In the introduction I have discussed the antiquity of the Ramayan; and by means of those critical and inductive proofs which are all that an antiquity without precise historical dates can furnish I have endeavoured to establish with all the certainty that the subject admitted, that the original composition of the Ramayan is to be assigned to about the twelfth century before the Christian era. Not that I believe that the epic then sprang to life in the form in which we now possess it; I think, and I have elsewhere expressed the opinion, that the poem during the course of its rhapsodical and oral propagation appropriated by way of episodes, traditions, legends and ancient myths.… But as far as regards the epic poem properly so called which celebrates the expedition of Rama against the Rakshases I think that I have sufficiently shown that its origin and first appearance should be placed about the twelfth century B.C.; nor have I hitherto met with anything to oppose this chronological result, or to oblige me to rectify or reject it.… But an eminent philologist already quoted, deeply versed in these studies, A. Weber, has expressed in some of his writings a totally different opinion; and the authority of his name, if not the number and cogency of his arguments, compels me to say something on the subject. From the fact or rather the assumption that Megasthenes(1184) who lived some time in India has made no mention either of the Mahabharat or the Ramayan Professor Weber argues that neither of these poems could have existed at that time; as regards the Ramayan, the unity of its composition, the chain that binds together its different parts, and its allegorical character, show it, says Professor Weber, to be much more recent than the age to which I have assigned it, near to our own era, and according to him, later than the Mahabharat. As for Megasthenes it should be observed, that he did not write a history of India, much less a literary history or anything at all resembling one, but a simple description, in great part physical, of India: whence, from his silence on literary matters to draw inferences regarding the history of Sanskrit literature would be the same thing as from the silence of a geologist with respect to the literature of a country whose valleys, mountains, and internal structure he is exploring, to conjecture that such and such a poem or history not mentioned by him did not exist at his time. We have only to look at the fragments of Megasthenes collected and published by Schwanbeck to see what was the nature and scope of his Indica.… But only a few fragments of Megasthenes are extant; and to pretend that they should be argument and proof enough to judge the antiquity of a poem is to press the laws of criticism too far. To Professor Weber's argument as to the more or less recent age of the Ramayan from the unity of its composition, I will make one sole reply, which is that if unity of composition were really a proof of a more recent age, it would be necessary to reduce by a thousand years at least the age of Homer and bring him down to the age of Augustus and Virgil; for certainly there is much more unity of composition, a greater accord and harmony of parts in the Iliad and the Odyssey than in the Ramayan. But in the fine arts perfection is no proof of a recent age: while the experience and the continuous labour of successive ages are necessary to extend and perfect the physical or natural sciences, art which is spontaneous in its nature can produce and has produced in remote times works of such perfection as later ages have not been able to equal."



INDEX OF PRINCIPAL NAMES

Abhijit, 24.

Abhikala, 176.

Abhira, 444.

Abravanti, 374.

Aditi, 31, 57, 58, 125, 201, 245, 246.

Adityas, 246, 403.

Agastya, 5, 9, 40, 132, 151, 239, 240, 242, 244, 262, 265, 280, 375, 480, 491, 500.

Agneya, 178.

Agni, 28, 74, 109, 132, 240, 243, 276.

Agnivarna, 82, 220.

Agniketu, 433 note, 459.

Ahalya, 60, 61, 62.

Ailadhana, 178.

Air, 2, 28, 203.

Airavat, 14, 110, 178, 246, 256, 267, 335, 399, 402, 415, 429, 437, 472.

Aja, 82, 220, 465.

Ajas, 270, 271.

Akampan, 265, 266, 468, 481.

Aksha, 6, 420, 469, 471.

Akurvati, 178.

Alaka, 203 note.

Alambusha, 59, 198, 199.

Alarka, 104, 107.

Amaravati, 13, 203 note, 286.

Ambarisha, 72, 73, 74, 82, 220.

Amurtarajas, 46.

Anala, 455 note.

Anala, 245, 246.

Ananta, 373.

Anaranya, 81, 219, 470.

Anasuya, 9, 226, 227, 228.

Andhak, 264.

Andhras, 549.

Anga, 38.

Angad, 342, 348, 350, 352 ff., 363, 364 note, 367, 374, 379 ff, 391, 402, 425 ff., 439, 442, 445, 448, 456, 458, 459, 475, 479 ff, 505.

Angas, 15, 18, 19, 21, 102.

Angiras, 133, 245.

Anjan, 14, 368, 369.

Anjana, 392.

Ansudhana, 179.

Ansuman, 50, 53, 56, 82, 220.

Anuhlada, 370.

Aparparyat, 178.

Apartala, 175.

Apsarases, 57, 198, 199, 229, 378.

Aptoryam, 24.

Arishta, 424, 425.

Arishtanemi, 49, 245, 392.

Arjun, 86.

Arjuna, 518.

Arthasadhak, 14.

Arun, 246,

Arundhati, 19, 244, 413.

Aryaman, 124.

Aryan, 92.

Asamanj, 50, 53, 82, 138, 220.

Asit, 81, 219.

Asok, 14, 175.

Asoka, 6, 10, 101, 205, 278, 296, 297, 300, 318, 321, 357, 403, 444, 452, 456.

Asta, 377, 379 note.

Asurs, 57, 58, 380, 381, 387, 394, 407, 413, 420.

Asvagriva, 246.

Asvamedh, 29, 236 note.

Asvapati, 89, 131, 178, 183.

Asvatari, 346.

Asvin, 371.

Asvini, 343.

Asvins, 28, 36, 60, 62, 163, 246, 339, 343, 403, 490.

Atikaya, 468, 478 ff.

Atiratra, 24.

Atri, 245, 561.

Aurva, 373 note.

Avanti, 374.

Avindhya, 415.

Ayodhya, 4, 6, 11, 12, 14, 19, 32, 33, 38, 49, 70, 72, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 88, 95, 96, passim.

Ayomukh, 374.

Ayomukhi, 310.

Bahika, 176.

Bahuputra, 245.

Bala, 264.

Balakhilyas, 63, 235, 270, 271, 374.

Bali, 43, 59, 107, 275, 302, 421.

Bali, 5, 9, 29, 318, 324, 328, 329, 333 ff., 344, 356 ff., 362, 364, 366, 367, 379, 380, 391, 404, 412, 420, 440, 442, 448, 456, 458, 475, 478, 500, 503, 505.

Barbars, 66.

Beauty, 26, 29, 58, 88, 283, 455.

Bhadamadra, 246.

Bhadra, 52.

Bhaga, 124, 243.

Bhagirath, 53, 54, 55, 82, 220, 372.

Bhagirathi, 56.

Bharadvaja, 4, 7, 9, 10, 158, 159, 193, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 501.

Bharat, 4, 9, 10, 32, 81, 83, 84, 88, 89, 94, 97, passim.

Bharatas, 550.

Bharunda, 178.

Bhasi, 246.

Bhasakarna, 420.

Bhava, 78.

Bhima, 198.

Bhogavati, 12 note, 267, 375.

Bhrigu, 40, 63, 73, 81, 85, 86, 88, 133, 220.

Brahma, 6, 7, 10, 19, 25, 26, 33, 38, 39, 42, 46, 48, 54, 56, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68, 74, 75, 77, 81, passim.

Brahmadatta, 46, 47.

Brahmadikas, 133 note.

Bhrahmamalas, 548.

Budha, 287.

Buddhist, 219.

Cancer, 109.

Ceylon, 375 note.

Chaitra, 91.

Chaitraratha, 41, 178, 199, 267, 279, 315, 493.

Chakravan, 376.

Champa, 30.

Chanda, 448.

Chandala, 69, 70.

Chandra, 464.

Chatushtom, 24.

Chitra, 111, 250, 283.

Chitrakuta, 4, 9, 160, 161, 197, 200, 201, 202, 209, 235, 236, 317, 416, 501.

Chitraratha, 132.

Cholas, 549.

Chuli, 47.

Chyavan, 81, 220.

Dadhimukh, 426.

Dadhivakra, 364 note.

Daitya, 125, 152, 211, 246, 289, 306, 371, 418.

Daksha, 36, 78, 228, 245, 257, 396.

Danav, 255, 270, 306, 307, 311, 371, 372, 382, 432, 443, 477.

Dandak, 9, 99, 103, 117, 124, 126, 130, 166, 181, 199, 211, 238, 271, 374.

Dandaka, 5.

Danu, 245, 246, 313.

Dapple skin, 64, 65.

Dardar, 110, 198.

Dardur, 448.

Darimukha, 371.

Dasarna, 374.

Dasaratha, 3, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18 ff., 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 34, 41, 61, 62, 77, 79, 80 ff., 91, 92, 95, passim.

Dasyus, 444.

Devamidha, 82.

Devantak, 479, 480.

Devarat, 77, 82, 86.

Devasakha, 378.

Devavati, 515.

Dhanvantari, 57 note.

Dhanyamalini, 481.

Dharmabhrit, 240.

Dharmapal, 14.

Dharmaranya, 46.

Dharmavardhan, 179.

Dhritarashtri, 246.

Dhrishtaketu, 82.

Dhrishti, 14, 202.

Dhruvasandhi, 81, 219.

Dhumra, 371, 448.

Dhumraksha, 433 note, 465, 466.

Dhumrasva, 60, 481.

Dhundhumar, 81, 171, 219.

Diksha, 44.

Dilipa, 5 note, 53, 54, 56, 82, 171, 190, 220.

Diti, 58, 59, 245, 246, 323.

Dragon, 101.

Dridhanetra, 68.

Drishti, 202.

Drona, 464.

Drumakulya, 444.

Dundubhi, 333, 335, 338.

Durdhar, 420.

Durdharsha, 433 note.

Durjaya, 256 note.

Durmukha, 432, 433 note.

Durvasas, 521.

Dushan, 5, 250, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 261, 264, 265, 267-271, 294, 461, 502.

Dwida, 364 note.

Dwijihva, 474.

Dwivid, 371, 428, 430, 449, 451, 475, 483, 484.

Dwivida, 28.

Dyumatsena, 129.

Ekapadakas, 549.

Ekasala, 179.

Fame, 26, 283.

Fate, 42, 68, 70, 71, 81, 119, 122, 123, 130, 181, 182, 195, 256, 293, 296, 309, 343, 349, 351, 354, 386, 404, 415, 439, 492.

Fire, 2, 30, 45, 49, 218, 374.

Fortune, 2, 58, 90, 94, 124, 146, 160, 188, 242, 244, 283, 449, 453.

Fire-god, 74, 124, 328.

Gadhi, 40, 48, 63, 64, 67, 68.

Gaja, 364 note, 371, 429, 449, 459.

Galava, 518.

Gandhamadan, 28, 159, 381, 429, 446, 476.

Gandharva, 199, 256, 258, 259, 278, 285, 351, 396, 425, 437, 441, 454, 466, 468, 491.

Gandharvas, 267, 270, 281, 283, 306, 307, 308, 318, 364, 370, 375, 377, 388, 394, 409, 420, 432, 449, 455, 472.

Gandharvi, 246, 265.

Ganga, 7, 9, 37, 38, 45, 48, 49, passim.

Garga, 133.

Garud, 28, 29, 53, 246, 271, 373, 453, 465, 470, 475.

Gautam, 60, 61, 62, 505.

Gautama, 236.

Gavaksha, 364 note, 429, 449, 468, 475, 476.

Gavaya, 364 note, 371, 429, 448, 468.

Gaya, 482.

Gaya, 216.

Gayatri, 243.

Ghoralohamukhas, 548.

Ghritachi, 46, 198, 367.

Girivraja, 46, 176.

Glory, 301.

Godavari, 245, 247, 248, 249, 282, 303, 310, 374, 500.

Gokarna, 54.

Golabh, 351.

Gomati, 151, 179, 448, 502, 503.

Gopa, 199.

Guha, 4, 9, 152-156, 162, 192, 193, 194, 208, 501.

Guhyakas, 378.

Haha, 198.

Haihayas, 81, 219.

Hanuman, 5, 9, 10, 28, 324 ff., 328, 332, 337, 340, 350, 355, 359, 360, 363, 364 note, 368, 371, 374, 378 ff., 392 ff., 411 ff., 424 ff., 449, 456.

