ILIAD. XVII. 426.

"Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man." GORRESIO.

334 The lines containing this heap of forced metaphors are marked as spurious by Schlegel.

335 The southern region is the abode of Yama the Indian Pluto, and of departed spirits.

336 The five elements of which the body consists, and to which it returns.

337 So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:

"Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk! My soul shall thine keep company to heaven: Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast."

King Henry V, Act IV, 6.

338 Kausalya, daughter of the king of another Kosal.

339 Rajagriha, or Girivraja was the capital of Asvapati, Bharat's maternal grandfather.

340 The Kekayas or Kaikayas in the Punjab appear amongst the chief nations in the war of the Mahabharata; their king being a kinsman of Krishna.

341 Hastinapura was the capital of the kingdom of Kuru, near the modern Delhi.

342 The Panchalas occupied the upper part of the Doab.

343 "Kurujangala and its inhabitants are frequently mentioned in the Mahabharata, as in the Adi-parv. 3789, 4337, et al." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 176. DR. HALL'S Note.

344 "The Ὁξύματις of Arrian. See As. Res. Vol. XV. p. 420, 421, also Indische Alterthumskunde, Vol. I. p. 602, first footnote." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. I. p. 421. DR. HALL'S Edition. The Ikshumati was a river in Kurukshetra.

345 "The Bahikas are described in the Mahabharata, Karna Parvan, with some detail, and comprehend the different nations of the Punjab from the Sutlej to the Indus." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. I. p. 167.

346 The Beas, Hyphasis, or Bibasis.

347 It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos LXVIII and LXXII. Professor Wilson observes (Vishnu Purana, p. 139. Dr. Hall's Edition) "States, and tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers, have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, Barnagore represents Barahanagar, Dakshineswar is metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaria into Willoughbury.… There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect."

For further information regarding the road from Ayodhya to Rajagriha, see Additional Notes.

348 "The Satadru, 'the hundred-channeled'—the Zaradrus of Ptolemy, Hesydrus of Pliny—is the Sutlej." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 130.

349 The Sarasvati or Sursooty is a tributary of the Caggar or Guggur in Sirhind.

350 Suryamcha pratimehatu, adversus solem mingat. An offence expressly forbidden by the Laws of Manu.

351 Bharat does not intend these curses for any particular person: he merely wishes to prove his own innocence by invoking them on his own head if he had any share in banishing Rama.

352 The Sama-veda, the hymns of which are chanted aloud.

353 Walking from right to left.

354 Birth and death, pleasure and pain, loss and gain.

355 Erected upon a tree or high staff in honour of Indra.

356 I follow in this stanza the Bombay edition in preference to Schlegel's which gives the tears of joy to the courtiers.

357 The commentator says "Satrughna accompanied by the other sons of the king."

358 Not Bharat's uncle, but some councillor.

359 Satakratu, Lord of a hundred sacrifices, the performance of a hundred Asvamedhas or sacrifices of a horse entitling the sacrificer to this exalted dignity.

360 The modern Malabar.

361 Now Sungroor, in the Allahabad district.

362 Rama, Lakshman, and Sumantra.

363 The svastika, a little cross with a transverse line at each extremity.

364 When an army marched it was customary to burn the huts in which it had spent the night.

365 Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera.

366 "A happy land in the remote north where the inhabitants enjoy a natural pefection attended with complete happiness obtained without exertion. There is there no vicissitude, nor decrepitude, nor death, nor fear: no distinction of virtue and vice, none of the inequalities denoted by the words best, worst, and intermediate, nor any change resulting from the succession of the four Yugas." See MUIR'S Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p. 492.

367 The Moon.

368 The poet does not tell us what these lakes contained.

369 These ten lines are a substitution for, and not a translation of the text which Carey and Marshman thus render: "This mountain adorned with mango, jumboo, usuna, lodhra, piala, punusa, dhava, unkotha, bhuvya, tinisha, vilwa, tindooka, bamboo, kashmaree, urista, uruna, madhooka, tilaka, vuduree, amluka, nipa, vetra, dhunwuna, veejaka, and other trees affording flowers, and fruits, and the most delightful shade, how charming does it appear!"

370 Vidyadharis, Spirits of Air, sylphs.

371 A lake attached either to Amaravati the residence of Indra, or Alaka that of Kuvera.

372 The Ganges of heaven.

373 Nalini, as here, may be the name of any lake covered with lotuses.

374 This canto is allowed, by Indian commentators, to be an interpolation. It cannot be the work of Valmiki.

375 A fine bird with a strong, sweet note, and great imitative powers.

376 Bauhinea variegata, a species of ebony.

377 The rainbow is called the bow of Indra.

378 Bhogavati, the abode of the Nagas or Serpent race.

379 "The order of the procession on these occasions is that the children precede according to age, then the women and after that the men according to age, the youngest first and the eldest last: when they descend into the water this is reversed and resumed when they come out of it." CAREY AND MARSHMAN.

380 Vrihaspati, the preceptor of the Gods.

381 Garud, the king of birds.

382 To be won by virtue.

383 The four religious orders, referable to different times of life are, that of the student, that of the householder, that of the anchorite, and that of the mendicant.

384 To Gods, men, and Manes.

385 Gaya is a very holy city in Behar. Every good Hindu ought once in his life to make funeral offerings in Gaya in honour of his ancestors.

386 Put is the name of that region of hell to which men are doomed who leave no son to perform the funeral rites which are necessary to assure the happiness of the departed. Putra, the common word for a son is said by the highest authority to be derived from Put and tra deliverer.

387 It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.

Carey and Marshman translate, "the one-tailed city."

388 The verses in a different metre with which some cantos end are all to be regarded with suspicion. Schlegel regrets that he did not exclude them all from his edition. These lines are manifestly spurious. See Additional Notes.

389 This genealogy is a repetition with slight variation of that given in Book I, Canto LXX.

390 In Gorresio's recension identified with Vishnu. See Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Vol. IV. pp 29, 30.

391 From sa with, and gara poison.

392 See Book I. Canto XL.

393 A practice which has frequently been described, under the name of dherna, by European travellers in India.

394 Compare Milton's "beseeching or beseiging."

395 Ten-headed, ten-necked, ten faced, are common epithets of Ravan the giant king of Lanka.

396 The spouse of Rohini is the Moon: Rahu is the demon who causes eclipses.

397 "Once," says the Commentator Tirtha, "in the battle between the Gods and demons the Gods were vanquished, and the sun was overthrown by Rahu. At the request of the Gods Atri undertook the management of the sun for a week."

398 Now Nundgaon, in Oudh.

399 A part of the great Dandak forest.

400 When the saint Mandavya had doomed some saint's wife, who was Anasuya's friend, to become a widow on the morrow.

401 Heavenly nymphs.

402 The ball or present of food to all created beings.

403 The clarified butter &c. cast into the sacred fire.

404 The Moon-God: "he is," says the commentator, "the special deity of Brahmans."

405 "Because he was an incarnation of the deity," says the commentator, "otherwise such honour paid by men of the sacerdotal caste to one of the military would be improper."

406 The king of birds.

407 Kalantakayamopamam, resembling Yama the destroyer.

408 Somewhat inconsistently with this part of the story Tumburu is mentioned in Book II, Canto XII as one of the Gandharvas or heavenly minstrels summoned to perform at Bharadvaja's feast.

409 Rambha appears in Book I Canto LXIV as the temptress of Visvamitra.

410 The conclusion of this Canto is all a vain repetition: it is manifestly spurious and a very feeble imitation of Valmiki's style. See Additional Notes.

411 "Even when he had alighted," says the commentator: The feet of Gods do not touch the ground.

412 A name of Indra.

413 Sachi is the consort of Indra.

414 The spheres or mansions gained by those who have duly performed the sacrifices required of them. Different situations are assigned to these spheres, some placing them near the sun, others near the moon.

415 Hermits who live upon roots which they dig out of the earth: literally diggers, derived from the prefix vi and khan to dig.

416 Generally, divine personages of the height of a man's thumb, produced from Brahma's hair: here, according to the commentator followed by Gorresio, hermits who when they have obtained fresh food throw away what they had laid up before.

417 Sprung from the washings of Vishnuu's feet.

418 Four fires burning round them, and the sun above.

419 The tax allowed to the king by the Laws of Manu.

420 Near the celebrated Ramagiri or Rama's Hill, now Ram-tek, near Nagpore—the scene of the Yaksha's exile in the Messenger Cloud.

421 A hundred Asvamedhas or sacrifices of a horse raise the sacrificer to the dignity of Indra.

422 Indra.

423 Gorresio observes that Dasaratha was dead and that Sita had been informed of his death. In his translation he substitutes for the words of the text "thy relations and mine." This is quite superfluous. Dasaratha though in heaven still took a loving interest in the fortunes of his son.

424 One of the hermits who had followed Rama.

425 The lake of the five nymphs.

426 The holy fig-tree.

427 The bread-fruit tree, Artocarpus integrifolia.

428 A fine timber tree, Shorea robusta.

429 The God of fire.

430 Kuvera, the God of riches.

431 The Sun.

432 Brahma, the creator.

433 Siva.

434 The Wind-God.

435 The God of the sea.

436 A class of demi-gods, eight in number.

437 The holiest text of the Vedas, deified.

438 Vasuki.

439 Garud.

440 The War-God.

441 One of the Pleiades generally regarded as the model of wifely excellence.

442 The Madhuka, or, as it is now called, Mahuwa, is the Bassia latifolia, a tree from whose blossoms a spirit is extracted.

