The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse
abandon him and not break his own promise. The counsellors concurring in
this advice, Ráma abandons Lakshmaṇ, who goes to the river Sarayú,
suppresses all his senses, and is conveyed bodily by Indra to heaven. The
gods are delighted by the arrival of the fourth part of Vishṇu. Ráma then
resolves to install Bharata as his successor and retire to the forest and
follow Lakshmaṇ. Bharata however refuses the succession, and determines to
accompany his brother. Ráma’s subjects are filled with grief, and say they
also will follow him wherever he goes. Messengers are sent to Śatrughna,
the other brother, and he also resolves to accompany Ráma; who at length
sets out in procession from his capital with all the ceremonial
appropriate to the “great departure,” silent, indifferent to external
objects, joyless, with Śrí on his right, the goddess Earth on his left,
Energy in front, attended by all his weapons in human shapes, by the Vedas
in the forms of Bráhmans, by the Gáyatrí, the Omkára, the Vashaṭkára, by
rishis, by his women, female slaves, eunuchs, and servants. Bharata with
his family, and Śatrughna, follow together with Bráhmans bearing the
sacred fire, and the whole of the people of the country, and even with
animals, etc., etc. Ráma, with all these attendants, comes to the banks of
the Sarayú. Brahmá, with all the gods and innumerable celestial cars, now
appears, and all the sky is refulgent with the divine splendour. Pure and
fragrant breezes blow, a shower of flowers falls. Ráma enters the waters
of the Sarayú; and Brahmá utters a voice from the sky, saying: “Approach,
Vishṇu; Rághava, thou hast happily arrived, with thy godlike brothers.
Enter thine own body as Vishṇu or the eternal ether. For thou art the
abode of the worlds: no one comprehends thee, the inconceivable and
imperishable, except the large-eyed Máyá thy primeval spouse.” Hearing
these words, Ráma enters the glory of Vishṇu with his body and his
followers. He then asks Brahmá to find an abode for the people who had
accompanied him from devotion to his person, and Brahmá appoints them a
celestial residence accordingly.(1037)
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
Queen Fortune.
“A curious festival is celebrated in honour of this divinity (Lakshmî) on
the fifth lunar day of the light half of the month Mâgha (February), when
she is identified with Saraswatí the consort of Brahmá, and the goddess of
learning. In his treatise on festivals, a great modern authority,
Raghunandana, mentions, on the faith of a work called
_Samvatsara-sandipa_, that Lakshmî is to be worshipped in the forenoon of
that day with flowers, perfumes, rice, and water; that due honour is to be
paid to inkstand and writing-reed, and no writing to be done. Wilson, in
his essay on the _Religious Festivals of the Hindus_ (works, vol. ii, p.
188. ff.) adds that on the morning of the 2nd February, the whole of the
pens and inkstands, and the books, if not too numerous and bulky, are
collected, the pens or reeds cleaned, the inkstands scoured, and the books
wrapped up in new cloth, are arranged upon a platform, or a sheet, and
strewn over with flowers and blades of young barley, and that no flowers
except white are to be offered. After performing the necessary rites, …
all the members of the family assemble and make their prostrations; the
books, the pens, and ink having an entire holiday; and should any
emergency require a written communication on the day dedicated to the
divinity of scholarship, it is done with chalk or charcoal upon a black or
white board.”
CHAMBERS’S ENCYCLOPÆDIA. _Lakshmî_.
Indra.
“The Hindu Jove or Jupiter Tonans, chief of the secondary deities. He
presides over swarga or paradise, and is more particularly the god of the
atmosphere and winds. He is also regent of the east quarter of the sky. As
chief of the deities he is called Devapati, Devadeva, Surapati, etc.; as
lord of the atmosphere Divaspati; as lord of the eight Vasus or demigods,
Fire, etc., Vásava; as breaking cities into fragments, Purandara, Puranda;
as lord of a hundred sacrifices (the performance of a hundred Aśvamedhas
elevating the sacrificer to the rank of Indra) Śatakratu, Śatamakha; as
having a thousand eyes, Sahasráksha; as husband of Śachí, Śachípati. His
wife is called Śachí, Indráṇí, Sakráṇí, Maghoni, Indraśakti, Pulomajá, and
Paulomí. His son is Jayanta. His pleasure garden or elysium is Nandana;
his city, Amarávatí; his palace, Vaijayanta; his horse, Uchchaihśravas,
his elephant, Airávata; his charioteer, Mátali.”
PROFESSOR M. WILLIAMS’S English-Sanskrit Dictionary. _Indra_.
Vishnu.