Hara, 448.

Hari, 246.

Haritas, 66.

Haryasva, 82.

Hastinapura, 176.

Hastiprishthak, 179.

Havishyand, 68.

Hayagriva, 346, 376.

Hema, 198, 382.

Hemachandra, 60.

Heti, 515.

Himalaya, 3, 14, 45, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 61, 67, 76, 81, 88.

Himavau, 380.

Hiranyakasipu, 391 note, 407.

Hiranyanabha, 500.

Hladini, 55, 178.

Honour, 283.

Hotri, 24.

Hrasvaroma, 82.

Huhu, 198.

Ikshumati, 80, 176.

Ikshvaku, 2, 11, 13, 18, 24, 25, 35, 59, 60, 69, 70, 71, 73, 81, 82, 83, 90, 94, 96, 103, 219, 390.

Ilval, 241.

Indra, 2, 5, 13, 14, 25, 28, 29, 36, 39, 40, 43 ff., 50, 56, passim.

Indrajanu, 371 note.

Indrajit, 420, 432, 436, 437, 441, 455, 459 ff., 482, 485.

Indrasatru, 433 note.

Indrasira, 178.

Iravati, 246.

Jabali, 505.

Jahnu, 55.

Jahnavi, 49, 55, 154.

Jamadagni, 85, 86, 87, 119.

Jambavan, 371, 374, 388, 391, 393, 402, 425, 428, 429, 439, 446, 448, 456, 464, 483, 503.

Jambudvip, 51, 373.

Jambumali, 418, 419, 420, 459, 460.

Jambuprastha, 179.

Jambuvatu, 364 note.

Janak, 4, 8, 9, 21, 45, 60, 61, 62, 77-85, 88, 090, passim.

Janamejaya, 171.

Janasthan, 225, 251, 254, 255, 264, 265, 271, 281, 282, 294, 295, 298, 308, 404, 439, 454, 463, 474, 493, 500.

Jatarupa, 373.

Jatayu, 5.

Jatayus, 245, 247, 280, 288, 290, 308, 385 ff., 500, 502.

Java, 231.

Javali, 20, 80, 174, 217, 218, 219, 222.

Jaya, 36.

Jayanta, 14, 175.

Jumna, 109, 501, 502.

Jupiter, 144.

Justice, 3, 35, 42, 149, 243, 346, 454.

Jyotishtom, 24.

Kabandha, 5, 9, 310-316, 446, 500.

Kadru, 246.

Kadruma, 246.

Kaikasi, 516.

Kaikeyi, 3, 4, 9, 27, 32, 88, 96-103, passim.

Kailasa, 38, 85, 92, 96, 110, 111, 267, 286, 357, 364, 368, 369, 373, 378, 421, 431.

Kakustha, 35, 37, 82, 109, 110, 123, 137, 142, 147, 149, 151, 153, 192, 208, 211, 220, 311.

Kala, 378.

Kalak, 246.

Kalaka, 245, 246.

Kalakamuka, 256 note.

Kalamahi, 372.

Kalinda, 178.

Kalindi, 81, 160, 220.

Kalinga, 179.

Kalingas, 549,

Kalmashapada, 82, 220.

Kama 37, 38, 42, 283, 286, 296.

Kamboja, 13, 66.

Kambojas, 66.

Kampili, 47

Kandu, 118, 380, 440.

Kandarpa, 37, 74, 75, 76, 250, 269.

Kanva, 440.

Kanyakubja, 47.

Kapil, 51, 52, 53.

Kapivati, 179.

Kardam, 245.

Karnapravaranas, 548.

Kartikeya, 243.

Karttavirya, 518.

Kasi, 21, 102.

Kasikosalas, 548.

Kasyap, 15, 16, 20, 30, 57-59, 80, 81, 86, 87, 91, 92, 118, 219, 215, passim.

Katyayan, 505.

Katyayana, 80, 174.

Kausalya, 3, 23, 27, 30, 31, 79, 84, 88, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, passim.

Kausambi, 46.

Kausikas, 549.

Kausiki, 48, 372.

Kaveri, 375.

Kaustubha, 58.

Kavya, 40.

Kekaya, 21, 84, 88, 90, 137, 139, 174, 175.

Kerala, 190.

Keralas, 549.

Kesari, 371.

Kesini, 49, 50.

Khara, 9, 225, 250 ff., 281, 288, 290, 294, 295, 433, 446, 451, 461, 477, 493.

Kinnars, 270, 306, 308, 318, 321, 373, 425.

Kimpurushas, 28 note.

Kiratas, 66, 549.

Kirtirat, 82.

Kirtiratha, 82.

Kishkindha, 5, 333, 334, 336, 338, 339, 351, 357, 362, 369, 385, 449, 464, 500.

Kosal, 11, 102, 273, 307, 359, 418.

Kosala, 151, 173.

Krathan, 448.

Kratu, 245.

Krauncha, 310, 378, 476.

Kraunchi, 246.

Krisasva, 36, 41, 43.

Krishna, 497.

Krishnagiri, 448.

Krishnveni, 374.

Krita, 57, 395.

Krodhavasa, 245, 246.

Kshatriyas, 246, 346.

Kukshi, 81, 219.

Kulinga, 176.

Kumbha, 484.

Kumbhakarna, 10, 250, 399, 411, 435 ff., 441, 470 ff.

Kumuda, 364 note, 448.

Kunjar, 375, 392.

Kuru(s), North, 198, 203, 315.

Kurujangal, 176.

Kusa, 10, 46, 48, 63, 526.

Kusadhwaj, 80, 82, 88.

Kusamba, 46.

Kusanabha, 46, 47, 48, 63.

Kusasva, 60.

Kusik, 33, 35, 36, 38, 44, 56, 62, 63, 68, 70 ff., 83.

Kutika, 179.

Kutikoshtika, 179.

Kuvera, 23, 88, 109, 110, 111, 112, 198, 199, 204, 232, 267, 378, 422, 431, 432, 483.

Lakshman, 4, 8, 11, 32, 36, 38, 40, 41, 44, 45, 56, 61, 79, 80, 82-84, 88, 91, 94, 97, 98, passim.

Lakshmi, 88, 116, 146, 227, 400, 453, 462, 497.

Lamba, 397.

Lanka, 5, 10, 265, 267, 284, 286, 293, 295-297, 367, 387, 397, 411, 423 ff., 439, 456 ff.

Lankatankata, 515.

Lava, 10, 526.

Lohitya, 179.

Lokapalas, 485.

Lomapad, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 30.

Madhavi, 520.

Madhu, 26, 51, 57, 87, 95.

Madhuka, 245.

Madhushyand, 68, 74.

Madrakas, 550.

Magadh, 46, 102.

Magadnas, 548.

Magha, 83.

Mahabir, 82.

Mahabala, 433 note.

Mahabharat, 520, 524, 551, 554.

Mahadeva, 61, 515.

Mahakapala, 256 note, 260.

Mahamali, 256 note.

Mahandhrak, 82.

Mahapadma, 14, 52.

Mahaparasva, 433, 436, 455, 478, 480, 487.

Maharath, 68.

Maharoma, 82.

Maharun, 368.

Mahasaila, 368.

Mahendra, 28, 59, 86, 87, 88, 140, 167, 213, 243, 244, 307, 336, 344, 364, 368, 370, 375, 490, 531, 554.

Maheswar, 369, 498.

Mahi, 372.

Mahishmati, 518.

Mahishikas, 549.

Mahodar, 433 note, 450, 455, 474, 478 ff.

Mahodaya, 46, 70, 71, 488.

Mainaka, 10, 394, 500 note.

Mainda, 28, 364 note, 371, 428, 430, 439, 449, 451, 458, 482, 483.

Makaraksha, 485 note.

Malaja, 39.

Malavas, 548.

Malaya, 198, 324, 328, 375, 379, 430.

Mali, 515, 516.

Malini, 175, 539.

Malyavan, 454, 455.

Malyavat, 515, 516.

Manas, 38.

Mandakarni, 240.

Mandakini, 200, 201, 203, 209, 234, 235, 304, 322, 416 note.

Mandali, 556.

Mandar, 57, 163, 285, 362, 368, 372, 399, 402, 421, 485, 491, 493, 525.

Mandari, 444.

Mandhata, 81, 219, 347, 518.

Mandavi, 84.

Mandavya, 226 note.

Mandehas, 373.

Mandodari, 402, 492, 500, 516.

Mandra, 14.

Manibhadra, 441.

Manthara, 40, 96, 97, 99, 187.

Manu, 11, 12, 13, 81, 103, 151, 179, 219, 245, 246, 347, 490, 505, 537, 555.

Maricha, 58.

Maricha, 5, 9, 35, 39, 40, 44, 266, 271-280, 298.

Marichi, 81, 91, 219, 245.

Marichipas, 270, 271.

Markandeya, 80, 174.

Mars, 93, 144, 339, 404, 445, 467, 489.

Maru, 82, 220.

Maruts, 25, 54, 59, 403, 517, 547, 555.

Mashas, 270, 271.

Matali, 109, 142, 489, 491, 493.

Matanga, 14, 246, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 336, 337, 380.

Matangi, 246.

Matarisva, 389.

Matsya, 102, 523, 537, 549.

Maya, 293, 382, 432, 488.

Maya, 293, 521.

Mayavi, 333, 334, 379.

Meghamali, 256 note.

Meghanada, 10.

Mekhal, 374.

Mena, 49, 394 note.

Menaka, 74.

Mercury, 144, 339, 467.

Meru, 4, 49, 92, 109, 110, 142, 182, 232, 236, 254, 291, 315, 368, 370, 377, 380, 418, 493.

Merusavarni, 382.

Mina, 32.

Misrakesi, 199.

Mithi, 82.

Mithila, 9 note, 21, 45, 60, 61, 78, 81, 83, 84, 85.

Mitraghna, 459.

Mlechchhas, 66, 537, 550.

Modesty, 26.

Moon, 30, 42, 58, 109 ff., 124, 218, 227, 243, 276, 367, 413, 414, 488.

Mriga, 14.

Mrigamanda, 246.

Mrigi, 246.

Mudgalya, 174.

Nabhag, 82, 220.

Nagadanta, 198.

Nagas, 12, 55, 66, 68, 145, 270, 273, 395, 409, 413, 420, 427, 518.

Nahush, 82, 95, 171, 190, 220, 307.

Nairrit, 430.

Nala, 10, 340, 364 note, 428, 444, 445, 448, 449, 468, 475, 483.

Nala, 246.

Nalini, 55, 203, 204, 267, 436.

Namuchi, 39, 261, 264, 275, 336.

Nanda, 415.

Nandan, 26, 175, 200, 267, 279, 315, 316, 426.

Nandi, 249, 421.

Nandigrama, 4, 6, 9, 224, 502, 503.

Nandisvara, 471.

Nandivardhan, 82.

Narad, 1, 2, 8, 9, 124, 199, 543.

Narak, 479.

Narantak, 479.

Narayan, 25, 26, 95, 393, 474, 497, 516, 517, 522, 535, 559.

Narmada, 374, 448, 518.

Nikumbha, 432, 433 note, 437, 459, 484.

Nila, 28, 340, 352, 360, 364 note, 371, 374, 428, 429, 430, 446, 448, 449, 456, 458, 459, 469, 472, 475, 482.

Nimi, 77, 82.

Nisakar, 389, 390.

Nishadas, 4, 152, 192, 196, 271, 501, 537.

Ocean, 10, 95, 144, 285, 286, 336, 346, 387.

Oshthakarnakas, 548.

Pahlavas, 66.

Paka, 252, 297, 498.

Pampa, 5, 9, 235, 293, 314-321, 327.

Panas, 371, 428, 448, 464.

Panasa, 455 note.

Panchajan, 376.

Panchala, 176, 539.

Panchapsaras, 240.

Panchavata, 9.

Panchavati, 244, 245, 247.

Pandyas, 375, 549.

Parasara, 517.

Parasurama, 119 note, 523, 531.

Paraviraksha, 256 note.

Pariyatra, 376, 448.