443 "I should have doubted whether Manu could have been the right reading here, but that it occurs again in verse 29, where it is in like manner followed in verse 31 by Anala, so that it would certainly seem that the name Manu is intended to stand for a female, the daughter of Daksha. The Gauda recension, followed by Signor Gorresio (III 20, 12), adopts an entirely different reading at the end of the line, viz. Balam Atibalam api, 'Bala and Atibila,' instead of Manu and Anala. I see that Professor Roth s.v. adduces the authority of the Amara Kosha and of the Commentator on Panini for stating that the word sometimes means 'the wife of Manu.' In the following text of the Mahabharata I. 2553. also, Manu appears to be the name of a female: 'Anaradyam, Manum, Vansam, Asuram, Marganapriyam, Anupam, Subhagam, Bhasim iti, Pradha vyajayata. Pradha (daughter of Daksha) bore Anavadya, Manu, Vansa, Marganapriya, Anupa, Subhaga. and Bhasi.' " Muir's Sanskrit Text, Vol. I. p. 116.

444 The elephant of Indra.

445 Golangulas, described as a kind of monkey, of a black colour, and having a tail like a cow.

446 Eight elephants attached to the four quarters and intermediate points of the compass, to support and guard the earth.

447 Some scholars identify the centaurs with the Gandharvas.

448 The hooded serpents, says the commentator Tirtha, were the offspring of Surasa: all others of Kadru.

449 The text reads Kasyapa, "a descendant of Kasyapa," who according to Ram. II. l0, 6, ought to be Vivasvat. But as it is stated in the preceding part of this passage III. 14, 11 f. that Manu was one of Kasyapa's eight wives, we must here read Kasyap. The Ganda recension reads (III, 20, 30) Manur manushyams cha tatha janayamasa Raghana, instead of the corresponding line in the Bombay edition. Muir's Sanskrit Text, Vol I, p. 117.

450 The original verses merely name the trees. I have been obliged to amplify slightly and to omit some quas versu dicere non est; e.g. the tinisa (Dalbergia ougeiniensis), punnaga (Rottleria tinctoria), tilaka (not named), syandana (Dalbergia ougeiniensis again), vandana (unknown), nipa (Nauclea Kadamba), lakucha (Artoearpus lacucha), dhava (Grislea tomentosa), Asvakarna (another name for the Sal), Sami (Acacia Suma), khadira (Mimosa catechu), kinsuka (Butea frondosa), patala (Bignonia suaveolens).

451 Acacia Suma.

452 The south is supposed to be the residence of the departed.

453 The sun.

454 The night is divided into three watches of four hours each.

455 The chief chamberlain and attendant of Siva or Rudra.

456 Uma or Parvati, the consort of Siva.

457 A star, one of the favourites of the Moon.

458 The God of love.

459 A demon slain by Indra.

460 Chitraratha, King of the Gandharvas.

461 Titanic.

462 The Sarika is the Maina, a bird like a starling.

463 Mahakapala, Sthulaksha, Pramatha, Trisiras.

464 Vishnu, who bears a chakra or discus.

465 Siva.

466 See Additional Notes—DAKSHA'S SACRIFICE.

467 Himalaya.

468 One of the mysterious weapons given to Rama.

469 A periphrasis for the body.

470 Trisiras.

471 The Three-headed.

472 The demon who causes eclipses.

473 "This Asura was a friend of Indra, and taking advantage of his friend's confidence, he drank up Indra's strength along with a draught of wine and Soma. Indra then told the Asvins and Sarasvati that Namuchi had drunk up his strength. The Asvins in consequence gave Indra a thunderbolt in the form of a foam, with which he smote off the head of Namuchi." GARRETT'S Classical Dictionary of India. See also Book I. p. 39.

474 Indra.

475 Popularly supposed to cause death.

476 Garud, the King of Birds, carried off the Amrit or drink of Paradise from Indra's custody.

477 A demon, son of Kasyap and Diti, slain by Rudra or Siva when he attempted to carry off the tree of Paradise.

478 Namuchi and Vritra were two demons slain by Indra. Vritra personifies drought, the enemy of Indra, who imprisons the rain in the cloud.

479 Another demon slain by Indra.

480 The capital of the giant king Ravan.

481 Kuvera, the God of gold.

482 In the great deluge.

483 The giant Maricha, son of Tadaka. Tadaka was slain by Rama. See p. 39.

484 Indra's elephant.

485 Bhogavati, in Patala in the regions under the earth, is the capital of the serpent race whose king is Vasuki.

486 the grove of Indra.

487 Pulastya is considered as the ancestor of the Rakshases or giants, as he is the father of Visravas, the father of Ravan and his brethren.

488 Beings with the body of a man and the head of a horse.

489 Ajas, Marichipas, Vaikhanasas, Mashas, and Balakhilyas are classes of supernatural beings who lead the lives of hermits.

490 "The younger brother of the giant Ravan; when he and his brother had practiced austerities for a long series of years, Brahma appeared to offer them boons: Vibhishana asked that he might never meditate any unrighteousness.… On the death of Ravan Vibhishana was installed as Raja of Lanka." GARRETT'S Classical Dictionary of India.

491 Serpent-gods.

492 See p. 33.

493 The Sanskrit words for car and jewels begin with ra.

494 A race of beings of human shape but with the heads of horses, like centaurs reversed.

495 The favourite wife of the Moon.

496 The planet Saturn.

497 Another favourite of the Moon; one of the lunar mansions.

498 The Rudras, agents in creation, are eight in number; they sprang from the forehead of Brahma.

499 Maruts, the attendants of Indra.

500 Radiant demi-gods.

501 The mountain which was used by the Gods as a churning stick at the Churning of the Ocean.

502 The story will be found in GARRETT'S Classical Dictionary. See ADDITIONAL NOTES.

503 Mercury: to be carefully distinguished from Buddha.

504 The spirits of the good dwell in heaven until their store of accumulated merit is exhausted. Then they redescend to earth in the form of falling stars.

505 See The Descent of Ganga, Book I Canto XLIV.

506 See Book I Canto XXV.

507 Asoka is compounded of a not and soka grief.

508 See Book I Canto XXXI.

509 An Asur or demon, king of Tripura, the modern Tipperah.

510 Siva.

511 See Book I, Canto LIX.

512 The preceptor of the Gods.

513 From the root vid, to find.

514 Ravan.

515 Or Curlews' Wood.

516 Iron-faced.

517 Kabandha means a trunk.

518 A class of mythological giants. In the Epic period they were probably personifications of the aborigines of India.

519 Peace, war, marching, halting, sowing dissensions, and seeking protection.

520 See Book I, Canto XVI.

521 Or as the commentator Tirtha says, Silapidhana, rock-covered, may be the name of the cavern.

522 Pampa is said by the commentator to be the name both of a lake and a brook which flows into it. The brook is said to rise in the hill Rishyamuka.

523 Who was acting as Regent for Rama and leading an ascetic life while he mourned for his absent brother.

524 The Indian Cuckoo.

525 The Cassia Fistula or Amaltas is a splendid tree like a giant laburnum covered with a profusion of chains and tassels of gold. Dr. Roxburgh well describes it as "uncommonly beautiful when in flower, few trees surpassing it in the elegance of its numerous long pendulous racemes of large bright-yellow flowers intermixed with the young lively green foliage." It is remarkable also for its curious cylindrical black seed-pods about two feet long, which are called monkeys' walking-sticks.

526 "The Jonesia Asoca is a tree of considerable size, native of southern India. It blossoms in February and March with large erect compact clusters of flowers, varying in colour from pale-orange to scarlet, almost to be mistaken, on a hasty glance, for immense trusses of bloom of an Ixora. Mr. Fortune considered this tree, when in full bloom, superior in beauty even to the Amherstia.

The first time I saw the Asoc in flower was on the hill where the famous rock-cut temple of Karli is situated, and a large concourse of natives had assembled for the celebration of some Hindoo festival. Before proceeding to the temple the Mahratta women gathered from two trees, which were flowering somewhat below, each a fine truss of blossom, and inserted it in the hair at the back of her head.… As they moved about in groups it is impossible to imagine a more delightful effect than the rich scarlet bunches of flowers presented on their fine glossy jet-black hair." FIRMINGER, Gardening for India.

527 No other word can express the movements of peafowl under the influence of pleasing excitement, especially when after the long drought they hear the welcome roar of the thunder and feel that the rain is near.

528 The Dewy Season is one of the six ancient seasons of the Indian year, lasting from the middle of January to the middle of March.

529 Rama appears to mean that on a former occasion a crow flying high overhead was an omen that indicated his approaching separation from Sita; and that now the same bird's perching on a tree near him may be regarded as a happy augury that she will soon be restored to her husband.

530 A tree with beautiful and fragrant blossoms.

531 A race of semi-divine musicians attached to the service of Kuvera, represented as centaurs reversed with human figures and horses' heads.

