The feathered king is Garuḍa.
795
“The children of Surasá were a thousand mighty many-headed serpents, traversing the sky.” Wilson’s Vishṇu Puráṇa, Vol. II. p. 73.
796
She means, says the Commentator, pursue thy journey if thou can.
797
If Milton’s spirits are allowed the power of infinite self-extension and compression the same must be conceded to Válmíki’s supernatural beings. Given the power as in Milton the result in Válmíki is perfectly consistent.
798
“Daksha is the son of Brahmá and one of the Prajápatis or divine progenitors. He had sixty daughters, twenty-seven of whom married to Kaśyapa produced, according to one of the Indian cosmogonies, all mundane beings. Does the epithet, Descendant of Daksha, given to Surasá, mean that she is one of those daughters? I think not. This epithet is perhaps an appellation common to all created beings as having sprung from Daksha.” Gorressio.
799
Sinhiká is the mother of Ráhu the dragon’s head or ascending node, the chief agent in eclipses.
> 800
According to De Gubernatis, the author of the very learned, ingenious, and interesting though too fanciful Zoological Mythology. Hanumán here represents the sun entering into and escaping from a cloud. The biblical Jonah, according to him, typifies the same phenomenon. Sá’dí, speaking of sunset, says Yùnas andar-i-dihán-imáhi shud: Jonas was within the fish’s mouth. See Additional Notes.
801
The Buchanania Latifolia.
802
The Bauhinia Variegata.
803
Through the power that Rávaṇ’s stern mortifications had won for him his trees bore flowers and fruit simultaneously.
804
Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods.
805
So in Paradise Lost Satan when he has stealthily entered the garden of Eden assumes the form of a cormorant.
806
Priests who fought only with the weapons of religion, the sacred grass used like the verbena of the Romans at sacred rites and the consecrated fire to consume the offering of ghee.
807
One of the Rákshas lords.
808
The brother Rávaṇ.
809
Indra’s elephant.
810
Rávaṇ’s palace appears to have occupied the whole extent of ground, and to have contained within its outer walls the mansions of all the great Rákshas chiefs. Rávaṇ’s own dwelling seems to have been situated within the enchanted chariot Pushpak: but the description is involved and confused, and it is difficult to say whether the chariot was inside the palace or the palace inside the chariot.
811
Pushpak from pushpa a flower. The car has been mentioned before in Rávaṇ’s expedition to carry off Sítá, Book III, Canto XXXV.
812
Lakshmí is the wife of Vishṇu and the Goddess of Beauty and Felicity. She rose, like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea. For an account of her birth and beauty, see Book I, Canto XLV.
813
Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods, the Hephaestos or Mulciber of the Indian heaven.
814
Rávaṇ in the resistless power which his long austerities had endowed him with, had conquered his brother Kuvera the God of Gold and taken from him his greatest treasure this enchanted car.
815
Like Milton’s heavenly car, “Itself instinct with spirit.”
816
Women, says Válmíki. But the Commentator says that automatic figures only are meant. Women would have seen Hanumán and given the alarm.
817
Rávaṇ had fought against Indra and the Gods, and his body was still scarred by the wounds inflicted by the tusks of Indra’s elephant and by the fiery bolts of the Thunderer.
818
The Vasus are a class of eight deities, originally personifications of natural phenomena.
819
The Maruts are the winds or Storm-Gods.
820
The Ádityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom Varuṇa is the chief. The name Áditya was afterwards given to any God, specially to Súrya the Sun.
821
The Aśvins are the Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the Hindus.
822
The poet forgets that Hanumán has reduced himself to the size of a cat.
823
Sítá “not of woman born,” was found by King Janak as he was turning up the ground in preparation for a sacrifice. See Book II, Canto CXVIII.
824
The six Angas or subordinate branches of the Vedas are 1. Sikshá, the science of proper articulation and pronunciation: 2. Chhandas, metre: 3. Vyákarana, linguistic analysis or grammar: 4. Nirukta, explanation of difficult Vedic words: 5. Jyotishṭom, Astronomy, or rather the Vedic Calendar: 6. Kalpa, ceremonial.
825
There appears to be some confusion of time here. It was already morning when Hanumán entered the grove, and the torches would be needless.
826
Rávaṇ is one of those beings who can “climb them as they will,” and can of course assume the loveliest form to please human eyes as well as the terrific shape that suits the king of the Rákshases.
827
White and lovely as the Arant or nectar recovered from the depths of the Milky Sea when churned by the assembled Gods. See Book I, Canto XLV.
828
Rávaṇ in his magic car carrying off the most beautiful women reminds us of the magician in Orlando Furioso, possesor of the flying horse.
“Volando talor s’alza ne le stelle,
E poi quasi talor la terra rade;
E ne porta con lui tutte le belle
Donne che trova per quelle contrade.”
829
Indian women twisted their long hair in a single braid as a sign of mourning for their absent husbands.
830
Janak, king of Míthilá, was Sítá’s father.
831
Hiraṇyakaśipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishṇu the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.
832
Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. This charity is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.”
833
It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem.
834
This threat in the same words occurs in Book III, Canto LVI.
835
Rávaṇ carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas.
836
The wife of Indra.
837
These four lines have occurred before. Book III, Canto LVI.
838
Prajápatis are the ten lords of created beings first created by Brahmá; somewhat like the Demiurgi of the Gnostics.
839
“This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the Rig-veda. In Ashṭaka I. Súkta XXXIV, the Rishi Hiraṇyastúpa invoking the Aśvins says: Á Násatyá tribhirekádaśairiha devebniryátam: ‘O Násatyas (Aśvins) come hither with the thrice eleven Gods.’ And in Súkta XLV, the Rishi Praskanva addressing his hymn to Agni (ignis, fire), thus invokes him: ‘Lord of the red steeds, propitiated by our prayers lead hither the thirty-three Gods.’ This number must certainly have been the actual number in the early days of the Vedic religion: although it appears probable enough that the thirty-three Vedic divinities could not then be found co-ordinated in so systematic a way as they were arranged more recently by the authors of the Upanishads. In the later ages of Bramanism the number went on increasing without measure by successive mythical and religious creations which peopled the Indian Olympus with abstract beings of every kind. But through lasting veneration of the word of the Veda the custom regained of giving the name of ‘the thirty-three Gods’ to the immense phalanx of the multiplied deities.” Gorresio.
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.
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.