Parjanya, 112, 174, 261, 448.

Parvati, 249 note, 515, 542.

Paulastya, 472.

Paulomi, 29, 370.

Pavani, 55.

Phalguni, 83.

Pinaka, 67.

Pitris, 550.

Prabhava, 363.

Prachetas, 1, 245.

Praghas, 420, 459, 460.

Pragvat, 179.

Prahasta, 399, 418, 419, 421, 422, 432 ff., 441, 451, 452, 455, 456, 471, 481.

Praheti, 515.

Prahlada, 391.

Prajangha, 459, 460.

Prajapati, 133 note, 554, 560.

Pralamba, 175.

Pramatha, 256 note.

Pramathi, 260, 448.

Pramati, 455 note.

Prasenajit, 81, 219.

Prasravan, 304, 357, 380, 383, 415, 426.

Prasthalas, 550.

Prasussruka, 82, 220.

Pratindhak, 82.

Pravargya, 22.

Prayag, 158, 159, 196.

Prithu, 81, 219.

Prithusyama, 256 note.

Proshthapada, 32.

Pulah, 245.

Pulastya, 35, 245, 254, 268, 288, 408, 515.

Pulindas, 550.

Puloma, 370.

Punarvasu, 93.

Pundarika, 199.

Pundras, 548, 549.

Punjikasthala, 436, 552.

Puranda, 522.

Purandara, 384, 522.

Pururavas, 286, 544, 545.

Purusha, 256 note, 559.

Purushadak, 82, 220.

Purushottam, 498, 517.

Pusha, 124.

Pushpak, 10, 80, 286, 499, 519.

Pushya, 32, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 109, 126.

Rabhasa, 433 note.

Raghava, 5 note.

Raghu, 5, 9, 22, 32 ff., 50, 56, 61, passim.

Raghunandana, 522.

Rahu, 93, 223, 261, 272, 303, 351, 480.

Rain, Lord of, 92, 222.

Rajagriha, 174, 175.

Rama, passim.

Ramayana, 8 note, 10, 11, 541, 542.

Rambha, 75, 232, 448.

Ramana, 199.

Rasmiketu, 433 note, 459.

Ravan, 5, 9, 10, 25, 26, 32, 35, passim.

Renuka, 63, 119.

Richika, 48, 73, 86.

Right, 42, 68.

Riksharajas, 386, 442.

Rikshavan, 448.

Rishabh, 373, 375, 429, 446, 476, 483.

Rishtikas, 549.

Rishyamuka, 9, 314, 315, 316, 318 ff., 332, 335, 339, 340, 353, 380, 500.

Rishyasring, 15-24, 29, 30.

Rohini, 4, 112, 223, 227, 246, 251, 282, 287, 367, 404, 413, 445.

Rohitas, 376, 558.

Rudhirasana, 256 note.

Rudra, 49, 57, 67, 77, 78, 162, 249, 257, 264, 283, 296, 378, 413, 483.

Rudras, 246, 558.

Rukmini, 517.

Ruma, 346, 349, 350, 363, 366, 367, 371, 385, 403.

Ruman, 371.

Sachi, 29, 202, 234, 238, 276, 286, 297, 370, 408, 415, 494, 519, 522.

Sadhyas, 490, 555, 558, 559.

Sagar, 11, 50 ff., 82, 119, 137, 171, 441.

Sahadeva, 60.

Sahya, 429, 430.

Saivya, 104, 107, 171, 533.

Sakas, 66, 550.

Sakra, 75, 234, 307, 313, 336, 344, 448, 464.

Salmali, 176, 539.

Salyakartan, 178.

Saman, 186, 326, 359.

Sambar, 479.

Sambara, 99, 100.

Sampati, 5, 9, 246, 364 note, 385, 387 ff., 412, 455 note, 459, 460, 464.

Samprakshalas, 235.

Sanatkumar, 15, 16.

Sandhya, 515.

Sanharas, 36.

Sanhrada, 474.

Sanischar, 283.

Sankan, 82.

Sankar, 57, 335.

Sankasya, 80, 81, 82, 83.

Sankha, 555.

Sankhan, 220, 432.

Sanrochan, 448.

Sansray, 245.

Santa, 16, 19, 29, 30, 31.

Sarabh, 364 note, 439, 476.

Sarabhanga, 9, 233, 234, 235, 236, 265, 502.

Saradanda, 176, 539.

Sarama, 452, 453.

Saran, 446, 447, 455.

Sarandib, 375 note.

Saranga, 556.

Sarasvati, 178, 372, 516, 522.

Sardula, 441, 449, 450.

Sarduli, 246.

Sarju, 11, 20, 22, 36, 37, 38, 50, passim.

Sarvabhauma, 429.

Sarvartirtha, 179.

Sasivindhus, 81, 219.

Satabali, 371, 377, 379, 380.

Satadru, 178, 539.

Satahrada, 231.

Satananda, 62, 63, 77, 79, 80, 81, 84.

Satrughna, 32, 83, 84, 88, 89, 97, passim.

Satrunjay, 504.

Satyavan, 129.

Satyavati, 48.

Savitri, 129, 227.

Savari, 315, 316, 317.

Saumanas, 373.

Savarni, 377.

Seven Rishis, 23.

Sesha, 245.

Siddharth, 14, 137, 138, 175.

Siddhas, 28 note, 540, 559.

Sighraga, 82, 220.

Sila, 178.

Silavaha, 178.

Sindhu, 13, 21, 55, 102, 372, 376, 443.

Sinhika, 10, 396.

Sisir(a), 372, 555.

Sita, 4 ff., 55, 78, 79, 83, 84, 88, 93, passim.

Siva, 4, 36, 42, 54, 55, 57, 67, 78, 82, 85, 86, 109, 110, 205, 523, 524, 543, 554.

Skanda, 554.

Soma, 52, 58, 198, 267, 378, 554.

Somadatta, 60.

Somada, 47.

Somagiri, 376, 378.

Sona, 45, 48, 372.

Sringavera, 4, 192, 196, 223, 501, 502.

Srinjay, 60.

Srutakirti, 84.

Sthanu, 25, 37, 245.

Sthanumati, 179.

Sthulaksha, 256 note, 260.

Sthulasiras, 313.

Subahu, 364 note.

Suchakshu, 55.

Suchandra, 60.

Suchi, 238.

Sudama, 178.

Sudaman, 81, 176.

Sudarsan, 82, 83, 220, 373, 378, 448.

Sudarsandwip, 374.

Sudhanva, 82.

Sudhriti, 82.

Sudras, 6, 13, 246.

Sugriva, 5, 6, 9, 28, 29, 314, 316, 318, 324 ff., 337, 339, 344, 346 ff., 371, 375 ff., 412, 414, 422, 424, 430, 439 ff., 446, 450, 519, 545.

Suka, 442, 446, 447, 455 ff.

Sukesa, 515, 516.

Suketu, 39, 82.

Suki, 246.

Sukra, 124, 210, 279, 384, 429.

Sumali, 515, 516.

Sumagadhi, 46.

Sumantra, 15, 16, 19, 21, 80, 92, passim.

Sumati, 49, 50, 59, 60.

Sumitra, 27, 30, 32, 88, 94, passim.

Sun, 93, 109, 110, 124, 243.

Sunabha, 425.

Sunahsepha, 72, 73, 74

Sunda, 35, 39.

Sunetra, 364 note.

Suparna, 53, 125, 231, 343, 349, 388.

Suparsva, 388.

Supatala, 364 note.

Suptaghna, 433 note.

Sura, 58.

Surabhi, 183, 246.

Surapati, 522.

Suras, 58.

Surasa, 246, 395.

Surashtra, 21, 102, 376.

Surasenas, 550.

Surpanakha, 5, 9, 249 ff., 267 ff., 288, 502.

Surya, 555.

Suryaksha, 364 note.

Suryasatru, 433 note.

Suryavan, 375.

Susandhi, 81, 219.

Sushen, 28, 351, 364 note, 376, 379, 380.

Sutanu, 199.

Sutikshna, 9, 234, 236, 237, 240, 241.

Suvahu, 35, 44, 45, 146.

Suvarat, 220.

Suvela, 450, 456, 457.

Suvira, 21, 102.

Suyajna, 20, 132.

Svayambhu, 394.

Svayamprabha, 382.

Svetaranya, 264.

Swarga, 54, 101, 202, 493.

Swarnaroma, 82.

Sweta, 448.

Syama, 160.

Syandika, 151.

Syenagami, 256 note, 260.

Syeni, 246.

Tadaka, 38, 39, 40, 41.

Tadakeya, 266.

Taittiriya, 132.

Takshak, 432.

Takshaka, 267.

Talajanghas, 81, 219.

Tamasa, 7, 147, 148, 149.

Tamra, 245, 246.

Tamraparni, 375.

Tapan, 459, 555.

Tara, 364 note, 379 ff.

Tara, 9, 336, 349 ff., 355, 359, 362, 363, 366, 367, 369, 371, 385, 403, 449, 546.

Tarak, 430.

Tarkshya, 214.

Ten-necked, 250.

Thirty-three Gods, 51.

Thousand-eyed, 41, 59, 60, 74, 75, 76, 86, 90, 112, 252, 297, 504.

Three-eyed God, 86.

Thunderer, 234.

Titan, 58, 67, 72, 79, 109, 114, 124.

Toran, 179.

Town-Destroyer, 59, 60.

Trident, 68.

Trident-wielding, 54, 57.

Trijat, 133.

Trijata, 410, 463.

Trikuta, 456, 457, 500, 515.

Trinavindu, 515.

Tripathaga, 56.

Tripur, 306.

Tripura, 85, 86.

Trisanku, 68-72, 81, 144, 219, 429.

Trisira, 9.

Trisiras, 256 note, 260, 261, 264, 267, 271, 478, 479, 480, 502.

Tumburu, 198, 199, 232.

Uchchaihsravas, 58, 522.

Udayagiri, 379 note.

Udavasu, 82.

Ujjihana, 179.

Ukthya, 24.

Uma, 49, 54, 205, 249 note, 471, 542, 543.

Upasad, 22.

Upasunda, 35.

Upendra, 74, 559.

Urmila, 47, 83, 84, 88, 228.

Urvasi, 286, 544, 545.

Usanas, 382.

Utkal, 374.

Uttanika, 179, 539.

Vahli, 13.

Vahlika, 376.

Vahni, 555.

Vaidyut, 375.

Vaijayanta, 99, 179, 522.

Vaikhanasas, 270, 271, 374.

Vainateya, 388.

Vaisravan, 265, 285, 378, 414, 515.

Vaisyas, 246.

Vaitarani, 293.

Vajra, 376.

Vajradanshtra, 432, 433 note, 466, 467.

Valmiki, 1, 7-11, 161, 519, 542.

Vamadeva, 14, 79, 80, 91, 174, 222, 505.

Vamana, 14, 523.

Vana, 81, 219.

Vanayu, 13.

Vangas, 102.

Varadas, 550.

Varun, 1 note, 28, 42, 67, 88, 109, 124, 228, 243, 272, 293, 338, 377, 383, 448, 471, 518.

Varasya, 256 note.

Varutha, 179.

Vasav, 92.

Vasava, 236, 522.

Vasishtha, 14, 15, 19-22, 25, 32, passim.

Vasudeva, 51, 52.

Vasuki, 57, 267, 375, 432, 518, 522.

Vasus, 14, 46, 246, 283, 377, 403, 522, 554.

Vasvaukasara, 203.

Vatapi, 241, 280.

Vayu, 59, 243, 369, 427, 428, 555.

Vedas, 1 note, 3, 12, 22, 70, 89, 109, 125, 147, 184, 229, 559.

Vedasruti, 151.

Vedavati, 470, 517.

Vegadarsi, 429, 446, 483.

Vena, 448, 537.

Vibhandak, 15, 16, 17, 18, 25.

Vibhishan, 6, 10, 250, 273, 415, 422, 423, 433 ff., 449 ff., 472, 483, 487 ff., 516.

Vibudh, 82.

Vidarbha, 46, 49.

Vidarbhas, 549.

Videha, 79 ff., 129, 130, 142, 166, 195, 227.