532 Butea Frondosa. A tree that bears a profusion of brilliant red flowers which appear before the leaves.

533 I omit five slokas which contain nothing but a list of trees for which, with one or two exceptions, there are no equivalent names in English. The following is Gorresio's translation of the corresponding passage in the Bengal recension:—

"Oh come risplendono in questa stagione di primavera i vitici, le galedupe, le bassie, le dalbergie, i diospyri … le tile, le michelie, le rottlerie, le pentaptere ed i pterospermi, i bombaci, le grislee, gli abri, gli amaranti e le dalbergie; i sirii, le galedupe, le barringtonie ed i palmizi, i xanthocymi, il pepebetel, le verbosine e le ticaie, le nauclee le erythrine, gli asochi, e le tapie fanno d'ogni intorno pompa de' lor fiori."

534 A sacred stream often mentioned in the course of the poem. See Book II, Canto XCV.

535 A daughter of Daksha who became one of the wives of Kasyapa and mother of the Daityas. She is termed the general mother of Titans and malignant beings. See Book I Cantos XLV, XLVI.

536 Sugriva, the ex-king of the Vanars, foresters, or monkeys, an exile from his home, wandering about the mountain Rishyamuka with his four faithful ex-ministers.

537 The hermitage of the Saint Matanga which his curse prevented Bali, the present king of the Vanars, from entering. The story is told at length in Canto XI of this Book.

538 Hanuman, Sugriva's chief general, was the son of the God of Wind. See Book I, Canto XVI.

539 A range of hills in Malabar; the Western Ghats in the Deccan.

540 Valmiki makes the second vowel in this name long or short to suit the exigencies of the verse. Other Indian poets have followed his example, and the same licence will be used in this translation.

541 I omit a recapitulatory and interpolated verse in a different metre, which is as follows:—Reverencing with the words, So be it, the speech of the greatly terrified and unequalled monkey king, the magnanimous Hanuman then went where (stood) the very mighty Rama with Lakshman.

542 The semi divine Hanuman possesses, like the Gods and demons, the power of wearing all shapes at will. He is one of the Kamarupis.

Like Milton's good and bad angels "as they please They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size Assume as likes them best, condense or rare."

543 Himalaya is of course par excellence the Monarch of mountains, but the complimentary title is frequently given to other hills as here to Malaya.

544 Twisted up in a matted coil as was the custom of ascetics.

545 The sun and moon.

546 The rainbow.

547 The Vedas are four in number, the Rich or Rig-veda, the Yajush or Yajur-veda; the Saman or Sama-veda, and the Atharvan or Atharva-veda. See p. 3. Note.

548 The chest, the throat, and the head.

549 "In our own metrical romances, or wherever a poem is meant not for readers but for chanters and oral reciters, these formulae, to meet the same recurring case, exist by scores. Thus every woman in these metrical romances who happens to be young, is described as 'so bright of ble,' or complexion; always a man goes 'the mountenance of a mile' before he overtakes or is overtaken. And so on through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit Homer has his eternal τον δ'αρ' ὑποδρα ιδων, or τον δ'απαμειβομενος προσφη, &c.

To a reader of sensibility, such recurrences wear an air of child-like simplicity, beautifully recalling the features of Homer's primitive age. But they would have appeared faults to all commonplace critics in literary ages."

DE QUINCEY. Homer and the Homeridae.

550 Brahmans the sacerdotal caste. Kshatriyas the royal and military, Vaisyas the mercantile, and Sudras the servile.

551 A protracted sacrifice extending over several days. See Book I, p. 24 Note.

552 Possessed of all the auspicious personal marks that indicate capacity of universal sovereignty. See Book I. p. 2, and Note 3.

553 Kabandha. See Book III. Canto LXXIII.

554 Fire for sacred purposes is produced by the attrition of two pieces of wood. In marriage and other solemn covenants fire is regarded as the holy witness in whose presence the agreement is made. Spenser in a description of a marriage, has borrowed from the Roman rite what he calls the housling, or "matrimonial rite."

"His owne two hands the holy knots did knit That none but death forever can divide. His owne two hands, for such a turn most fit, The housling fire did kindle and provide."

Faery Queen, Book I. XII. 37.

555 Indra.

556 Bali the king de facto.

557 With the Indians, as with the ancient Greeks, the throbbing of the right eye in a man is an auspicious sign, the throbbing of the left eye is the opposite. In a woman the significations of signs are reversed.

558 The Vedas stolen by the demons Madhu and Kaitabha.

"The text has [Sanskrit text] which signifies literally 'the lost vedic tradition.' It seems that allusion is here made to the Vedas submerged in the depth of the sea, but promptly recovered by Vishnu in one of his incarnations, as the brahmanic legend relates, with which the orthodoxy of the Brahmans intended perhaps to allude to the prompt restoration and uninterrupted continuity of the ancient vedic tradition."

GORRESIO.

559 Like the wife of a Naga or Serpent-God carried off by an eagle. The enmity between the King of birds and the serpent is of very frequent occurrence. It seems to be a modification of the strife between the Vedic Indra and the Ahi, the serpent or drought-fiend; between Apollon and the Python, Adam and the Serpent.

560 He means that he has never ventured to raise his eyes to her arms and face, though he has ever been her devoted servant.

561 The wood in which Skanda or Kartikeva was brought up:

"The Warrior-God Whose infant steps amid the thickets strayed Where the reeds wave over the holy sod."

See also Book I, Canto XXIX.

562 "Sugriva's story paints in vivid colours the manners, customs and ideas of the wild mountain tribes which inhabited Kishkindhya or the southern hills of the Deccan, of the people whom the poem calls monkeys, tribes altogether different in origin and civilization from the Indo-Sanskrit race." GORRESIO.

563 A fiend slain by Bali.

564 Bali's mountain city.

565 The canopy or royal umbrella, one of the usual Indian regalia.

566 Whisks made of the hair of the Yak or Bos grunniers, also regal insignia.

567 Righteous because he never transgresses his bounds, and

"over his great tides Fidelity presides."

568 Himalaya, the Lord of Snow, is the father of Uma the wife of Siva or Sankar.

569 Indra's celestial elephant.

570 Bali was the son of Indra. See p. 28.

571 An Asur slain by Indra. See p. 261 Note. He is, like Vritra, a form of the demon of drought destroyed by the beneficent God of the firmament.

572 Another name of Indra or Mahendra.

573 The Bengal recension makes it return in the form of a swan.

574 Varuna is one of the oldest of the Vedic Gods, corresponding in name and partly in character to the Οὐρανός of the Greeks and is often regarded as the supreme deity. He upholds heaven and earth, possesses extraordinary power and wisdom, sends his messengers through both worlds, numbers the very winkings of men's eyes, punishes transgressors whom he seizes with his deadly noose, and pardons the sins of those who are penitent. In later mythology he has become the God of the sea.

575 Budha, not to be confounded with the great reformer Buddha, is the son of Soma or the Moon, and regent of the planet Mercury. Angara is the regent of Mars who is called the red or the fiery planet. The encounter between Michael and Satan is similarly said to have been as if

"Two planets rushing from aspect malign Of fiercest opposition in midsky Should combat, and their jarring spheres compound."

Paradise Lost. Book VI.

576 The Asvins or Heavenly Twins, the Dioskuri or Castor and Pollux of the Hindus, have frequently been mentioned. See p. 36, Note.

577 Called respectively Garhapatya, Ahavaniya, and Dakshina, household, sacrificial, and southern.

578 The store of merit accumulated by a holy or austere life secures only a temporary seat in the mansion of bliss. When by the lapse of time this store is exhausted, return to earth is unavoidable.

579 The conflagration which destroys the world at the end of a Yuga or age.

580 Himalaya.

581 Tara means "star." The poet plays upon the name by comparing her beauty to that of the Lord of stars, the Moon.

582 Suparna, the Well-winged, is another name of Garuda the King of Birds. See p. 28, Note.

583 The God of Death.

584 The flag-staff erected in honour of the God Indra is lowered when the festival is over. Asvini in astronomy is the head of Aries or the first of the twenty-eight lunar mansions or asterisms.

585 Indra the father of Bali.

586 It is believed that every creature killed by Rama obtained in consequence immediate beatitude.

"And blessed the hand that gave so dear a death."

587 "Yayati was invited to heaven by Indra, and conveyed on the way thither by Matali, Indra's charioteer. He afterwards returned to earth where, by his virtuous administration he rendered all his subjects exempt from passion and decay." GARRETT'S C. D. OF INDIA.

588 The ascetic's dress which he wore during his exile.

589 There is much inconsistency in the passages of the poem in which the Vanars are spoken of, which seems to point to two widely different legends. The Vanars are generally represented as semi-divine beings with preternatural powers, living in houses and eating and drinking like men sometimes as here, as monkeys pure and simple, living is woods and eating fruit and roots.

590 For a younger brother to marry before the elder is a gross violation of Indian law and duty. The same law applied to daughters with the Hebrews: "It must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the first-born." GENESIS xix. 26.

591 "The hedgehog and porcupine, the lizard, the rhinoceros, the tortoise, and the rabbit or hare, wise legislators declare lawful food among five-toed animals." MANU, v. 18.

