Chapter 96

716 The Moon-mountain here is mythical.

717 Sindhu is the Indus.

718 Páriyátra, or as more usually written Páripátra, is the central or western portion of the Vindhya chain which skirts the province of Malwa.

719 Vajra means both diamond and thunderbolt, the two substances being supposed to be identical.

720 Chakraván means the discus-bearer.

721 The discus is the favourite weapon of Vishṇu.

722 The Indian Hephaistos or Vulcan.

723 Panchajan was a demon who lived in the sea in the form of a conch shell. WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, V. 21.

724 Hayagríva, Horse-necked, is the name of a Daitya who at the dissolution of the universe caused by Brahmá’s sleep, seized and carried off the Vedas. Vishṇu slew him and recovered the sacred treasures.

725 Meru stands in the centre of Jambudwípa and consequently of the earth. “The sun travels round the world, keeping Meru always on his right. To the spectator who fronts him, therefore, as he rises Meru must be always on the north; and as the sun’s rays do not penetrate beyond the centre of the mountain, the regions beyond, or to the north of it must be in darkness, whilst those on the south of it must be in light: north and south being relative, not absolute, terms, depending on the position of the spectator with regard to the Sun and Meru.” WILSON’S _Vishṇu Puráṇa_, Vol. II. p. 243. Note.

726 The Viśvadevas are a class of deities to whom sacrifices should be daily offered, as part of the ordinary worship of the householder. According to the _Váyu Puráṇa_, this is a privilege conferred on them by Brahmá and the Pitris as a reward for religious austerities practised by them upon Himálaya.

727 The eight Vasus were originally personifications like other Vedic deities, of natural phenomena, such as Fire, Wind, &c. Their appellations are variously given by different authorities.

728 The Maruts or Storm-Gods, frequently addressed and worshipped as the attendants and allies of Indra.

729 The mountain behind which the sun sets.

730 One of the oldest and mightiest of the Vedic deities; in later mythology regarded as the God of the sea.

731 The knotted noose with which he seizes and punishes transgressors.

732 Sávarṇi is a Manu, offspring of the Sun by Chháyá.

733 The poet has not said who the sons of Yáma are.

734 The Lodhra or Lodh (Symplocos Racemosa) and the Devadáru or Deodar are well known trees.

735 The hills mentioned are not identifiable. Soma means the Moon. Kála, black; Sudaraśan, fair to see; and Devasakhá friend of the Gods.

736 The God of Wealth.

737 The nymphs of Paradise.

738 Kuvera the son of Viśravas.

739 A class of demigods who, like the Yakshas, are the attendants of Kuvera, and the guardians of his treasures.

740 Situated in the eastern part of the Himálaya chain, on the north of Assam. The mountain was torn asunder and the pass formed by the War-God Kártikeya and Paraśuráma.

741 “The Uttara Kurus, it should be remarked, may have been a real people, as they are mentioned in the Aitareya Bráhmaṇa, VIII. 14.… Wherefore the several nations who dwell in this northern quarter, beyond the Himavat, the Uttara Kurus and the Uttara Madras are consecrated to glorious dominion, and people term them the glorious. In another passage of the same work, however, the Uttara Kurus are treated as belonging to the domain of mythology.” MUIR’S _Sanskrit Texts_. Vol. I. p. 494. See ADDITIONAL NOTES.

742 The Moon-mountain.

743 The Rudras are the same as the storm winds, more usually called Maruts, and are often associated with Indra. In the later mythology the Rudras are regarded as inferior manifestations of Śiva, and most of their names are also names of Śiva.

744 Canto IX.

745 Udayagiri or the hill from which the sun rises.

746 Asta is the mountain behind which the sun sets.

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.

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.”