Videhan, 9, 79, 95, 104, 119, 125, passim.

Videhas, 548.

Vidyadhari, 203 note.

Vidyujjihva, 450.

Vidyunmali, 364 note.

Vidyutkesa, 515.

Vihangama, 256 note.

Vijay, 14, 36, 175, 505.

Vikata, 409.

Vikrit, 245.

Vikukshi, 81, 219.

Vinata, 179, 379, 380, 388, 448.

Vinata, 53, 125, 246.

Vindhya, 14, 51, 242, 364, 370, 374, 380.

Vindu, 55.

Vipasa, 176, 539.

Virabahu, 364 note.

Viradha, 5, 9, 229, 232, 404, 446, 502.

Viraj, 124.

Viramatsya, 178.

Virochan, 40, 43.

Virtue, 223, 272.

Virupaksha, 52, 420, 433, 459, 460, 487.

Visakhas, 144, 430.

Visala, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62.

Vishnu, 1 note, 2, 3, 25, 32, 40, passim.

Visravas, 35, 309, 408, 515, 516.

Visvachi, 198.

Visvajit, 24.

Visvakarma, 28, 42, 198, 376, 387, 444, 445, 448, 499, 500, 515, 556.

Visvamitra, 9, 32 ff., 39, 41, 44, 45, passim.

Visvarupa, 353.

Visvas, 377.

Visvavasu, 198.

Visvedevas, 162.

Vitardan, 474.

Vivasvat, 81, 171, 219, 245, 386, 532.

Vrana, 444.

Vrihadratha, 82.

Vrihaspati, 28, 31, 95, 124, 210, 307, 464, 517.

Vritra, 125, 264, 288, 387, 487, 491, 536.

Vulture-king, 9.

War-god, 124, 476.

Wind, 30, 218.

Wind-god, 10, 36, 42, 68, 325, 326, 379, 392 ff., 417 ff., 449, 470, 478, 481, 488, 502, 503.

Yavadwipa, 372.

Yajnakopa, 433 note, 459.

Yajush, 326.

Yajnasatru, 256 note.

Yaksha, 236 note, 306, 318, 363, 375, 394, 420, 422, 425, 431, 454, 458, 468.

Yama, 68, 71, 112, 117, 124, 140, 166, 171, 241, 248, 262, 275, 287, 313, 343 ff., 432, 437, 449, 472, 475, 496, 518, 554.

Yamuna, 158, 159, 160, 178, 214, 223, 372.

Yamun, 372.

Yavanas, 66, 550.

Yayati, 82, 95, 107, 119, 163, 186, 307, 344.

Yudhajit, 84, 88, 180, 190.

Yupaksha, 420, 472.

Yuvanasva, 81, 219.



FOOTNOTES

1 The MSS. vary very considerably in these stanzas of invocation: many lines are generally prefixed in which not only the poet, but those who play the chief parts in the poem are panegyrized. It is self-apparent that they are not by the author of the Ramayan himself.

2 "Valmiki was the son of Varuna, the regent of the waters, one of whose names is Prachetas. According to the Adhyatma Ramayana, the sage, although a Brahman by birth, associated with foresters and robbers. Attacking on one occasion the seven Rishis, they expostulated with him successfully, and taught him the mantra of Rama reversed, or Mara, Mara, in the inaudible repetition of which he remained immovable for thousands of years, so that when the sages returned to the same spot they found him still there, converted into a valmik or ant-hill, by the nests of the termites, whence his name of Valmiki."

WILSON. Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, Vol. I. p. 313.

"Valmiki is said to have lived a solitary life in the woods: he is called both a muni and a rishi. The former word properly signifies an anchorite or hermit; the latter has reference chiefly to wisdom. The two words are frequently used promiscuously, and may both be rendered by the Latin vates in its earliest meaning of seer: Valmiki was both poet and seer, as he is said to have sung the exploits of Rama by the aid of divining insight rather than of knowledge naturally acquired." SCHLEGEL.

3 Literally, Kokila, the Koil, or Indian Cuckoo. Schlegel translates "luscinium."

4 Comparison with the Ganges is implied, that river being called the purifier of the world.

5 "This name may have been given to the father of Valmiki allegorically. If we look at the derivation of the word (pra, before, and chetas, mind) it is as if the poet were called the son of Prometheus, the Forethinker." SCHLEGEL.

6 Called in Sanskrit also Bala-Kanda, and in Hindi Bal-Kand, i.e. the Book describing Rama's childhood, bala meaning a boy up to his sixteenth year.

7 A divine saint, son of Brahma. He is the eloquent messenger of the Gods, a musician of exquisite skill, and the inventor of the vina or Indian lute. He bears a strong resemblance to Hermes or Mercury.

8 This mystic syllable, said to typify the supreme Deity, the Gods collectively, the Vedas, the three spheres of the world, the three holy fires, the three steps of Vishnu etc., prefaces the prayers and most venerated writings of the Hindus.

9 This colloquy is supposed to have taken place about sixteen years after Rama's return from his wanderings and occupation of his ancestral throne.

10 Called also Sri and Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, the Queen of Beauty as well as the Dea Fortuna. Her birth "from the full-flushed wave" is described in Canto XLV of this Book.

11 One of the most prominent objects of worship in the Rig-veda, Indra was superseded in later times by the more popular deities Vishnu and Siva. He is the God of the firmament, and answers in many respects to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. See Additional Notes.

12 The second God of the Trimurti or Indian Trinity. Derived from the root vis to penetrate, the meaning of the name appears to be he who penetrates or pervades all things. An embodiment of the preserving power of nature, he is worshipped as a Saviour who has nine times been incarnate for the good of the world and will descend on earth once more. See Additional Notes and Muir's Sanskrit Texts passim.

13 In Sanskrit devarshi. Rishi is the general appellation of sages, and another word is frequently prefixed to distinguish the degrees. A Brahmarshi is a theologian or Brahmanical sage; a Rajarshi is a royal sage or sainted king; a Devarshi is a divine or deified sage or saint.

14 Trikalajna. Literally knower of the three times. Both Schlegel and Gorresio quote Homer's.

Ὅς ἤδη τ' ἐόντα, τά τ' ἐσσόμενα, πρό τ' ἐόντα.

"That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view, The past, the present, and the future knew."

The Bombay edition reads trilokajna, who knows the three worlds (earth, air and heaven.) "It is by tapas (austere fervour) that rishis of subdued souls, subsisting on roots, fruits and air, obtain a vision of the three worlds with all things moving and stationary." MANU, XI. 236.

15 Son of Manu, the first king of Kosala and founder of the solar dynasty or family of the Children of the Sun, the God of that luminary being the father of Manu.

16 The Indians paid great attention to the art of physiognomy and believed that character and fortune could be foretold not from the face only but from marks upon the neck and hands. Three lines under the chin like those at the mouth of a conch (Sankha) were regarded as a peculiarly auspicious sign indicating, as did also the mark of Vishnu's discus on the hand, one born to be a chakravartin or universal emperor. In the palmistry of Europe the line of fortune, as well as the line of life, is in the hand. Cardan says that marks on the nails and teeth also show what is to happen to us: "Sunt etiam in nobis vestigia quaedam futurorum eventuum in unguibus atque etiam in dentibus." Though the palmy days of Indian chiromancy have passed away, the art is still to some extent studied and believed in.

17 Long arms were regarded as a sign of heroic strength.

18 "Veda means originally knowing or knowledge, and this name is given by the Brahmans not to one work, but to the whole body of their most ancient sacred literature. Veda is the same word which appears in the Greek οίδα, I know, and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit. The name of Veda is commonly given to four collections of hymns, which are respectively known by the names of Rig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sama-veda, and Atharva-veda."

"As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the ancestors of the Aryan race,—with those very people who at the rising and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening. These men were the true ancestors of our race, and the Veda is the oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany: not in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Palestine."

Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. I. pp. 8. 4.

19 As with the ancient Persians and Scythians, Indian princes were carefully instructed in archery which stands for military science in general, of which, among Hindu heroes, it was the most important branch.

20 Chief of the three queens of Dasaratha and mother of Rama.

21 From hima snow, (Greek χειμ-ών, Latin hiems) and alaya abode, the Mansion of snow.

22 The moon (Soma, Indu, Chandra etc.) is masculine with the Indians as with the Germans.

23 Kuvera, the Indian Plutus, or God of Wealth.

24 The events here briefly mentioned will be related fully in the course of the poem. The first four cantos are introductory, and are evidently the work of a later hand than Valmiki's.

25 "Chandra, or the Moon, is fabled to have been married to the twenty-seven daughters of the patriarch Daksha, or Asvini and the rest, who are in fact personifications of the Lunar Asterisms. His favourite amongst them was Rohini to whom he so wholly devoted himself as to neglect the rest. They complained to their father, and Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. Padma, Purana, Swarga-Khanda, Sec. II. Rohini in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran." WILSON, Specimens of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. p. 234.

The Bengal recension has a different reading:

"Shone with her husband like the light Attendant on the Lord of Night."

26 The garb prescribed for ascetics by Manu.

27 "Mount Meru, situated like Kailasa in the lofty regions to the north of the Himalayas, is celebrated in the traditions and myths of India. Meru and Kailasa are the two Indian Olympi. Perhaps they were held in such veneration because the Sanskrit-speaking Indians remembered the ancient home where they dwelt with the other primitive peoples of their family before they descended to occupy the vast plains which extend between the Indus and the Ganges." GORRESIO.

28 The third God of the Indian Triad, the God of destruction and reproduction. See Additional Notes.

29 The epithet dwija, or twice-born, is usually appropriate to Brahmans, but is applicable to the three higher castes. Investiture with the sacred thread and initiation of the neophyte into certain religious mysteries are regarded as his regeneration or second birth.

30 His shoes to be a memorial of the absent heir and to maintain his right. Kalidasa (Raghuvansa, XII. 17.) says that they were to be adhidevate or guardian deities of the kingdom.

31 Jatayu, a semi-divine bird, the friend of Rama, who fought in defence of Sita.

32 Raghu was one of the most celebrated ancestors of Rama whose commonest appellation is, therefore, Raghava or descendant of Raghu. Kalidasa in the Raghuransa makes him the son of Dilipa and great-grandfather of Rama. See Idylls from the Sanskrit, "Aja" and "Dilipa."

33 Dundhubi.

34 Literally ten yojanas. The yojana is a measure of uncertain length variously reckoned as equal to nine miles, five, and a little less.

35 Ceylon.

36 The Jonesia Asoka is a most beautiful tree bearing a profusion of red blossoms.

37 Brahma, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first God of the Indian Trinity, although, as Kalidasa says:

"Of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, each may be First, second, third, amid the blessed Three."

Brahma had guaranteed Ravan's life against all enemies except man.

38 Ocean personified.

39 The rocks lying between Ceylon and the mainland are still called Rama's Bridge by the Hindus.

40 "The Brahmans, with a system rather cosmogonical than chronological, divide the present mundane period into four ages or yugas as they call them: the Krita, the Treta, the Dwapara, and the Kali. The Krita, called also the Deva-yuga or that of the Gods, is the age of truth, the perfect age, the Treta is the age of the three sacred fires, domestic and sacrificial; the Dwapara is the age of doubt; the Kali, the present age, is the age of evil." GORRESIO.

41 The ancient kings of India enjoyed lives of more than patriarchal length as will appear in the course of the poem.

42 Sudras, men of the fourth and lowest pure caste, were not allowed to read the poem, but might hear it recited.

43 The three slokes or distichs which these twelve lines represent are evidently a still later and very awkward addition to the introduction.

44 There are several rivers in India of this name, now corrupted into Tonse. The river here spoken of is that which falls into the Ganges a little below Allahabad.

45 "In Book II, Canto LIV, we meet with a saint of this name presiding over a convent of disciples in his hermitage at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna. Thence the later author of these introductory cantos has borrowed the name and person, inconsistently indeed, but with the intention of enhancing the dignity of the poet by ascribing to him so celebrated a disciple." SCHLEGEL.

46 The poet plays upon the similarity in sound of the two words: soka, means grief, sloka, the heroic measure in which the poem is composed. It need scarcely be said that the derivation is fanciful.