“The second person of the Hindu triad, and the most celebrated and popular
of all the Indian deities. He is the personification of the preserving
power, and became incarnate in nine different forms, for the preservation
of mankind in various emergencies. Before the creation of the universe,
and after its temporary annihilation, he is supposed to sleep on the
waters, floating on the serpent Śesha, and is then identified with
Náráyaṇa. Brahmá, the creator, is fabled to spring at that time from a
lotus which grows from his navel, whilst thus asleep.… His ten avatárs or
incarnations are:
“1. The Matsya, or fish. In this avatár Vishṇu descended in the form of a
fish to save the pious king Satyavrata, who with the seven Rishis and
their wives had taken refuge in the ark to escape the deluge which then
destroyed the earth. 2, The Kúrma, or Tortoise. In this he descended in
the form of a tortoise, for the purpose of restoring to man some of the
comforts lost during the flood. To this end he stationed himself at the
bottom of the ocean, and allowed the point of the great mountain Mandara
to be placed upon his back, which served as a hard axis, whereon the gods
and demons, with the serpent Vásuki twisted round the mountain for a rope,
churned the waters for the recovery of the amrita or nectar, and fourteen
other sacred things. 3. The Varáha, or Boar. In this he descended in the
form of a boar to rescue the earth from the power of a demon called
‘golden-eyed,’ Hiraṇyáksha. This demon had seized on the earth and carried
it with him into the depths of the ocean. Vishṇu dived into the abyss, and
after a contest of a thousand years slew the monster. 4. The Narasinha, or
Man-lion. In this monstrous shape of a creature half-man, half-lion,
Vishṇu delivered the earth from the tyranny of an insolent demon called
Hiraṇyakaśipu. 5. Vámana, or Dwarf. This avatár happened in the second age
of the Hindús or Tretáyug, the four preceding are said to have occurred in
the first or Satyayug; the object of this avatár was to trick Bali out of
the dominion of the three worlds. Assuming the form of a wretched dwarf he
appeared before the king and asked, as a boon, as much land as he could
pace in three steps. This was granted; and Vishṇu immediately expanding
himself till he filled the world, deprived Bali at two steps of heaven and
earth, but in consideration of some merit, left Pátála still in his
dominion. 6. Paraśuráma. 7. Rámchandra. 8. Krishṇa, or according to some
Balaráma. 9. Buddha. In this avatár Vishṇu descended in the form of a sage
for the purpose of making some reform in the religion of the Brahmins, and
especially to reclaim them from their proneness to animal sacrifice. Many
of the Hindús will not allow this to have been an incarnation of their
favourite god. 10. Kalki, or White Horse. This is yet to come. Vishṇu
mounted on a white horse, with a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet,
will, according to prophecy, end this present age, viz. the fourth or
Kaliyug, by destroying the world, and then renovating creation by an age
of purity.”
WILLIAM’S DICTIONARY. _Vishṇu._
Siva.
“A celebrated Hindú God, the Destroyer of creation, and therefore the most
formidable of the Hindú Triad. He also personifies reproduction, since the
Hindú philosophy excludes the idea of total annihilation without
subsequent regeneration. Hence he is sometimes confounded with Brahmá, the
creator or first person of the Triad. He is the particular God of the
Tántrikas, or followers of the books called Tantras. His worshippers are
termed Śaivas, and although not so numerous as the Vaishṇavas, exalt their
god to the highest place in the heavens, and combine in him many of the
attributes which properly belong to the other deities. According to them
Śiva is Time, Justice, Fire, Water, the Sun, the Destroyer and Creator. As
presiding over generation, his type is the Linga, or Phallus, the origin
probably of the Phallic emblem of Egypt and Greece. As the God of
generation and justice, which latter character he shares with the god
Yama, he is represented riding a white bull. His own colour, as well as
that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied
purity of Justice. His throat is dark-blue; his hair of a light reddish
colour, and thickly matted together, and gathered above his head like the
hair of an ascetic. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with
four, eight, or ten, and with five faces. He has three eyes, one being in
the centre of his forehead, pointing up and down. These are said to denote
his view of the three divisions of time, past, present, and future. He
holds a trident in his hand to denote, as some say, his relationship to
water, or according to others, to show that the three great attributes of
Creator, Destroyer, and Regenerator are combined in him. His loins are
enveloped in a tiger’s skin. In his character of Time, he not only
presides over its extinction, but also its astronomical regulation. A
crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates the measure of time by the
phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the
measure of time by years, and a second necklace of human skulls marks the
lapse and revolution of ages, and the extinction and succession of the
generations of mankind. He is often represented as entirely covered with
serpents, which are the emblems of immortality. They are bound in his
hair, round his neck, wrists, waist, arms and legs; they serve as rings
for his fingers, and earrings for his ears, and are his constant
companions. Śiva has more than a thousand names which are detailed at
length in the sixty-ninth chapter of the Śiva Puráṇa.”—WILLIAMS’S
DICTIONARY, _Śiva_.
Apsarases.
“Originally these deities seem to have been personifications of the
vapours which are attracted by the sun, and form into mist or clouds:
their character may be thus interpreted in the few hymns of the Rigveda
where mention is made of them. At a subsequent period when the Gandharva
of the Rigveda who personifies there especially the Fire of the Sun,
expanded into the Fire of Lightning, the rays of the moon and other
attributes of the elementary life of heaven as well as into pious acts
referring to it, the Apsarasas become divinities which represent phenomena
or objects both of a physical and ethical kind closely associated with
that life; thus in the _Yajurveda_ Sunbeams are called the Apsarasas
associated with the Gandharva who is the Sun; Plants are termed the
Apsarasas connected with the Gandharva Fire: Constellations are the
Apsarasas of the Gandharva Moon: Waters the Apsarasas of the Gandharva
Wind, etc. etc.… In the last Mythological epoch when the Gandharvas have
saved from their elementary nature merely so much as to be musicians in
the paradise of Indra, the Apsarasas appear among other subordinate
deities which share in the merry life of Indra’s heaven, as the wives of
the Gandharvas, but more especially as wives of a licentious sort, and
they are promised therefore, too, as a reward to heroes fallen in battle
when they are received in the paradise of Indra; and while, in the