592 "He can not buckle his distempered cause Within the belt of rule."

MACBETH.

593 The Ankus or iron hook with which an elephant is driven and guided.

594 Hayagriva, Horse-necked, is a form of Vishnu.

595 "Asvatara is the name of a chief of the Nagas or serpents which inhabit the regions under the earth; it is also the name of a Gandharva. Asvatari ought to be the wife of one of the two, but I am not sure that this conjecture is right. The commentator does not say who this Asvatari is, or what tradition or myth is alluded to. Vimalabodha reads Asvatari in the nominative case, and explains, Asvatari is the sun, and as the sun with his rays brings back the moon which has been sunk in the ocean and the infernal regions, so will I bring back Sita." GORRESIO.

596 That is, "Consider what answer you can give to your accusers when they charge you with injustice in killing me."

597 Manu, Book VIII. 318. "But men who have committed offences and have received from kings the punishment due to them, go pure to heaven and become as clear as those who have done well."

598 Mandhata was one of the earlier descendants of Ikshvaku. His name is mentioned in Rama's genealogy, p. 81.

599 I cannot understand how Valmiki could put such an excuse as this into Rama's mouth. Rama with all solemn ceremony, has made a league of alliance with Bali's younger brother whom he regards as a dear friend and almost as an equal, and now he winds up his reasons for killing Bali by coolly saying: "Besides you are only a monkey, you know, after all, and as such I have every right to kill you how, when, and where I like."

600 A name of Garuda the king of birds, the great enemy of the Serpents.

601 Sugriva's wife.

602 "Our deeds still follow with us from afar. And what we have been makes us what we are."

603 Sugriva and Angad.

604 Angad himself, being too young to govern, would be Yuvaraja or heir-apparent.

605 Sushena was the son of Varuna the God of the sea.

606 A demon with the tail of a dragon, that causes eclipses by endeavouring to swallow the sun and moon.

607 The Lord of Stars is the Moon.

608 Or the passage may be interpreted: "Be neither too obsequious or affectionate, nor wanting in due respect or love."

609 Sacrifices and all religious rites begin and end with ablution, and the wife of the officiating Brahman takes an important part in the performance of the holy ceremonies.

610 Visvarupa, a son of Twashtri or Visvakarma the heavenly architect, was a three-headed monster slain by Indra.

611 The Vanar chief, not to be confounded with Tara.

612 Sravan: July-August. But the rains begin a month earlier, and what follows must not be taken literally. The text has purvo' yam varshiko masah Sravanah salilagamdh. The Bengal recension has the same, and Gorresio translates: "Equesto ilmese Sravana (luglio-agosto) primo della stagione piovosa, in cui dilagano le acque."

613 Kartik: October-November.

614 "Indras, as the nocturnal sun, hides himself, transformed, in the starry heavens: the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or all-seeing (panoptes) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the cow beloved by Zeus, in the Hellenic equivalent of this form of Indras." DE GUBERNATIS, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, p. 418.

615 Baudhayana and others.

616 Sugriva appears to have been consecrated with all the ceremonies that attended the Abhisheka or coronation of an Indian prince of the Aryan race. Compare the preparations made for Rama's consecration, Book II, Canto III. Thus Homer frequently introduces into Troy the rites of Hellenic worship.

617 Vitex Negundo.

618 Malyavat: "The name of this mountain appears to me to be erroneous, and I think that instead of Malyavat should be read Malayavat, Malaya is a group of mountains situated exactly in that southern part of India where Rama now was, while Malyavat is placed to the north east." GORRESIO.

619 Mantles of the skin of the black antelope were the prescribed dress of ascetics and religious students.

620 The sacred cord worn as the badge of religious initiation by men of the three twice-born castes.

621 The hum with which students conduct their tasks.

622 I omit here a long general description of the rainy season which is not found in the Bengal recension and appears to have been interpolated by a far inferior and much later hand than Valmiki's. It is composed in a metre different from that of the rest of the Canto, and contains figures of poetical rhetoric and common-places which are the delight of more recent poets.

623 Praushthapada or Bhadra, the modern Bhadon, corresponds to half of August and half of September.

624 The Saman or Sama-veda, the third of the four Vedas, is really merely a reproduction of parts of the Rig-veda, transposed and scattered about piece-meal, only 78 verses in the whole being, it is said, untraceable to the present recension of the Rig-veda.

625 Ashadha is the month corresponding to parts of June and July.

626 Bharat, who was regent during Rama's absence.

627 Or with Gorresio, following the gloss of another commentary: "Has completed every holy rite and accumulated stores of merit."

628 The river on which Ayodhya was built.

629 I omit a sloka or four lines on gratitude and ingratitude repeated word for word from the last Canto.

630 The Indian crane; a magnificent bird easily domesticated.

631 The troops who guard the frontiers on the north, south, east and west.

632 The Chataka, Cuculus, Melanoleucus, is supposed to drink nothing but the water for the clouds.

633 The time for warlike expeditions began when the rains had ceased.

634 The rainbow.

635 Indra's associates in arms, and musicians of his heaven.

636 Maireya, a spirituous liquor from the blossoms of the Lythrum fruticosum, with sugar, &c.

637 Their names are as follows: Angad, Mainda, Dwida, Gavaya, Gavaksha, Gaja, Sarabha, Vidyunmali, Sampati, Suryaksa, Hanuman, Virabahu, Subahu, Nala, Kumuda, Sushena, Tara, Jambuvatu, Dadhivakra, Nila, Supatala, and Sunetra.

638 The Kalpadruma or Wishing-tree is one of the trees of Svarga or Indra's Paradise: it has the power of granting all desires.

639 The meaning is that if a man promises to give a horse and then breaks his word he commits a sin as great as if he had killed a hundred horses.

640 The story is told in Book I, Canto LXIII, but the charmer there is called Menaka.

641 Rohini is the name of the ninth Nakshatra or lunar asterism personified as a daughter of Daksha, and the favourite wife of the Moon. Aldebaran is the principal star in the constellation.

642 Valmiki and succeeding poets make the second vowel in this name long or short at their pleasure.

643 Some of the mountains here mentioned are fabulous and others it is impossible to identify. Sugriva means to include all the mountains of India from Kailas the residence of the God Kuvera, regarded as one of the loftiest peaks of the Himalayas, to Mahendra in the extreme south, from the mountain in the east where the sun is said to rise to Astachal or the western mountain where he sets. The commentators give little assistance: that Mahasaila, &c. are certain mountains is about all the information they give.

644 One of the celestial elephants of the Gods who protect the four quarters and intermediate points of the compass.

645 Vayu or the Wind was the father of Hanuman.

646 The path or station of Vishnu is the space between the seven Rishis or Ursa Major, and Dhruva or the polar star.

647 One of the seven seas which surround the earth in concentric circles.

648 The title of Mahesvar or Mighty Lord is sometimes given to Indra, but more generally to Siva whom it here denotes.

649 See Book I, Canto XVI.

650 The numbers are unmanageable in English verse. The poet speaks of hundreds of arbudas; and an arbuda is a hundred millions.

651 Anuhlada or Anuhrada is one of the four sons of the mighty Hiranyakasipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kasyapa and Diti and killed by Vishnu in his incarnation of the Man-Lion Narasinha. According to the Bhagavata Purana the Daitya or Asur Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksha his brother, both killed by Vishnu, were born again as Ravan and Kumbhakarna his brother.

652 Puloma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in order to avert an imprecation. Paulomi is a patronymic denoting Sachi the daughter of Puloma.

653 "Observe the variety of colours which the poem attributes to all these inhabitants of the different mountainous regions, some white, others yellow, &c. Such different colours were perhaps peculiar and distinctive characteristics of those various races." GORRESSIO.

654 Sushen.

655 Tara.

656 Kesari was the husband of Hanuman's mother, and is here called his father.

657 "I here unite under one heading two animals of very diverse nature and race, but which from some gross resemblances, probably helped by an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo myth … a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality, capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as well as in monkeys. In the Ramayanam, the wise Jamnavant, the Odysseus of the expedition of Lanka, is called now king of the bears (rikshaparthivah), now great monkey (Mahakapih)." DE GUBERNATIS: Zoological Mythology, Vol. II. p. 97.

658 Gandhamadana, Angad, Tara, Indrajanu, Rambha, Durmukha, Hanuman, Nala, Da mukha, Sarabha, Kumuda, Vahni.

659 Daityas and Danavas are fiends and enemies of the Gods, like the Titans of Greek mythology.

660 I reduce the unwieldy numbers of the original to more modest figures.

661 Sarayu now Sarju is the river on which Ayodhya was built.

662 Kausiki is a river which flows through Behar, commonly called Kosi.

663 Bhagirath's daughter is Ganga or the Ganges. The legend is told at length in Book I Canto XLIV. The Descent of Ganga.

664 A mountain not identified.

665 The Jumna. The river is personified as the twin sister of Yama, and hence regarded as the daughter of the Sun.

666 The Sarasvati (corruptly called Sursooty, is supposed to join the Ganges and Jumna at Prayag or Allahabad. It rises in the mountains bounding the north-east part of the province of Delhi, and running in a south-westerly direction becomes lost in the sands of the great desert.

667 The Sindhu is the Indus, the Sanskrit s becoming h in Persian and being in this instance dropped by the Greeks.

668 The Sone which rises in the district of Nagpore and falls into the Ganges above Patna.

669 Mahi is a river rising in Malwa and falling into the gulf of Cambay after a westerly course of 280 miles.

670 There is nothing to show what parts of the country the poet intended to denote as silk-producing and silver-producing.

671 Yavadwipa means the island of Yava, wherever that may be.

672 Sisir is said to be a mountain ridge projecting from the base of Meru on the south. Wilson's Vishnu Purana, ed. Hall, Vol. II. p. 117.

673 This appears to be some mythical stream and not the well-known Sone. The name means red-coloured.

674 A fabulous thorny rod of the cotton tree used for torturing the wicked in hell. The tree gives its name, Salmali, to one of the seven Dwipas, or great divisions of the known continent: and also to a hell where the wicked are tormented with the pickles of the tree.

675 The king of the feathered creation.

676 Visvakarma, the Mulciber of the Indian heaven.

677 "The terrific fiends named Mandehas attempt to devour the sun: for Brahma denounced this curse upon them, that without the power to perish they should die every day (and revive by night) and therefore a fierce contest occurs (daily) between them and the sun." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana. Vol. II. p. 250.

678 Said in the Vishnu Purana to be a ridge projecting from the base of Meru to the north.

679 Kinnars are centaurs reversed, beings with equine head and human bodies.

680 Yakshas are demi-gods attendant on Kuvera the God of wealth.

681 Aurva was one of the descendants of Bhrigu. From his wrath proceeded a flame that threatened to destroy the world, had not Aurva cast it into the ocean where it remained concealed, and having the face of a horse. The legend is told in the Mahabharat. I. 6802.

682 The word Jatarupa means gold.

683 The celebrated mythological serpent king Sesha, called also Ananta or the infinite, represented as bearing the earth on one of his thousand heads.

684 Jambudwipa is in the centre of the seven great dwipas or continents into which the world is divided, and in the centre of Jambudwipa is the golden mountain Meru 84,000 yojans high, and crowned by the great city of Brahma. See WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 110.

685 Vaikhanases are a race of hermit saints said to have sprung from the nails of Prajapati.

686 "The wife of Kratu, Samnati, brought forth the sixty thousand Valakhilyas, pigmy sages, no bigger than a joint of the thumb, chaste, pious, resplendent as the rays of the Sun." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana.

687 The continent in which Sudarsan or Meru stands, i.e. Jambudwip.

688 The names of some historical peoples which occur in this Canto and in the Cantos describing the south and north will be found in the ADDITIONAL NOTES. They are bare lists, not susceptible of a metrical version.

689 Suhotra, Sarari, Saragulma, Gaya, Gavaksha, Gavaya, Sushena, Gandhamadana, Ulkamukha, and Ananga.

690 The modern Nerbudda.

691 Krishnaveni is mentioned in the Vishnu Purana as "the deep Krishnaveni" but there appears to be no clue to its identification.

692 The modern Godavery.

693 The Mekhalas or Mekalas according to the Paranas live in the Vindhya hills, but here they appear among the peoples of the south.

694 Utkal is still the native name of Orissa.

695 The land of the people of the "ten forts." Professor Hall in a note on WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 160 says: "The oral traditions of the vicinity to this day assign the name of Dasarna to a region lying to the east of the District of Chundeyree."

696 Avanti is one of the ancient names of the celebrated Ujjayin or Oujein in Central India.

697 Not identified.

698 Ayomukh means iron faced. The mountain is not identified.

699 The Kaveri or modern Cauvery is well known and has always borne the same appellation, being the Chaberis of Ptolemy.

700 One of the seven principal mountain chains: the southern portion of the Western Ghats.

701 Agastya is the great sage who has already frequently appeared as Rama's friend and benefactor.

702 Tamraparni is a river rising in Malaya.

703 The Pandyas are a people of the Deccan.

704 Mahendra is the chain of hills that extends from Orissa and the northern Sircars to Gondwana, part of which near Ganjam is still called Mahendra Malay or hills of Mahendra.

705 Lanka, Sinhaladvipa, Sarandib, or Ceylon.

706 The Flowery Hill of course is mythical.

707 The whole of the geography south of Lanka is of course mythical. Suryavan means Sunny.

708 Vaidyut means connected with lightning.

709 Agastya is here placed far to the south of Lanka. Earlier in this Canto he was said to dwell on Malaya.

710 Bhogavati has been frequently mentioned: it is the capital of the serpent Gods or demons, and usually represented as being in the regions under the earth.

711 Vasuki is according to some accounts the king of the Nagas or serpent Gods.

712 Sailusha, Gramini, Siksha, Suka, Babhru.

713 The distant south beyond the confines of the earth is the home of departed spirits and the city of Yama the God of Death.

714 Surashtra, the "good country," is the modern Sura

715 A country north-west of Afghanistan, Baikh.

716 The Moon-mountain here is mythical.

717 Sindhu is the Indus.

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

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

720 Chakravan means the discus-bearer.

721 The discus is the favourite weapon of Vishnu.

722 The Indian Hephaistos or Vulcan.

723 Panchajan was a demon who lived in the sea in the form of a conch shell. WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, V. 21.

724 Hayagriva, Horse-necked, is the name of a Daitya who at the dissolution of the universe caused by Brahma's sleep, seized and carried off the Vedas. Vishnu slew him and recovered the sacred treasures.

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

726 The Visvadevas are a class of deities to whom sacrifices should be daily offered, as part of the ordinary worship of the householder. According to the Vayu Purana, this is a privilege conferred on them by Brahma and the Pitris as a reward for religious austerities practised by them upon Himalaya.

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

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

729 The mountain behind which the sun sets.

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

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

732 Savarni is a Manu, offspring of the Sun by Chhaya.

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

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

735 The hills mentioned are not identifiable. Soma means the Moon. Kala, black; Sudarasan, fair to see; and Devasakha friend of the Gods.

736 The God of Wealth.

737 The nymphs of Paradise.

738 Kuvera the son of Visravas.

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

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

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

742 The Moon-mountain.

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

744 Canto IX.

745 Udayagiri or the hill from which the sun rises.

746 Asta is the mountain behind which the sun sets.

747 Himalaya, the Hills of Snow.

748 Canto XI.

749 Hanuman was the leader of the army of the south which was under the nominal command of Angad the heir apparent.

750 The Bengal recension—Gorresio's edition—calls this Asur or demon the son of Maricha.

751 The skin of the black antelope was the ascetic's proper garb.

752 Usanas is the name of a sage mentioned in the Vedas. In the epic poems he is identified with Sukra, the regent of the planet Venus, and described as the preceptor of the Asuras or Daityas, and possessor of vast knowledge.

753 Hema is one of the nymphs of Paradise.

754 Merusavarni is a general name for the last four of the fourteen Manus.

755 Svayamprabha, the "self-luminous," is according to DE GUBERNATIS the moon: "In the Svayamprabha too, we meet with the moon as a good fairy who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend Hema (the golden one:) is during a month the guide, in the vast cavern of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in the search of the dawn Sita." This is is not quite accurate: Hanuman and his companions wander for a month in the cavern without a guide, and then Svayamprabha leads them out.

756 Purandara, the destroyer of cities; the cities being the clouds which the God of the firmament bursts open with his thunderbolts, to release the waters imprisoned in these fortresses of the demons of drought.

757 Perceived that Angad had secured, through the love of the Vanars, the reversion of Sugriva's kingdom; or, as another commentator explains it, perceived that Angad had obtained a new kingdom in the enchanted cave which the Vanars, through love of him, would consent to occupy.

758 Vrihaspati, Lord of Speech, the Preceptor of the Gods.

759 Sukra is the regent of the planet Venus, and the preceptor of the Daityas.

760 The name of various kinds of grass used at sacrificial ceremonies, especially, of the Kusa grass, Poa cynosuroides, which was used to strew the ground in preparing for a sacrifice, the officiating Brahmans being purified by sitting on it.

761 Sampati is the eldest son of the celebrated Garuda the king of birds.

762 Vivasvat or the Sun is the father of Yama the God of Death.

763 Book III, Canto LI.

764 Dasaratha's rash oath and fatal promise to his wife Kaikeyi.

765 Vritra, "the coverer, hider, obstructer (of rain)" is the name of the Vedic personification of an imaginary malignant influence or demon of darkness and drought supposed to take possession of the clouds, causing them to obstruct the clearness of the sky and keep back the waters. Indra is represented as battling with this evil influence, and the pent-up clouds being practically represented as mountains or castles are shattered by his thunderbolt and made to open their receptacles.

766 Frequent mention has been made of the three steps of Vishnu typifying the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun.

767 For the Churning of the Sea, see Book I, Canto XLV.

768 Kuvera, the God of Wealth.

769 The architect of the gods.

770 Garuda, son of Vinata, the sovereign of the birds.

771 "The well winged one," Garuda.

772 The god of the sea.

773 Mahendra is chain of mountains generally identified with part of the Ghats of the Peninsula.

774 Matarisva is identified with Vayu, the wind.

775 Of course not equal to the whole earth, says the Commentator, but equal to Janasthan.

776 This appears to be the Indian form of the stories of Phaethon and Daedalus and Icarus.

777 According to the promise, given him by Brahma. See Book I, Canto XIV.

778 In the Bengal recension the fourth Book ends here, the remaining Cantos being placed in the fifth.

779 Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty, and so on up to ninety.

780 Prahlada, the son of Hiranyakasipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for his devotion to Vishnu, and was on this account persecuted by his father.

781 The Bengal recension calls him Arishtanemi's brother. "The commentator says 'Arishtanemi is Aruna.' Aruna the charioteer of the sun is the son of Kasyapa and Vinata and by consequence brother of Garuda, called Vainateya from Vinata, his mother." GORRESSIO.

782 A nymph of Paradise.

783 Hanu or Hanu means jaw. Hanuman or Hanuman means properly one with a large jaw.

784 Vishnu, the God of the Three Steps.

785 Narayan, "He who moved upon the waters," is Vishnu. The allusion is to the famous three steps of that God.

786 The Milky Way.

787 This Book is called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place description, lamentation, and long stories which have been again and again repeated.

788 Brahma the Self-Existent.

789 Mainaka was the son of Himalaya and Mena or Menaka.

790 Thus Milton makes the hills of heaven self-moving at command:

"At his command the uprooted hills retired Each to his place, they heard his voice and went Obsequious"

791 The spirit of the mountain is separable from the mountain. Himalaya has also been represented as standing in human form on one of his own peaks.

792 Sagar or the Sea is said to have derived its name from Sagar. The story is fully told in Book I, Cantos XLII, XLIII, and XLIV.

793 Kritu is the first of the four ages of the world, the golden age, also called Satya.

794 Parvata means a mountain and in the Vedas a cloud. Hence in later mythology the mountains have taken the place of the clouds as the objects of the attacks of Indra the Sun-God. The feathered king is Garuda.

795 "The children of Surasa were a thousand mighty many-headed serpents, traversing the sky." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 73.

796 She means, says the Commentator, pursue thy journey if thou can.

797 If Milton's spirits are allowed the power of infinite self-extension and compression the same must be conceded to Valmiki's supernatural beings. Given the power as in Milton the result in Valmiki is perfectly consistent.

798 "Daksha is the son of Brahma and one of the Prajapatis or divine progenitors. He had sixty daughters, twenty-seven of whom married to Kasyapa produced, according to one of the Indian cosmogonies, all mundane beings. Does the epithet, Descendant of Daksha, given to Surasa, mean that she is one of those daughters? I think not. This epithet is perhaps an appellation common to all created beings as having sprung from Daksha." GORRESSIO.

799 Sinhika is the mother of Rahu the dragon's head or ascending node, the chief agent in eclipses.

800 According to De Gubernatis, the author of the very learned, ingenious, and interesting though too fanciful Zoological Mythology. Hanuman here represents the sun entering into and escaping from a cloud. The biblical Jonah, according to him, typifies the same phenomenon. Sa'di, speaking of sunset, says Yunas andar-i-dihan-imahi shud: Jonas was within the fish's mouth. See ADDITIONAL NOTES.

801 The Buchanania Latifolia.

802 The Bauhinia Variegata.

803 Through the power that Ravan's stern mortifications had won for him his trees bore flowers and fruit simultaneously.

804 Visvakarma is the architect of the Gods.

805 So in Paradise Lost Satan when he has stealthily entered the garden of Eden assumes the form of a cormorant.

806 Priests who fought only with the weapons of religion, the sacred grass used like the verbena of the Romans at sacred rites and the consecrated fire to consume the offering of ghee.

807 One of the Rakshas lords.

808 The brother Ravan.

809 Indra's elephant.

810 Ravan's palace appears to have occupied the whole extent of ground, and to have contained within its outer walls the mansions of all the great Rakshas chiefs. Ravan's own dwelling seems to have been situated within the enchanted chariot Pushpak: but the description is involved and confused, and it is difficult to say whether the chariot was inside the palace or the palace inside the chariot.

811 Pushpak from pushpa a flower. The car has been mentioned before in Ravan's expedition to carry off Sita, Book III, Canto XXXV.

812 Lakshmi is the wife of Vishnu and the Goddess of Beauty and Felicity. She rose, like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea. For an account of her birth and beauty, see Book I, Canto XLV.

813 Visvakarma is the architect of the Gods, the Hephaestos or Mulciber of the Indian heaven.

814 Ravan in the resistless power which his long austerities had endowed him with, had conquered his brother Kuvera the God of Gold and taken from him his greatest treasure this enchanted car.

815 Like Milton's heavenly car, "Itself instinct with spirit."

816 Women, says Valmiki. But the Commentator says that automatic figures only are meant. Women would have seen Hanuman and given the alarm.

817 Ravan had fought against Indra and the Gods, and his body was still scarred by the wounds inflicted by the tusks of Indra's elephant and by the fiery bolts of the Thunderer.

818 The Vasus are a class of eight deities, originally personifications of natural phenomena.

819 The Maruts are the winds or Storm-Gods.

820 The Adityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom Varuna is the chief. The name Aditya was afterwards given to any God, specially to Surya the Sun.

821 The Asvins are the Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the Hindus.

822 The poet forgets that Hanuman has reduced himself to the size of a cat.

823 Sita "not of woman born," was found by King Janak as he was turning up the ground in preparation for a sacrifice. See Book II, Canto CXVIII.

824 The six Angas or subordinate branches of the Vedas are 1. Siksha, the science of proper articulation and pronunciation: 2. Chhandas, metre: 3. Vyakarana, linguistic analysis or grammar: 4. Nirukta, explanation of difficult Vedic words: 5. Jyotishtom, Astronomy, or rather the Vedic Calendar: 6. Kalpa, ceremonial.

825 There appears to be some confusion of time here. It was already morning when Hanuman entered the grove, and the torches would be needless.

826 Ravan is one of those beings who can "climb them as they will," and can of course assume the loveliest form to please human eyes as well as the terrific shape that suits the king of the Rakshases.

827 White and lovely as the Arant or nectar recovered from the depths of the Milky Sea when churned by the assembled Gods. See Book I, Canto XLV.

828 Ravan in his magic car carrying off the most beautiful women reminds us of the magician in Orlando Furioso, possesor of the flying horse.

"Volando talor s'alza ne le stelle, E poi quasi talor la terra rade; E ne porta con lui tutte le belle Donne che trova per quelle contrade."

829 Indian women twisted their long hair in a single braid as a sign of mourning for their absent husbands.

830 Janak, king of Mithila, was Sita's father.

831 Hiranyakasipu was a king of the Daityas celebrated for his blasphemous impieties. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishnu the Daitya tried to kill him, when the God appeared in the incarnation of the man-lion and tore the tyrant to pieces.

832 Do unto others as thou wouldst they should do unto thee, is a precept frequently occurring in the old Indian poems. This charity is to embrace not human beings only, but bird and beast as well: "He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small."

833 It was the custom of Indian warriors to mark their arrows with their ciphers or names, and it seems to have been regarded as a point of honour to give an enemy the satisfaction of knowing who had shot at him. This passage however contains, if my memory serves me well, the first mention in the poem of this practice, and as arrows have been so frequently mentioned and described with almost every conceivable epithet, its occurrence here seems suspicious. No mention of, or allusion to writing has hitherto occurred in the poem.

834 This threat in the same words occurs in Book III, Canto LVI.

835 Ravan carried off and kept in his palace not only earthly princesses but the daughters of Gods and Gandharvas.

836 The wife of Indra.

837 These four lines have occurred before. Book III, Canto LVI.

838 Prajapatis are the ten lords of created beings first created by Brahma; somewhat like the Demiurgi of the Gnostics.

839 "This is the number of the Vedic divinities mentioned in the Rig-veda. In Ashtaka I. Sukta XXXIV, the Rishi Hiranyastupa invoking the Asvins says: A Nasatya tribhirekadasairiha devebniryatam: 'O Nasatyas (Asvins) come hither with the thrice eleven Gods.' And in Sukta XLV, the Rishi Praskanva addressing his hymn to Agni (ignis, fire), thus invokes him: 'Lord of the red steeds, propitiated by our prayers lead hither the thirty-three Gods.' This number must certainly have been the actual number in the early days of the Vedic religion: although it appears probable enough that the thirty-three Vedic divinities could not then be found co-ordinated in so systematic a way as they were arranged more recently by the authors of the Upanishads. In the later ages of Bramanism the number went on increasing without measure by successive mythical and religious creations which peopled the Indian Olympus with abstract beings of every kind. But through lasting veneration of the word of the Veda the custom regained of giving the name of 'the thirty-three Gods' to the immense phalanx of the multiplied deities." GORRESIO.

840 Serpent-Gods who dwell in the regions under the earth.

841 In the mythology of the epics the Gandharvas are the heavenly singers or musicians who form the orchestra at the banquets of the Gods, and they belong to the heaven of India in whose battles they share.

842 The mother of Rama.

843 The mother of Lakshman.

844 In the south is the region of Yama the God of Death, the place of departed spirits.

845 Kumbhakarna was one of Ravan's brothers.

846 The guards are still in the grove, but they are asleep; and Sita has crept to a tree at some distance from them.

847 "As the reason assigned in these passages for not addressing Sita in Sanskrit such as a Brahman would use is not that she would not understand it, but that it would alarm her and be unsuitable to the speaker, we must take them as indicating that Sanskrit, if not spoken by women of the upper classes at the time when the Ramayana was written (whenever that may have been), was at least understood by them, and was commonly spoken by men of the priestly class, and other educated persons. By the Sanskrit proper to an [ordinary] man, alluded to in the second passage, may perhaps be understood not a language in which words different from Sanskrit were used, but the employment of formal and elaborate diction." MUIR'S Sanskrit Texts, Part II. p. 166.

848 Svayambhu, the Self-existent, Brahma.

849 Vrihaspati or Vachaspati, the Lord of Speech and preceptor of the Gods.

850 The Asurs were the fierce enemies of the Gods.

851 The Rudras are manifestations of Siva.

852 The Maruts or Storm Gods.

853 Rohini is an asterism personified as the daughter of Daksha and the favourite wife of the Moon. The chief star in the constellation is Aldebaran.

854 Arundhati was the wife of the great sage Vasishtha, and regarded as the pattern of conjugal excellence. She was raised to the heavens as one of the Pleiades.

855 The Gods do not shed tears; nor do they touch the ground when they walk or stand. Similarly Milton's angels marched above the ground and "the passive air upbore their nimble tread." Virgil's "vera incessu patuit dea" may refer to the same belief.

856 That a friend of Rama would praise him as he should be praised, and that if the stranger were Ravan in disguise he would avoid the subject.

857 Kuvera the God of Gold.

858 Sita of course knows nothing of what has happened to Rama since the time when she was carried away by Ravan. The poet therefore thinks it necessary to repeat the whole story of the meeting between Rama and Sugriva, the defeat of Bali, and subsequent events. I give the briefest possible outline of the story.

859 DE GUBERNATIS thinks that this ring which the Sun Rama sends to the Dawn Sita is a symbol of the sun's disc.

860 Sachi is the loved and lovely wife of Indra, and she is taken as the type of a woman protected by a jealous and all-powerful husband.

861 The mountain near Kishkindha.

862 Airavat is the mighty elephant on which Indra delights to ride.

863 Vibhishan is the wicked Ravan's good brother.

864 Her name is Kala, or in the Bengal recension Nanda.

865 One of Ravan's chief councillors.

866 Hanuman when he entered the city had in order to escape observation condensed himself to the size of a cat.

867 The brook Mandakini, not far from Chitrakuta where Rama sojourned for a time.

868 The poet here changes from the second person to the third.

869 The whole long story is repeated with some slight variations and additions from Book II, Canto XCVI. I give here only the outline.

870 The expedients to vanquish an enemy or to make him come to terms are said to be four: conciliation, gifts, disunion, and force or punishment. Hanuman considers it useless to employ the first three and resolves to punish Ravan by destroying his pleasure-grounds.

871 Kinkar means the special servant of a sovereign, who receives his orders immediately from his master. The Bengal recension gives these Rakshases an epithet which the Commentator explains "as generated in the mind of Brahma."

872 Rama de jure King of Kosal of which Ayodhya was the capital.

873 Chaityaprasada is explained by the Commentator as the place where the Gods of the Rakshases were kept. Gorresio translates it by "un grande edificio."

874 The bow of Indra is the rainbow.

875 We were told a few lines before that the chariot of Jambumali was drawn by asses. Here horses are spoken of. The Commentator notices the discrepancy and says that by horses asses are meant.

876 Armed with the bow of Indra, the rainbow.

877 Ravan's son.

878 Conqueror of Indra, another of Ravan's sons.

879 The sloka which follows is probably an interpolation, as it is inconsistent with the questioning in Canto L.:

He looked on Ravan in his pride, And boldly to the monarch cried: "I came an envoy to this place From him who rules the Vanar race."

880 The ten heads of Ravan have provoked much ridicule from European critics. It should be remembered that Spenser tells us of "two brethren giants, the one of which had two heads, the other three;" and Milton speaks of the "four-fold visaged Four," the four Cherubic shapes each of whom had four faces.

881 Durdhar, or as the Bengal recension reads Mahodara, Prahasta, Mahaparsva, and Nikumbha.

882 The chief attendant of Siva.

883 Bali, not to be confounded with Bali the Vanar, was a celebrated Daitya or demon who had usurped the empire of the three worlds, and who was deprived of two thirds of his dominions by Vishnu in the Dwarf-incarnation.

884 When Hanuman was bound with cords, Indrajit released his captive from the spell laid upon him by the magic weapon.

885 "One who murders an ambassador (raja bhata) goes to Taptakumbha, the hell of heated caldrons." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 217.

886 The fire which is supposed to burn beneath the sea.

887 Sita is likened to the fire which is an emblem of purity.

888 I omit two stanzas which continue the metaphor of the sea or lake of air. The moon is its lotus, the sun its wild-duck, the clouds are its water-weeds, Mars is its shark and so on. Gorresio remarks: "This comparison of a great lake to the sky and of celestial to aquatic objects is one of those ideas which the view and qualities of natural scenery awake in lively fancies. Imagine one of those grand and splendid lakes of India covered with lotus blossoms, furrowed by wild-ducks of the most vivid colours, mantled over here and there with flowers and water weeds &c. and it will be understood how the fancy of the poet could readily compare to the sky radiant with celestial azure the blue expanse of the water, to the soft light of the moon the inner hue of the lotus, to the splendour of the sun the brilliant colours of the wild-fowl, to the stars the flowers, to the cloud the weeds that float upon the water &c."

889 Sunabha is the mountain that rose from the sea when Hanuman passed over to Lanka.

890 Three Cantos of repetition are omitted.

891 Madhuvan the "honey-wood."

892 Indra's pleasure-ground or elysium.

893 Janak was king of Videha or Mithila in Behar.

894 The original contains two more Cantos which end the Book. Canto LXVII begins thus: "Hanuman thus addressed by the great-souled son of Raghu related to the son of Raghu all that Sita had said." And the two Cantos contain nothing but Hanuman's account of his interview with Sita, and the report of his own speeches as well as of hers.

895 The Sixth Book is called in Sanskrit Yuddha-Kanda or The War, and Lanka-Kanda. It is generally known at the present day by the latter title.

896 Vayu is the God of Wind.

897 Garuda the King of Birds.

898 Serpent-Gods.

899 The God of the sea.

900 Indra's elephant.

901 Kuvera, God of wealth.

902 Kuvera's elephant.

903 The planet Venus, or its regent who is regarded as the son of Bhrigu and preceptor of the Daityas.

904 The seven rishis or saints who form the constellation of the Great Bear.

905 Trisanku was raised to the skies to form a constellation in the southern hemisphere. The story in told in Book I, Canto LX.

906 The sage Visvamitra, who performed for Trisanku the great sacrifice which raised him to the heavens.

907 One of the lunar asterisms containing four or originally two stars under the regency of a dual divinity Indragni, Indra and Agni.

908 The lunar asterism Mula, belonging to the Rakshases.

909 The Asurs or demons dwell imprisoned in the depths beneath the sea.

910 The God of Riches, brother and enemy of Ravan and first possessor of Pushpak the flying car.

911 King of the Serpents. Sankha and Takshak are two of the eight Serpent Chiefs.

912 The God of Death, the Pluto of the Hindus.

913 Literally Indra's conqueror, so called from his victory over that God.

914 Their names are Nikumbha, Rabhasa, Suryasatru, Suptaghna, Yajnakopa, Mahaparsva, Mahodara, Agniketu, Rasmiketu, Durdharsha, Indrasatru, Prahasta, Virupaksha, Vajradanshtra, Dhumraksha, Durmukha, Mahabala.

915 Similarly Antenor urges the restoration of Helen:

"Let Sparta's treasures be this hour restored, And Argive Helen own her ancient lord. As this advice ye practise or reject, So hope success, or dread the dire effect,"

POPE'S Homer's Iliad, Book VII.

916 The Agnisala or room where the sacrificial fire was kept.

917 The exudation of a fragrant fluid from the male elephant's temples, especially at certain seasons, is frequently spoken of in Sanskrit poetry. It is said to deceive and attract the bees, and is regarded as a sign of health and masculine vigour.

918 Consisting of warriors on elephants, warriors in chariots, charioteers, and infantry.

919 Indra, generally represented as surrounded by the Maruts or Storm-Gods.

920 Janasthan, where Rama lived as an ascetic.

921 Maya, regarded as the paragon of female beauty, was the creation of Maya the chief artificer of the Daityas or Danavs.

922 One of the Nymphs of Indra's heaven.

923 The Lotus River, a branch of the heavenly Ganga.

924 Trilokanatha, Lord of the Three Worlds, is a title of Indra.

925 The celestial elephant that carries Indra.

926 As producers of the ghi, clarified butter or sacrificial oil, used in fire-offerings.

927 This desertion to the enemy is somewhat abrupt, and is narrated with brevity not usual with Valmiki. In the Bengal recension the preceding speakers and speeches differ considerably from those given in the text which I follow. Vibhishan is kicked from his seat by Ravan, and then, after telling his mother what has happened, he flies to Mount Kailasa where he has an interview with Siva, and by his advice seeks Rama and the Vanar army.