47 Brahma, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first person of the divine triad of India. The four heads with which he is represented are supposed to have allusion to the four corners of the earth which he is sometimes considered to personify. As an object of adoration Brahma has been entirely superseded by Siva and Vishnu. In the whole of India there is, I believe, but one temple dedicated to his worship. In this point the first of the Indian triad curiously resembles the last of the divine fraternity of Greece, Aides the brother of Zeus and Poseidon. "In all Greece, says Pausanias, there is no single temple of Aides, except at a single spot in Elis." See Gladstone's Juventus Mundi, p. 253.

48 The argha or arghya was a libation or offering to a deity, a Brahman, or other venerable personage. According to one authority it consisted of water, milk, the points of Kusa-grass, curds, clarified butter, rice, barley, and white mustard, according to another, of saffron, bel, unbroken grain, flowers, curds, durba-grass, kusa-grass, and sesamum.

49 Sita, daughter of Janak king of Mithila.

50 "I congratulate myself," says Schlegel in the preface to his, alas, unfinished edition of the Ramayan, "that, by the favour of the Supreme Deity, I have been allowed to begin so great a work; I glory and make my boast that I too after so many ages have helped to confirm that ancient oracle declared to Valmiki by the Father of Gods and men:

Dum stabunt montes, campis dum flumina current, Usque tuum toto carmen celebrabitur orbe."

51 "The sipping of water is a requisite introduction of all rites: without it, says the Samha Purana, all acts of religion are vain." COLEBROOKE.

52 The darhha or kusa (Pea cynosuroides), a kind of grass used in sacrifice by the Hindus as cerbena was by the Romans.

53 The direction in which the grass should be placed upon the ground as a seat for the Gods, on occasion of offerings made to them.

54 Parasurama or Rama with the Axe. See Canto LXXIV.

55 Sita. Videha was the country of which Mithila was the capital.

56 The twin sons of Rama and Sita, born after Rama had repudiated Sita, and brought up in the hermitage of Valmiki. As they were the first rhapsodists the combined name Kusilava signifies a reciter of poems, or an improvisatore, even to the present day.

57 Perhaps the bass, tenor, and treble, or quick, slow and middle times. we know but little of the ancient music of the Hindus.

58 Eight flavours or sentiments are usually enumerated, love, mirth, tenderness, anger, heroism, terror, disgust, and surprise; tranquility or content, or paternal tenderness, is sometimes considered the ninth. WILSON. See the Sahitya Darpana or Mirror of Composition translated by Dr. Ballantyne and Babu Pramadadasa Mittra in the Bibliotheca Indica.

59 Saccharum Munja is a plant from whose fibres is twisted the sacred string which a Brahman wears over one shoulder after he has been initiated by a rite which in some respects answers to confirmation.

60 A description of an Asvamedha or Horse Sacrifice is given in Canto XIII. of this Book.

61 This exploit is related in Canto XL.

62 The Sarju or Ghaghra, anciently called Sarayu, rises in the Himalayas, and after flowing through the province of Oudh, falls into the Ganges.

63 The ruins of the ancient capital of Rama and the Children of the Sun may still be traced in the present Ajudhya near Fyzabad. Ajudhya is the Jerusalem or Mecca of the Hindus.

64 A legislator and saint, the son of Brahma or a personification of Brahma himself, the creator of the world, and progenitor of mankind. Derived from the root man to think, the word means originally man, the thinker, and is found in this sense in the Rig-veda.

Manu as a legislator is identified with the Cretan Minos, as progenitor of mankind with the German Mannus: "Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est, Tuisconem deum terra editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque." TACITUS, Germania, Cap. II.

65 The Sal (Shorea Robusta) is a valuable timber tree of considerable height.

66 The city of Indra is called Amaravati or Home of the Immortals.

67 Schlegel thinks that this refers to the marble of different colours with which the houses were adorned. It seems more natural to understand it as implying the regularity of the streets and houses.

68 The Sataghni i.e. centicide, or slayer of a hundred, is generally supposed to be a sort of fire-arms, or the ancient Indian rocket; but it is also described as a stone set round with iron spikes.

69 The Nagas (serpents) are demigods with a human face and serpent body. They inhabit Patala or the regions under the earth. Bhogavati is the name of their capital city. Serpents are still worshipped in India. See Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship.

70 The fourth and lowest pure caste whose duty was to serve the three first classes.

71 By forbidden marriages between persons of different castes.

72 Vahli or Vahlika is Bactriana; its name is preserved in the modern Balkh.

73 The Sanskrit word Sindhu is in the singular the name of the river Indus, in the plural of the people and territories on its banks. The name appears as Hidku in the cuneiform inscription of Darius' son of Hystaspes, in which the nations tributary to that king are enumerated.

The Hebrew form is Hodda (Esther, I. 1.). In Zend it appears as Hendu in a somewhat wider sense. With the Persians later the signification of Hind seems to have co-extended with their increasing acquaintance with the country. The weak Ionic dialect omitted the Persian h, and we find in Hecataeus and Herodotus Ἴνδος and ἡ Ἰνδική. In this form the Romans received the names and transmitted them to us. The Arabian geographers in their ignorance that Hind and Sind are two forms of the same word have made of them two brothers and traced their decent from Noah. See Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde Vol. I. pp. 2, 3.

74 The situation of Vanayu is not exactly determined: it seems to have lain to the north-west of India.

75 Kamboja was probably still further to the north-west. Lassen thinks that the name is etymologically connected with Cambyses which in the cuneiform inscription of Behistun is written Ka(m)bujia.

76 The elephants of Indra and other deities who preside over the four points of the compass.

77 "There are four kinds of elephants. 1 Bhaddar. It is well proportioned, has an erect head, a broad chest, large ears, a long tail, and is bold and can bear fatigue. 2 Mand. It is black, has yellow eyes, a uniformly sized body, and is wild and ungovernable. 3 Mirg. It has a whitish skin, with black spots. 4 Mir. It has a small head, and obeys readily. It gets frightened when it thunders." Ain-i-Akbari.. Translated by H. Blochmann, Ain 41, The Imperial Elephant Stables.

78 Ayodhya means not to be fought against.

79 Attendants of Indra, eight Gods whose names signify fire, light and its phenomena.

80 Kasyap was a grandson of the God Brahma. He is supposed to have given his name to Kashmir = Kasyapa-mira, Kasyap's Lake.

81 The people of Anga. "Anga is said in the lexicons to be Bengal; but here certainly another region is intended situated at the confluence of the Sarju with the Ganges, and not far distant from Dasaratha's dominions." GORRESIO. It comprised part of Behar and Bhagulpur.

82 The Koil or kokila (Cuculus Indicus) as the harbinger of spring and love is a universal favourite with Indian poets. His voice when first heard in a glorious spring morning is not unpleasant, but becomes in the hot season intolerably wearisome to European ears.

83 "Sons and Paradise are intimately connected in Indian belief. A man desires above every thing to have a son to perpetuate his race, and to assist with sacrifices and funeral rites to make him worthy to obtain a lofty seat in heaven or to preserve that which he has already obtained." GORRESIO.

84 One of the Pleiades and generally regarded as the model of wifely excellence.

85 The Hindu year is divided into six seasons of two months each, spring, summer, rains, autumn, winter, and dews.

86 It was essential that the horse should wander free for a year before immolation, as a sign that his master's paramount sovereignty was acknowledged by all neighbouring princes.

87 Called also Vidcha, later Tirabhukti, corrupted into the modern Tirhut, a province bounded on the west and east by the Gaudaki and Kausiki rivers, on the south by the Ganges, and on the north by the skirts of the Himalayas.

88 The celebrated city of Benares. See Dr. Hall's learned and exhaustive Monograph in the Sacred City of the Hindus, by the Rev. M. A. Sherring.

89 Kekaya is supposed to have been in the Panjab. The name of the king was Asvapati (Lord of Horses), father of Dasaratha's wife Kaikeyi.

90 Surat.

91 Apparently in the west of India not far from the Indus.

92 "The Pravargya ceremony lasts for three days, and is always performed twice a day, in the forenoon and afternoon. It precedes the animal and Soma sacrifices. For without having undergone it, no one is allowed to take part in the solemn Soma feast prepared for the gods." Haug's Aitareya Brahmanam. Vol. II. p. 41. note q.v.

93 Upasads. "The Gods said, Let us perform the burnt offerings called Upasads (i.e. besieging). For by means of an Upasad, i.e. besieging, they conquer a large (fortified) town."—Ibid. p. 32.

94 The Soma plant, or Asclepias Acida. Its fermented juice was drunk in sacrifice by the priests and offered to the Gods who enjoyed the intoxicating draught.

95 "Tum in caerimoniarum intervallis Brachmanae facundi, sollertes, crebros sermones de rerum causis instituebant, alter alterum vincendi cupidi. This public disputation in the assembly of Brahmans on the nature of things, and the almost fraternal connexion between theology and philosophy deserves some notice; whereas the priests of some religions are generally but little inclined to show favour to philosophers, nay, sometimes persecute them with the most rancorous hatred, as we are taught both by history and experience.… This sloka is found in the MSS. of different recensions of the Ramayan, and we have, therefore, the most trustworthy testimony to the antiquity of philosophy among the Indians." SCHLEGEL.

96 The Angas or appendices of the Vedas, pronunciation, prosody, grammar, ritual, astronomy, and explanation of obscurities.

97 In Sanskrit vilva, the AEgle Marmelos. "He who desires food and wishes to grow fat, ought to make his Yupa (sacrificial post) of Bilva wood." Haug's Aitareya Brahmanam. Vol. II. p. 73.

98 The Mimosa Catechu. "He who desires heaven ought to make his Yupa of Khadira wood."—Ibid.

99 The Butea Frondosa. "He who desires beauty and sacred knowledge ought to make his Yupa of Palasa wood."—Ibid.

100 The Cardia Latifolia.

101 A kind of pine. The word means literally the tree of the Gods. Compare the Hebrew עצי יהוה "trees of the Lord."

102 The Hindus call the constellation of Ursa Major the Seven Rishis or Saints.

103 A minute account of these ancient ceremonies would be out of place here. "Agnishtoma is the name of a sacrifice, or rather a series of offerings to fire for five days. It is the first and principal part of the Jyotishtoma, one of the great sacrifices in which especially the juice of the Soma plant is offered for the purpose of obtaining Swarga or heaven." GOLDSTUeCKER'S DICTIONARY. "The Agnishtoma is Agni. It is called so because they (the gods) praised him with this Stoma. They called it so to hide the proper meaning of the word: for the gods like to hide the proper meaning of words."

"On account of four classes of gods having praised Agni with four Stomas, the whole was called Chatushtoma (containing four Stomas)."

"It (the Agnishtoma) is called Jyotishtoma, for they praised Agni when he had risen up (to the sky) in the shape of a light (jyotis)."

"This (Agnishtoma) is a sacrificial performance which has no beginning and no end." HAUG'S Aitareya Brahmanam.

The Atiratra, literally lasting through the night, is a division of the service of the Jyotishtoma.

The Abhijit, the everywhere victorious, is the name of a sub-division of the great sacrifice of the Gavamanaya.

The Visvajit, or the all-conquering, is a similar sub-division.

Ayus is the name of a service forming a division of the Abhiplava sacrifice.

The Aptoryam, is the seventh or last part of the Jyotishtoma, for the performance of which it is not essentially necessary, but a voluntary sacrifice instituted for the attainment of a specific desire. The literal meaning of the word would be in conformity with the Praudhamanorama, "a sacrifice which procures the attainment of the desired object." GOLDSTUeCKER'S DICTIONARY.

"The Ukthya is a slight modification of the Agnishtoma sacrifice. The noun to be supplied to it is kratu. It is a Soma sacrifice also, and one of the seven Sansthas or component parts of the Jyotishtoma. Its name indicates its nature. For Ukthya means 'what refers to the Uktha,' which is an older name for Shastra, i.e. recitation of one of the Hotri priests at the time of the Soma libations. Thus this sacrifice is only a kind of supplement to the Agnishtoma." HAUG. Ai. B.

