The Ramayana, Valmiki [best authors to read txt] 📗
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that the sons should have been of another Śákhá from the father, whose cause they espouse with so much warmth. The commentator in the Bombay edition explains the word Śákhantaram as Yájanádiná rakshántaram, ‘one who by sacrificing for thee, etc., will be another protector.’ Gorresio's Gauḍa 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. Múlam utsṛijya kasmát tvam sákhásv ichhasi lambitum. ‘Why, forsaking the root, dost thou desire to hang upon the branches?’ ” Muir, Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I., p. 401.
236.
A Chaṇḍála was a man born of the illegal and impure union of a Śúdra with a woman of one of the three higher castes.
237.
“The Chaṇḍála was regarded as the vilest and most abject of the men sprung from wedlock forbidden by the law (Mánavadharmaśástra, 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 Vaśishṭha.
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 Viśvámitra should be seven new southern stars, a sort of new Ursa. Von Schlegel thinks that this mythical fiction of new stars created by Viśvámitra 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 Viśvámitra was successful in the sacrifice performed for Triśanku. 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 Viśvámitra 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 Hindí. 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.
“Ambarísha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshváku, and is therefore separated by an immense space of time from Triśanku in whose story Viśvámitra had played so important a part. Yet Richíka, who is represented as having young sons while Ambarísha 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 Viśvámitra. 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 Musalmáns say, of Ishmael.
243. The Indian Cupid. 244. “The same as she whose praises Viśvámitra has already sung in Canto XXXV, and whom the poet brings yet alive upon the scene in Canto LXI. Her proper name was Satyavatí (Truthful); the patronymic, Kauśikí was preserved by the river into which she is said to have been changed, and is still recognized in the corrupted forms Kuśa and Kuśí. The river flows from the heights of the Himálaya 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, (Hiraṇyaváha) 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 (Gandakí), Cosoagum.” Schlegel. 245. “Daksha was one of the ancient Progenitors or Prajápatis created by Brahmá. The sacrifice which is here spoken of and in which Śankar or Śiva (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 Śiva, to its increase and to the struggle it maintained with other older forms of worship.” Gorresio. 246.Sítá 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 Sítá, 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. Purushádak means a cannibal. First called Kalmáshapáda on account of his spotted feet he is said to have been turned into a cannibal for killing the son of Vaśishṭha. 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 Ayodhyá 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 Ráma, son of Jamadagni, called Paraśuráma, or Ráma 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 Raghuvaṅśa 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. Raghuvaṅśa, VI. 51.” Schlegel. 256. Śiva. 257. Siva. God of the Azure Neck. 258. Śatrughna means slayer of foes, and the word is repeated as an intensive epithet. 259. Alluding to the images of Vishṇu, 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 Chandrakánta or Moonstone, a sort of crystal supposed to be composed of congealed moonbeams. 264. A customary mark of respect to a superior. 265. Ráhu, the ascending node, is in mythology a demon with the tail of a dragon whose head was severed from his body by Vishṇu, 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. Kauśalyá and Sumitrá. 269. A king of the Lunar race, and father of Yayáti. 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 Kaikeyí 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 śloka 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 Káma or Love. 275. This story is told in the Mahábhárat. A free version of it may be found in Scenes from the Rámáyan, 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 Yayáti 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 womanFree e-book «The Ramayana, Valmiki [best authors to read txt] 📗» - read online now
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