928 Vrihaspati the preceptor of the Gods.

929 In Book II, Canto XXI, Kandu is mentioned by Rama as an example of filial obedience. At the command of his father he is said to have killed a cow.

930 A King of the Yakshas, or Kuvera himself, the God of Gold.

931 The brace protects the left arm from injury from the bow-string, and the guard protects the fingers of the right hand.

932 The story is told in Book I, Cantos XL, XLI, XLII.

933 Fiends and enemies of the Gods.

934 The Indus.

935 Cowherds, sprung from a Brahman and a woman of the medical tribe, the modern Ahirs.

936 Barbarians or outcasts.

937 Vrana means wound or rent.

938 Here in the Bengal recension (Gorresio's edition), begins Book VI.

939 The Goomtee.

940 The Anglicized Nerbudda.

941 According to a Pauranik legend Kesari Hanuman's putative father had killed an Asur or demon who appeared in the form of an elephant, and hence arose the hostility between Vanars and elephants.

942 Here follows the enumeration of Sugriva's forces which I do not attempt to follow. It soon reaches a hundred thousand billions.

943 I omit the rest of this canto, which is mere repetition. Ravan gives in the same words his former answer that the Gods, Gandharvas and fiends combined shall not force him to give up Sita. He then orders Sardula to tell him the names of the Vanar chieftains whom he has seen in Rama's army. These have already been mentioned by Suka and Saran.

944 Lakshmi is the Goddess both of beauty and fortune, and is represented with a lotus in her hand.

945 The poet appears to have forgotten that Suka and Saran were dismissed with ignominy in Canto XXIX, and have not been reinstated.

946 The four who fled with him. Their names are Anala, Panasa, Sampati, and Pramati.

947 The numbers here are comparatively moderate: ten thousand elephants, ten thousand chariots, twenty thousand horses and ten million giants.

948 The Kinsuk, also called Palasa, is Butea Frondosa, a tree that bears beautiful red crescent shaped blossoms and is deservedly a favorite with poets. The Seemal or Salmali is the silk cotton tree which also bears red blossoms.

949 Varuna.

950 The duty of a king to save the lives of his people and avoid bloodshed until milder methods have been tried in vain.

951 I have omitted several of these single combats, as there is little variety in the details and each duel results in the victory of the Vanar or his ally.

952 Yajnasatru, Mahaparsva, Mahodar, Vajradanshtra, Suka, and Saran.

953 Angad.

954 A mysterious weapon consisting of serpents transformed to arrows which deprived the wounded object of all sense and power of motion.

955 On each foot, and at the root of each finger.

956 Varun.

957 The name of one of the mystical weapons the command over which was given by Visvamitra to Rama, as related in Book I.

958 One of Sita's guard, and her comforter on a former occasion also.

959 The preceptor of the Gods.

960 Rama's grandfather.

961 The Gandharvas are warriors and Minstrels of Indra's heaven.

962 "It is to be understood," says the commentator, "that this is not the Akampan who has already been slain."

963 Ravan's son, whom Hanuman killed when he first visited Lanka.

964 Nila was the son of Agni the God of Fire, and possessed, like Milton's demons, the power of dilating and condensing his form at pleasure.

965 An ancient king of Ayodhya said by some to have been Prithu's father.

966 The daughter of King Kusadhwaja. She became an ascetic, and being insulted by Ravan in the woods where she was performing penance, destroyed herself by entering fire, but was born again as Sita to be in turn the destruction of him who had insulted her.

967 Nandisvara was Siva's chief attendant. Ravan had despised and laughed at him for appearing in the form of a monkey and the irritated Nandisvara cursed him and foretold his destruction by monkeys.

968 Ravan once upheaved and shook Mount Kailasa the favourite dwelling place of Siva the consort of Uma, and was cursed in consequence by the offended Goddess.

969 Rambha, who has several times been mentioned in the course of the poem, was one of the nymphs of heaven, and had been insulted by Ravan.

970 Punjikasthala was the daughter of Varun. Ravan himself has mentioned in this book his insult to her, and the curse pronounced in consequence by Brahma.

971 Pulastya was the son of Brahma and father of Visravas or Paulastya the father of Ravan and Kumbhakarna.

972 I omit a tedious sermon on the danger of rashness and the advantages of prudence, sufficient to irritate a less passionate hearer than Ravan.

973 The Bengal recension assigns a very different speech to Kumbhakarna and makes him say that Narad the messenger of the Gods had formerly told him that Vishnu himself incarnate as Dasaratha's son should come to destroy Ravan.

974 Mahodar, Dwijihva, Sanhrada, and Vitardan.

975 A name of Vishnu.

976 There is so much commonplace repetition in these Sallies of the Rakshas chieftains that omissions are frequently necessary. The usual ill omens attend the sally of Kumbhakarna, and the Canto ends with a description of the terrified Vanars' flight which is briefly repeated in different words at the beginning of the next Canto.

977 Kartikeya the God of War, and the hero and incarnation Parasurama are said to have cut a passage through the mountain Krauncha, a part of the Himalayan range, in the same way as the immense gorge that splits the Pyrenees under the towers of Marbore was cloven at one blow of Roland's sword Durandal.

978 Rishabh, Sarabh, Nila, Gavaksha, and Gandhamadan.

979 Angad. The text calls him the son of the son of him who holds the thunderbolt, i.e. the grandson of Indra.

980 Literally, weighing a thousand bharas. The bhara is a weight equal to 2000 palas, the pala is equal to four karsas, and the karsa to 11375 French grammes or about 176 grains troy. The spear seems very light for a warrior of Kumbhakarna's strength and stature and the work performed with it.

981 The custom of throwing parched or roasted grain, with wreaths and flowers, on the heads of kings and conquerors when they go forth to battle and return is frequently mentioned by Indian poets.

982 Lakshman.

983 I have abridged this long Canto by omitting some vain repetitions, commonplace epithets and similes and other unimportant matter. There are many verses in this Canto which European scholars would rigidly exclude as unmistakeably the work of later rhapsodists. Even the reverent Commentator whom I follow ventures to remark once or twice: Ayam sloka prak shipta iti bahavah, "This sloka or verse is in the opinion of many interpolated."

984 Narak was a demon, son of Bhumi or Earth, who haunted the city Pragjyotisha.

985 Sambar was a demon of drought.

986 Indra.

987 Devantak (Slayer of Gods) Narantak (Slayer of Men) Atikaya (Huge of Frame) and Trisiras (Three Headed) were all sons of Ravan.

988 The demon of eclipse who seizes the Sun and Moon.

989 Lakshman.

990 In such cases as this I am not careful to reproduce the numbers of the poet, which in the text which I follow are 670000000; the Bengal recension being content with thirty million less.

991 The discus or quoit, a sharp-edged circular missile is the favourite weapon of Vishnu.

992 To destroy Tripura the triple city in the sky, air and earth, built by Maya for a celebrated Asur or demon, or as another commentator explains, to destroy Kandarpa or Love.

993 The Lokapalas are sometimes regarded as deities appointed by Brahma at the creation of the word to act as guardians of different orders of beings, but more commonly they are identified with the deities presiding over the four cardinal and four intermediate points of the compass, which, according to Manu V. 96, are 1, Indra, guardian of the East; 2, Agni, of the South-east; 3, Yama, of the South; 4, Surya, of the South-west; 5, Varuna, of the West; 6, Pavana or Vayu, of the North-west; 7, Kuvera, of the North; 8, Soma or Chandra, of the North-east.

994 The chariots of Ravan's present army are said to have been one hundred and fifty million in number with three hundred million elephants, and twelve hundred million horses and asses. The footmen are merely said to have been "unnumbered."

995 It is not very easy to see the advantage of having arrows headed in the way mentioned. Fanciful names for war-engines and weapons derived from their resemblance to various animals are not confined to India. The "War-wolf" was used by Edward I. at the siege of Brechin, the "Cat-house" and the "Sow" were used by Edward III. at the siege of Dunbar.

996 Apparently a peak of the Himalaya chain.

997 This exploit of Hanuman is related with inordinate prolixity in the Bengal recension (Gortesio's text). Among other adventures he narrowly escapes being shot by Bharat as he passes over Nandigrama near Ayodhya. Hanuman stays Bharat in time, and gives him an account of what has befallen Rama and Sita in the forest and in Lanka.

998 As Garud the king of birds is the mortal enemy of serpents the weapon sacred to him is of course best calculated to destroy the serpent arrows of Ravan.

999 The celebrated saint who has on former occasions assisted Rama with his gifts and counsel.

1000 Indra.

1001 Yama.

1002 Kartikeya.

1003 Kubera.

1004 Varun.

1005 The Pitris, forefathers or spirits of the dead, are of two kinds, either the spirits of the father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers of an individual or the progenitors of mankind generally, to both of whom obsequial worship is paid and oblations of food are presented.