104 "Four classes of priests were required in India at the most solemn sacrifices. 1. The officiating priests, manual labourers, and acolytes, who had chiefly to prepare the sacrificial ground, to dress the altar, slay the victims, and pour out the libations. 2. The choristers, who chant the sacred hymns. 3. The reciters or readers, who repeat certain hymns. 4. The overseers or bishops, who watch and superintend the proceedings of the other priests, and ought to be familiar with all the Vedas. The formulas and verses to be muttered by the first class are contained in the Yajur-veda-sanhita. The hymns to be sung by the second class are in the Sama-veda-sanhita. The Atharva-veda is said to be intended for the Brahman or overseer, who is to watch the proceedings of the sacrifice, and to remedy any mistake that may occur. The hymns to be recited by the third class are contained in the Rigveda," Chips from a German Workshop.

105 The Maruts are the winds, deified in the religion of the Veda like other mighty powers and phenomena of nature.

106 A Titan or fiend whose destruction has given Vishnu one of his well-known titles, Madhava.

107 The garden of Indra.

108 One of the most ancient and popular of the numerous names of Vishnu. The word has been derived in several ways, and may mean he who moved on the (primordial) waters, or he who pervades or influences men or their thoughts.

109 The Horse-Sacrifice, just described.

110 To walk round an object keeping the right side towards it is a mark of great respect. The Sanskrit word for the observance is pradakshina, from pra pro, and daksha right, Greek δεξίος, Latin dexter, Gaelic deas-il. A similar ceremony is observed by the Gaels.

"In the meantime she traced around him, with wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have thought has been derived from the Druidical mythology. It consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil walking three times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun."

SCOTT. The Two Drovers.

111 The Amrit, the nectar of the Indian Gods.

112 Gandharvas (Southey's Glendoveers) are celestial musicians inhabiting Indra's heaven and forming the orchestra at all the banquets of the principal deities.

113 Yakshas, demigods attendant especially on Kuvera, and employed by him in the care of his garden and treasures.

114 Kimpurushas, demigods attached also to the service of Kuvera, celestial musicians, represented like centaurs reversed with human figures and horses' heads.

115 Siddhas, demigods or spirits of undefined attributes, occupying with the Vidyadharas the middle air or region between the earth and the sun.

Schlegel translates: "Divi, Sapientes, Fidicines, Praepetes, illustres Genii, Praeconesque procrearunt natos, masculos, silvicolas; angues porro, Hippocephali Beati, Aligeri, Serpentesque frequentes alacriter generavere prolem innumerabilem."

116 A mountain in the south of India.

117 The preceptor of the Gods and regent of the planet Jupiter.

118 The celestial architect, the Indian Hephaestus, Mulciber, or Vulcan.

119 The God of Fire.

120 Twin children of the Sun, the physicians of Swarga or Indra's heaven.

121 The deity of the waters.

122 Parjanya, sometimes confounded with Indra.

123 The bird and vehicle of Vishnu. He is generally represented as a being something between a man and a bird and considered as the sovereign of the feathered race. He may be compared with the Simurgh of the Persians, the 'Anka of the Arabs, the Griffin of chivalry, the Phoenix of Egypt, and the bird that sits upon the ash Yggdrasil of the Edda.

124 This Canto will appear ridiculous to the European reader. But it should be remembered that the monkeys of an Indian forest, the "bough-deer" as the poets call them, are very different animals from the "turpissima bestia" that accompanies the itinerant organ-grinder or grins in the Zoological Gardens of London. Milton has made his hero, Satan, assume the forms of a cormorant, a toad, and a serpent, and I cannot see that this creation of semi-divine Vanars, or monkeys, is more ridiculous or undignified.

125 The consort of Indra, called also Sachi and Indrani.

126 The Michelia champaca. It bears a scented yellow blossom:

"The maid of India blest again to hold In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold."

Lallah Rookh.

127 Vibhandak, the father of Rishyasring

128 A hemisloka is wanting in Schlegel's text, which he thus fills up in his Latin translation.

129 Rishyasring, a Brahman, had married Santa who was of the Kshatriya or Warrior caste and an expiatory ceremony was necessary on account of this violation of the law.

130 "The poet no doubt intended to indicate the vernal equinox as the birthday of Rama. For the month Chaitra is the first of the two months assigned to the spring; it corresponds with the latter half of March and the former half of April in our division of the year. Aditi, the mother of the Gods, is lady of the seventh lunar mansion which is called Punarvasu. The five planets and their positions in the Zodiac are thus enumerated by both commentators: the Sun in Aries, Mars in Capricorn, Saturn in Libra, Jupiter in Cancer, Venus in Pisces.… I leave to astronomers to examine whether the parts of the description agree with one another, and, if this be the case, thence to deduce the date. The Indians place the nativity of Rama in the confines of the second age (treta) and the third (dwapara): but it seems that this should be taken in an allegorical sense.… We may consider that the poet had an eye to the time in which, immediately before his own age, the aspects of the heavenly bodies were such as he has described." SCHLEGEL.

131 The regent of the planet Jupiter.

132 Indra = Jupiter Tonans.

133 "Pushya is the name of a month; but here it means the eighth mansion. The ninth is called Aslesha, or the snake. It is evident from this that Bharat, though his birth is mentioned before that of the twins, was the youngest of the four brothers and Rama's junior by eleven months." SCHLEGEL.

134 A fish, the Zodiacal sign Pisces.

135 One of the constellations, containing stars in the wing of Pegasus.

136 Rama means the Delight (of the World); Bharat, the Supporter; Lakshman, the Auspicious; Satrughna, the Slayer of Foes.

137 Schlegel, in the Indische Bibliothek, remarks that the proficiency of the Indians in this art early attracted the attention of Alexander's successors, and natives of India were so long exclusively employed in this service that the name Indian was applied to any elephant-driver, to whatever country he might belong.

138 The story of this famous saint is given at sufficient length in Cantos LI-LV.

This saint has given his name to the district and city to the east of Benares. The original name, preserved in a land-grant on copper now in the Museum of the Benares College, has been Moslemized into Ghazeepore (the City of the Soldier-martyr).

139 The son of Kusik is Visvamitra.

140 At the recollection of their former enmity, to be described hereafter.

141 The Indian nectar or drink of the Gods.

142 Great joy, according to the Hindu belief, has this effect, not causing each particular hair to stand on end, but gently raising all the down upon the body.

143 The Rakshasas, giants, or fiends who are represented as disturbing the sacrifice, signify here, as often elsewhere, merely the savage tribes which placed themselves in hostile opposition to Brahmanical institutions.

144 Consisting of horse, foot, chariots, and elephants.

145 "The Gandharvas, or heavenly bards, had originally a warlike character but were afterwards reduced to the office of celestial musicians cheering the banquets of the Gods. Dr. Kuhn has shown their identity with the Centaurs in name, origin and attributes." GORRESIO.

146 These mysterious animated weapons are enumerated in Cantos XXIX and XXX. Daksha was the son of Brahma and one of the Prajapatis, Demiurgi, or secondary authors of creation.

147 Youths of the Kshatriya class used to leave unshorn the side locks of their hair. These were called Kaka-paksha, or raven's wings.

148 The Rakshas or giant Ravan, king of Lanka.

149 "The meaning of Asvins (from asva a horse, Persian asp, Greek ἵππος, Latin equus, Welsh ech) is Horsemen. They were twin deities of whom frequent mention is made in the Vedas and the Indian myths. The Asvins have much in common with the Dioscuri of Greece, and their mythical genealogy seems to indicate that their origin was astronomical. They were, perhaps, at first the morning star and evening star. They are said to be the children of the sun and the nymph Asvini, who is one of the lunar asterisms personified. In the popular mythology they are regarded as the physicians of the Gods." GORRESIO.

150 The word Kumara (a young prince, a Childe) is also a proper name of Skanda or Kartikeya God of War, the son of Siva and Uma. The babe was matured in the fire.

151 "At the rising of the sun as well as at noon certain observances, invocations, and prayers were prescribed which might under no circumstances be omitted. One of these observances was the recitation of the Savitri, a Vedic hymn to the Sun of wonderful beauty." GORRESIO.

152 Tripathaga, Three-path-go, flowing in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. See Canto XLV.

153 Tennyson's "Indian Cama," the God of Love, known also by many other names.

154 Uma, or Parvati, was daughter of Himalaya, Monarch of mountains, and wife of Siva. See Kalidasa's Kumara Sambhava, or Birth of the War-God.

155 Sthanu. The Unmoving one, a name of Siva.

156 "The practice of austerities, voluntary tortures, and mortifications was anciently universal in India, and was held by the Indians to be of immense efficacy. Hence they mortified themselves to expiate sins, to acquire merits, and to obtain superhuman gifts and powers; the Gods themselves sometimes exercised themselves in such austerities, either to raise themselves to greater power and grandeur, or to counteract the austerities of man which threatened to prevail over them and to deprive them of heaven.… Such austerities were called in India tapas (burning ardour, fervent devotion) and he who practised them tapasvin." GORRESIO.

157 The Bodiless one.

158 "A celebrated lake regarded in India as sacred. It lies in the lofty region between the northern highlands of the Himalayas and mount Kailasa, the region of the sacred lakes. The poem, following the popular Indian belief, makes the river Sarayu (now Sarju) flow from the Manasa lake; the sources of the river are a little to the south about a day's journey from the lake. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumshunde, page 34." GORRESIO. Manas means mind; manasa, mental, mind-born.

159 Sarovar means best of lakes. This is another of the poet's fanciful etymologies.

160 The confluence of two or more rivers is often a venerated and holy place. The most famous is Prayag or Allahabad, where the Sarasvati by an underground course is believed to join the Jumna and the Ganges.

161 The botanical names of the trees mentioned in the text are Grislea Tormentosa, Shorea Robusta, Echites Antidysenterica, Bignonia Suaveolens, OEgle Marmelos, and Diospyrus Glutinosa. I have omitted the Kutaja (Echites) and the Tinduka (Diospyrus).

162 Here we meet with a fresh myth to account for the name of these regions. Malaja is probably a non-Aryan word signifying a hilly country: taken as a Sanskrit compound it means sprung from defilement. The word Karusha appears to have a somewhat similar meaning.

163 "This is one of those indefinable mythic personages who are found in the ancient traditions of many nations, and in whom cosmogonical or astronomical notions are generally figured. Thus it is related of Agastya that the Vindhyan mountains prostrated themselves before him; and yet the same Agastya is believed to be regent of the star Canopus." GORRESIO.

He will appear as the friend and helper of Rama farther on in the poem.

164 The famous pleasure-garden of Kuvera the God of Wealth.

165 "The whole of this Canto together with the following one, regards the belief, formerly prevalent in India, that by virtue of certain spells, to be learnt and muttered, secret knowledge and superhuman powers might be acquired. To this the poet has already alluded in Canto xxiii. These incorporeal weapons are partly represented according to the fashion of those ascribed to the Gods and the different orders of demi-gods, partly are the mere creations of fancy; and it would not be easy to say what idea the poet had of them in his own mind, or what powers he meant to assign to each." SCHLEGEL.

166 "In Sanskrit Sankara, a word which has various significations but the primary meaning of which is the act of seizing. A magical power seems to be implied of employing the weapons when and where required. The remarks I have made on the preceding Canto apply with still greater force to this. The MSS. greatly vary in the enumeration of these Sankaras, and it is not surprising that copyists have incorrectly written the names which they did not well understand. The commentators throw no light upon the subject." SCHLEGEL. I have taken the liberty of omitting four of these which Schlegel translates "Scleromphalum, Euomphalum, Centiventrem, and Chrysomphalum."

167 I omit, after this line, eight slokes which, as Schlegel allows, are quite out of place.

168 This is the fifth of the avatars, descents or incarnations of Vishnu.

169 This is a solar allegory. Vishnu is the sun, the three steps being his rising, culmination, and setting.

170 Certain ceremonies preliminary to a sacrifice.

171 A river which rises in Budelcund and falls into the Ganges near Patna. It is called also Hiranyarahu, Golden-armed, and Hiranyaraha, Auriferous.

172 The modern Berar.

173 According to the Bengal recension the first (Kusamba) is called Kusasva, and his city Kausasvi. This name does not occur elsewhere. The reading of the northern recension is confirmed by Foe Koue Ki; p. 385, where the city Kiaoshangmi is mentioned. It lay 500 lis to the south-west of Prayaga, on the south bank of the Jumna. Mahodaya is another name of Kanyakubja: Dharmaranya, the wood to which the God of Justice is said to have fled through fear of Soma the Moon-God was in Magadh. Girivraja was in the same neighbourhood. See Lasson's I, A. Vol. I. p. 604.

174 That is, the City of the Bent Virgins, the modern Kanauj or Canouge.

175 Literally, Given by Brahma or devout contemplation.

176 Now called Kosi (Cosy) corrupted from Kausiki, daughter of Kus]a.

"This is one of those personifications of rivers so frequent in the Grecian mythology, but in the similar myths is seen the impress of the genius of each people, austere and profoundly religious in India, graceful and devoted to the worship of external beauty in Greece." GORRESIO.

177 One of the names of the Ganges considered as the daughter of Jahnu. See Canto XLIV.

178 The Indian Crane.

179 Or, rather, geese.

180 A name of the God Siva.

181 Garuda.

182 Ikshvaku, the name of a king of Ayodhya who is regarded as the founder of the Solar race, means also a gourd. Hence, perhaps, the myth.

183 "The region here spoken of is called in the Laws of Manu Madhyadesa or the middle region. 'The region situated between the Himalaya and the Vindhya Mountains … is called Madhyadesa, or the middle region; the space comprised between these two mountains from the eastern to the western sea is called by sages Aryavartta, the seat of honourable men.' (MANU, II, 21, 22.) The Sanskrit Indians called themselves Aryans, which means honourable, noble, to distinguish themselves from the surrounding nations of different origin." GORRESIO.

184 Said to be so called from the Jambu, or Rose Apple, abounding in it, and signifying according to the Puranas the central division of the world, the known world.

185 Here used as a name of Vishnu.

186 Kings are called the husbands of their kingdoms or of the earth; "She and his kingdom were his only brides." Raghuvansa.

"Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate A double marriage, 'twixt my crown and me, And then between me and my married wife."

King Richard II. Act V. Sc. I.

187 The thirty-three Gods are said in the Aitareya Brahmana, Book I. ch. II. 10. to be the eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras, the twelve Adityas, Prajapati, either Brahma or Daksha, and Vashatkara or deified oblation. This must have been the actual number at the beginning of the Vedic religion gradually increased by successive mythical and religious creations till the Indian Pantheon was crowded with abstractions of every kind. Through the reverence with which the words of the Veda were regarded, the immense host of multiplied divinities, in later times, still bore the name of the Thirty-three Gods.

188 "One of the elephants which, according to an ancient belief popular in India, supported the earth with their enormous backs; when one of these elephants shook his wearied head the earth trembled with its woods and hills. An idea, or rather a mythical fancy, similar to this, but reduced to proportions less grand, is found in Virgil when he speaks of Enceladus buried under AEtna:"

"adi semiustum fulmine corpus Urgeri mole hac, ingentemque insuper AEtnam Impositam, ruptis flammam expirare caminis; Et fessum quoties mutat latus, intre mere omnem iam, et coelum subtexere fumo."

AEneid. Lib. III. GORRESIO.

189 "The Devas and Asuras (Gods and Titans) fought in the east, the south, the west, and the north, and the Devas were defeated by the Asuras in all these directions. They then fought in the north-eastern direction; there the Devas did not sustain defeat. This direction is aparajita, i.e. unconquerable. Thence one should do work in this direction, and have it done there; for such a one (alone) is able to clear off his debts." HAUG'S Aitareya Brahmanam, Vol. II, p. 33.

The debts here spoken of are a man's religious obligations to the Gods, the Pitaras or Manes, and men.

190 Vishnu.

191 "It appears to me that this mythical story has reference to the volcanic phenomena of nature. Kapil may very possibly be that hidden fiery force which suddenly unprisons itself and bursts forth in volcanic effects. Kapil is, moreover, one of the names of Agni the God of Fire." GORRESIO.

192 Garud was the son of Kasyap and Vinata.

193 Garud.

194 A famous and venerated region near the Malabar coast.

195 That is four fires and the sun.

196 Heaven.

197 Wind-Gods.

198 Siva.

199 The lake Vindu does not exist. Of the seven rivers here mentioned two only, the Ganges and the Sindhu or Indus, are known to geographers. Hladini means the Gladdener, Pavani the Purifier, Nalini the Lotus-Clad, and Suchakshu the Fair-eyed.

200 The First or Golden Age.

201 Diti and Aditi were wives of Kasyap, and mothers respectively of Titans and Gods.

202 One of the seven seas surrounding as many worlds in concentric rings.

203 Sankar and Rudra are names of Siva.

204 "Sarngin, literally carrying a bow of horn, is a constantly recurring name of Vishnu. The Indians also, therefore, knew the art of making bows out of the hons of antelopes or wild goats, which Homer ascribes to the Trojans of the heroic age." SCHLEGEL.

205 Dhanvantari, the physician of the Gods.

206 The poet plays upon the word and fancifully derives it from apsu, the locative case plural of ap, water, and rasa, taste.… The word is probably derived from ap, water, and sri, to go, and seems to signify inhabitants of the water, nymphs of the stream; or, as Goldstuecker thinks (Dict. s.v.) these divinities were originally personifications of the vapours which are attracted by the sun and form into mist or clouds.

207 "Sura, in the feminine comprehends all sorts of intoxicating liquors, many kinds of which the Indians from the earliest times distilled and prepared from rice, sugar-cane, the palm tree, and various flowers and plants. Nothing is considered more disgraceful among orthodox Hindus than drunkenness, and the use of wine is forbidden not only to Brahmans but the two other orders as well.… So it clearly appears derogatory to the dignity of the Gods to have received a nymph so pernicious, who ought rather to have been made over to the Titans. However the etymological fancy has prevailed. The word Sura, a God, is derived from the indeclinable Swar heaven." SCHLEGEL.

208 Literally, high-eared, the horse of Indra. Compare the production of the horse from the sea by Neptune.

209 "And Kaustubha the best Of gems that burns with living light Upon Lord Vishnu's breast."

Churning of the Ocean.

210 "That this story of the birth of Lakshmi is of considerable antiquity is evident from one of her names Kshirabdhi-tanaya, daughter of the Milky Sea, which is found in Amarasinha the most ancient of Indian lexicographers. The similarity to the Greek myth of Venus being born from the foam of the sea is remarkable."

"In this description of Lakshmi one thing only offends me, that she is said to have four arms. Each of Vishnu's arms, single, as far as the elbow, there branches into two; but Lakshmi in all the brass seals that I possess or remember to have seen has two arms only. Nor does this deformity of redundant limbs suit the pattern of perfect beauty." SCHLEGEL. I have omitted the offensive epithet.

211 Purandhar, a common title of Indra.

212 A few verses are here left untranslated on account of the subject and language being offensive to modern taste.

213 "In this myth of Indra destroying the unborn fruit of Diti with his thunderbolt, from which afterwards came the Maruts or Gods of Wind and Storm, geological phenomena are, it seems, represented under mythical images. In the great Mother of the Gods is, perhaps, figured the dry earth: Indra the God of thunder rends it open, and there issue from its rent bosom the Maruts or exhalations of the earth. But such ancient myths are difficult to interpret with absolute certainty." GORRESIO.

214 Wind.

215 Indra, with maha, great, prefixed.

216 The Heavenly Twins.

217 Not banished from heaven as the inferior Gods and demigods sometimes were.

218 Kumarila says: "In the same manner, if it is said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalya this does not imply that the God Indra committed such a crime, but Indra means the sun, and Ahalya (from ahan and li) the night; and as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalya." MAX MULLER, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 530.

219 "The preceding sixteen lines have occurred before in Canto XLVIII. This Homeric custom of repeating a passage of several lines is strange to our poet. This is the only instance I remember. The repetition of single lines is common enough." SCHLEGEL.

220 Divine personages of minute size produced from the hair of Brahma, and probably the origin of

"That small infantry Warred on by cranes."

221 Sweet, salt, pungent, bitter, acid, and astringent.

222 "Of old hoards and minerals in the earth, the king is entitled to half by reason of his general protection, and because he is the lord paramount of the soil." MANU, Book VIII. 39.

223 Ghi or clarified butter, "holy oil," being one of the essentials of sacrifice.

224 "A Brahman had five principal duties to discharge every day: study and teaching the Veda, oblations to the manes or spirits of the departed, sacrifice to the Gods, hospitable offerings to men, and a gift of food to all creatures. The last consisted of rice or other grain which the Brahman was to offer every day outside his house in the open air. MANU, Book III. 70." GORRESIO.

225 These were certain sacred words of invocation such a svaha, vashat, etc., pronounced at the time of sacrifice.

226 "It is well known that the Persians were called Pahlavas by the Indians. The Sakas are nomad tribes inhabiting Central Asia, the Scythes of the Greeks, whom the Persians also, as Herodotus tells us, called Sakae just as the Indians did. Lib. VII 64 ὁι γὰρ Πέρσαι πάντας τοὺς Σύθας. καλέουσι Σάκας. The name Yavans seems to be used rather indefinitely for nations situated beyond Persia to the west.… After the time of Alexander the Great the Indians as well as the Persians called the Greeks also Yavans." SCHLEGEL.

Lassen thinks that the Pahlavas were the same people as the Πάκτυες of Herodotus, and that this non-Indian people dwelt on the north-west confines of India.

227 See page 13, note 6.

228 Barbarians, non-Sanskrit-speaking tribes.

229 A comprehensive term for foreign or outcast races of different faith and language from the Hindus.

230 The Kiratas and Haritas are savage aborigines of India who occupy hills and jungles and are altogether different in race and character from the Hindus. Dr. Muir remarks in his Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p. 488 (second edition) that it does not appear that it is the object of this legend to represent this miraculous creation as the origin of these tribes, and that nothing more may have been intended than that the cow called into existence large armies, of the same stock with particular tribes previously existing.

231 The Great God, Siva.

232 Nandi, the snow-white bull, the attendant and favourite vehicle of Siva.

233 "The names of many of these weapons which are mythical and partly allegorical have occurred in Canto XXIX. The general signification of the story is clear enough. It is a contest for supremacy between the regal or military order and Brahmanical or priestly authority, like one of those struggles which our own Europe saw in the middle ages when without employing warlike weapons the priesthood frequently gained the victory." SCHLEGEL.

For a full account of the early contests between the Brahmans and the Kshattriyas, see Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts (Second edition) Vol. I. Ch. IV.

234 "Trisanku, king of Ayodhya, was seventh in descent from Ikshvaku, and Dasaratha holds the thirty-fourth place in the same genealogy. See Canto LXX. We are thrown back, therefore, to very ancient times, and it occasions some surprise to find Vasishtha and Visvamitra, actors in these occurences, still alive in Rama's time."

235 "It does not appear how Trisanku, in asking the aid of Vasishtha's sons after applying in vain to their father, could be charged with resorting to another sakha (School) in the ordinary sense of that word; as it is not conceivable that the sons should have been of another Sakha from the father, whose cause they espouse with so much warmth. The commentator in the Bombay edition explains the word Sakhantaram as Yajanadina rakshantaram, 'one who by sacrificing for thee, etc., will be another protector.' Gorresio's Gauda text, which may often be used as a commentary on the older one, has the following paraphrase of the words in question, ch. 60, 3. Mulam utsrijya kasmat tvam sakhasv ichhasi lambitum. 'Why, forsaking the root, dost thou desire to hang upon the branches?' " MUIR, Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I., p. 401.

236 A Chandala was a man born of the illegal and impure union of a Sudra with a woman of one of the three higher castes.

237 "The Chandala was regarded as the vilest and most abject of the men sprung from wedlock forbidden by the law (Manavadharmasastra, Lib. X. 12.); a kind of social malediction weighed upon his head and rejected him from human society." GORRESIO.

238 This appellation, occuring nowhere else in the poem except as the name of a city, appears twice in this Canto as a name of Vasishtha.

239 "The seven ancient rishis or saints, as has been said before, were the seven stars of Ursa Major. The seven other new saints which are here said to have been created by Visvamitra should be seven new southern stars, a sort of new Ursa. Von Schlegel thinks that this mythical fiction of new stars created by Visvamitra may signify that these southern stars, unknown to the Indians as long as they remained in the neighbourhood of the Ganges, became known to them at a later date when they colonized the southern regions of India." GORRESIO.

240 "This cannot refer to the events just related: for Visvamitra was successful in the sacrifice performed for Trisanku. And yet no other impediment is mentioned. Still his restless mind would not allow him to remain longer in the same spot. So the character of Visvamitra is ingeniously and skilfully shadowed forth: as he had been formerly a most warlike king, loving battle and glory, bold, active, sometimes unjust, and more frequently magnanimous, such also he always shows himself in his character of anchorite and ascetic." SCHLEGEL.

241 Near the modern city of Ajmere. The place is sacred still, and the name is preserved in the Hindi. Lassen, however, says that this Pushkala or Pushkara, called by the Grecian writers Πευκελίτις, the earliest place of pilgrimage mentioned by name, is not to be confounded with the modern Pushkara in Ajmere.

242 "Ambarisha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshvaku, and is therefore separated by an immense space of time from Trisanku in whose story Visvamitra had played so important a part. Yet Richika, who is represented as having young sons while Ambarisha was yet reigning being himself the son of Bhrigu and to be numbered with the most ancient sages, is said to have married the younger sister of Visvamitra. But I need not again remark that there is a perpetual anachronism in Indian mythology." SCHLEGEL..

"In the mythical story related in this and the following Canto we may discover, I think, some indication of the epoch at which the immolation of lower animals was substituted for human sacrifice.… So when Iphigenia was about to be sacrificed at Aulis, one legend tells us that a hind was substituted for the virgin." GORRESIO.

So the ram caught in the thicket took the place of Isaac, or, as the Musalmans say, of Ishmael.

243 The Indian Cupid.

244 "The same as she whose praises Visvamitra has already sung in Canto XXXV, and whom the poet brings yet alive upon the scene in Canto LXI. Her proper name was Satyavati (Truthful); the patronymic, Kausiki was preserved by the river into which she is said to have been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kusa and Kusi. The river flows from the heights of the Himalaya towards the Ganges, bounding on the east the country of Videha (Behar). The name is no doubt half hidden in the Cosoagus of Pliny and the Kossounos of Arrian. But each author has fallen into the same error in his enumeration of these rivers (Condochatem, Erannoboam, Cosoagum, Sonum). The Erannoboas, (Hiranyavaha) and the Sone are not different streams, but well-known names of the same river. Moreover the order is disturbed, in which on the right and left they fall into the Ganges. To be consistent with geography it should be written: Erannoboam sive Sonum, Condochatem (Gandaki), Cosoagum." SCHLEGEL.

245 "Daksha was one of the ancient Progenitors or Prajapatis created by Brahma. The sacrifice which is here spoken of and in which Sankar or Siva (called also here Rudra and Bhava) smote the Gods because he had not been invited to share the sacred oblations with them, seems to refer to the origin of the worship of Siva, to its increase and to the struggle it maintained with other older forms of worship." GORRESIO.

246 Sita means a furrow.

"Great Erectheus swayed, That owed his nurture to the blue-eyed maid, But from the teeming furrow took his birth, The mighty offspring of the foodful earth."

Iliad, Book II.

247 "The whole story of Sita, as will be seen in the course of the poem has a great analogy with the ancient myth of Proserpine." GORRESIO.

248 A different lady from the Goddess of the Jumna who bears the same name.

249 This is another fanciful derivation, Sa—with, and gara—poison.

250 Purushadak means a cannibal. First called Kalmashapada on account of his spotted feet he is said to have been turned into a cannibal for killing the son of Vasishtha.

251 "In the setting forth of these royal genealogies the Bengal recension varies but slightly from the Northern. The first six names of the genealogy of the Kings of Ayodhya are partly theogonical and partly cosmogonical; the other names are no doubt in accordance with tradition and deserve the same amount of credence as the ancient traditional genealogies of other nations." GORRESIO.

252 The tenth of the lunar asterisms, composed of five stars.

253 There are two lunar asterisms of this name, one following the other immediately, forming the eleventh and twelfth of the lunar mansions.

254 This is another Rama, son of Jamadagni, called Parasurama, or Rama with the axe, from the weapon which he carried. He was while he lived the terror of the Warrior caste, and his name recalls long and fierce struggles between the sacerdotal and military order in which the latter suffered severely at the hands of their implacable enemy.

255 "The author of the Raghuvansa places the mountain Mahendra in the territory of the king of the Kalingans, whose palace commanded a view of the ocean. It is well known that the country along the coast to the south of the mouths of the Ganges was the seat of this people. Hence it may be suspected that this Mahendra is what Pliny calls 'promontorium Calingon.' The modern name, Cape Palmyras, from the palmyras Borassus flabelliformis, which abound there agrees remarkably with the description of the poet who speaks of the groves of these trees. Raghuvansa, VI. 51." SCHLEGEL.

256 Siva.

257 Siva. God of the Azure Neck.

258 Satrughna means slayer of foes, and the word is repeated as an intensive epithet.

259 Alluding to the images of Vishnu, which have four arms, the four princes being portions of the substance of that God.

260 Chief of the insignia of imperial dignity.

261 Whisks, usually made of the long tails of the Yak.

262 Chitraratha, King of the Gandharvas.

263 The Chandrakanta or Moonstone, a sort of crystal supposed to be composed of congealed moonbeams.

264 A customary mark of respect to a superior.

265 Rahu, the ascending node, is in mythology a demon with the tail of a dragon whose head was severed from his body by Vishnu, but being immortal, the head and tail retained their separate existence and being transferred to the stellar sphere became the authors of eclipses; the first especially by endeavouring to swallow the sun and moon.

266 In eclipse.

267 The seventh of the lunar asterisms.

268 Kausalya and Sumitra.

269 A king of the Lunar race, and father of Yayati.

270 Literally the chamber of wrath, a "growlery," a small, dark, unfurnished room to which it seems, the wives and ladies of the king betook themselves when offended and sulky.

271 In these four lines I do not translate faithfully, and I do not venture to follow Kaikeyi farther in her eulogy of the hump-back's charms.

272 These verses are evidently an interpolation. They contain nothing that has not been already related: the words only are altered. As the whole poem could not be recited at once, the rhapsodists at the beginning of a fresh recitation would naturally remind their hearers of the events immediately preceding.

273 The sloka or distich which I have been forced to expand into these nine lines is evidently spurious, but is found in all the commented MSS. which Schlegel consulted.

274 Manmatha, Mind-disturber, a name of Kama or Love.

275 This story is told in the Mahabharat. A free version of it may be found in Scenes from the Ramayan, etc.

276 Only the highest merit obtains a home in heaven for ever. Minor degrees of merit procure only leases of heavenly mansions terminable after periods proportioned to the fund which buys them. King Yayati went to heaven and when his term expired was unceremoniously ejected, and thrown down to earth.

277 See Additional Notes, THE SUPPLIANT DOVE.

278 Indra, called also Purandara, Town-destroyer.

279 Indra's charioteer.

280 The elephant of Indra.

281 A star in the spike of Virgo: hence the name of the mouth Chaitra or Chait.

282 The Rain-God.

283 In a former life.

284 One of the lunar asterisms, represented as the favourite wife of the Moon. See p. 4, note.

285 The Sea.

286 The Moon.

287 The comparison may to a European reader seem a homely one. But Spenser likens an infuriate woman to a cow "That is berobbed of her youngling dere." Shakspeare also makes King Henry VI compare himself to the calf's mother that "Runs lowing up and down, Looking the way her harmless young one went." "Cows," says De Quincey, "are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young, when deprived of them, and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these gentle creatures."

288 The commentators say that, in a former creation, Ocean grieved his mother and suffered in consequence the pains of hell.

289 As described in Book I Canto XL.

290 Parasurama.

291 The Sanskrit word hasta signifies both hand, and the trunk of "The beast that bears between his eyes a serpent for a head."

292 See P. 41.

293 The first progeny of Brahma or Brahma himself.

294 These are three names of the Sun.

295 See P. 1.

296 The saints who form the constellation of Ursa Major.

297 The regent of the planet Venus.

298 Kuvera.

299 Bali, or the presentation of food to all created beings, is one of the five great sacraments of the Hindu religion: it consists in throwing a small parcel of the offering, Ghee, or rice, or the like, into the open air at the back of the house.

300 In mythology, a demon slain by Indra.

301 Called also Garud, the King of the birds, offspring of Vinata. See p. 53.

302 See P. 56.

303 See P. 43.

304 The story of Savitri, told in the Mahabharat, has been admirably translated by Rueckert, and elegantly epitomized by Mrs. Manning in India, Ancient and Mediaeval. There is a free rendering of the story in Idylls from the Sanskrit.

305 Fire for sacrificial purposes is produced by the attrition of two pieces of wood.

306 Kaikeyi.

307 The chapel where the sacred fire used in worship is kept.

308 The students and teachers of the Taittiriya portion of the Yajur Veda.

309 Two of the divine personages called Prajapatis and Brahmadikas who were first created by Brahma.

310 It was the custom of the kings of the solar dynasty to resign in their extreme old age the kingdom to the heir, and spend the remainder of their days in holy meditation in the forest:

"For such through ages in their life's decline Is the good custom of Ikshvaku's line."

Raghuransa.

311 See Book I, Canto XXXIX. An Indian prince in more modern times appears to have diverted himself in a similar way.

It is still reported in Belgaum that Appay Deasy was wont to amuse himself "by making several young and beautiful women stand side by side on a narrow balcony, without a parapet, overhanging the deep reservoir at the new palace in Nipani. He used then to pass along the line of trembling creatures, and suddenly thrusting one of them headlong into the water below, he used to watch her drowning, and derive pleasure from her dying agonies."—History of the Belgaum District. By H. J. Stokes, M. S. C.

312 Chitraratha, King of the celestial choristers.

313 It is said that the bamboo dies after flowering.

314 "Thirty centuries have passed since he began this memorable journey. Every step of it is known and is annually traversed by thousands: hero worship is not extinct. What can Faith do! How strong are the ties of religion when entwined with the legends of a country! How many a cart creeps creaking and weary along the road from Ayodhya to Chitrakut. It is this that gives the Ramayan a strange interest, the story still lives." Calcutta Review: Vol. XXIII.

315 See p. 72.

316 Four stars of the sixteenth lunar asterism.

317 In the marriage service.

318 The husks and chaff of the rice offered to the Gods.

319 An important sacrifice at which seventeen victims were immolated.

320 The great pilgrimage to the Himalayas, in order to die there.

321 Known to Europeans as the Goomtee.

322 A tree, commonly called Ingua.

323 Sacrificial posts to which the victims were tied.

324 Daughter of Jahnu, a name of the Ganges. See p. 55.

325 The Maina or Gracula religiosa, a favourite cage-bird, easily taught to talk.

326 The Jumna.

327 The Hindu name of Allahabad.

328 The Langur is a large monkey.

329 A mountain said to lie to the east of Meru.

330 Another name of the Jumna, daughter of the Sun.

331 "We have often looked on that green hill: it is the holiest spot of that sect of the Hindu faith who devote themselves to this incarnation of Vishnu. The whole neighbourhood is Rama's country. Every headland has some legend, every cavern is connected with his name; some of the wild fruits are still called Sitaphal, being the reputed food of the exile. Thousands and thousands annually visit the spot, and round the hill is a raised foot-path, on which the devotee, with naked feet, treads full of pious awe." Calcutta Review, Vol. XXIII.

332 Deities of a particular class in which five or ten are enumerated. They are worshipped particularly at the funeral obsequies in honour of deceased progenitors.

333 "So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:"

"Ἵπποι δ' Αἰακίδαο, μάχης ἀπάνευθεν ἐότες, Κλᾶιον, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα πυθέσθην ἡνιόχοιο Ἐν κονίνσι πεσόντος ὑφ' Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο"