The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse
Gods, a musician of exquisite skill, and the inventor of the _víṇá_
or Indian lute. He bears a strong resemblance to Hermes or Mercury.
8 This mystic syllable, said to typify the supreme Deity, the Gods
collectively, the Vedas, the three spheres of the world, the three
holy fires, the three steps of Vishṇu etc., prefaces the prayers and
most venerated writings of the Hindus.
9 This colloquy is supposed to have taken place about sixteen years
after Ráma’s return from his wanderings and occupation of his
ancestral throne.
10 Called also Śrí and Lakshmí, the consort of Vishṇu, the Queen of
Beauty as well as the Dea Fortuna. Her birth “from the full-flushed
wave” is described in Canto XLV of this Book.
11 One of the most prominent objects of worship in the Rig-veda, Indra
was superseded in later times by the more popular deities Vishṇu and
Śiva. He is the God of the firmament, and answers in many respects
to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. See _Additional Notes_.
12 The second God of the Trimúrti or Indian Trinity. Derived from the
root _viś_ to penetrate, the meaning of the name appears to be _he
who penetrates or pervades all things_. An embodiment of the
preserving power of nature, he is worshipped as a Saviour who has
nine times been incarnate for the good of the world and will descend
on earth once more. See _Additional Notes_ and Muir’s Sanskrit Texts
_passim_.
13 In Sanskrit _devarshi_. Rishi is the general appellation of sages,
and another word is frequently prefixed to distinguish the degrees.
A _Brahmarshi_ is a theologian or Bráhmanical sage; a Rájarshi is a
royal sage or sainted king; a _Devarshi_ is a divine or deified sage
or saint.
_ 14 Trikálajǹa_. Literally _knower of the three times_. Both Schlegel
and Gorresio quote Homer’s.
Ὅς ἤδη τ’ ἐόντα, τά τ’ ἐσσόμενα,
πρό τ’ ἐόντα.
“That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view,
The past, the present, and the future knew.”
The Bombay edition reads _trilokajǹa,_ _who knows the three worlds_
(earth, air and heaven.) “It is by _tapas_ (austere fervour) that
rishis of subdued souls, subsisting on roots, fruits and air, obtain
a vision of the three worlds with all things moving and stationary.”
MANU, XI. 236.
15 Son of Manu, the first king of Kośala and founder of the solar
dynasty or family of the Children of the Sun, the God of that
luminary being the father of Manu.
16 The Indians paid great attention to the art of physiognomy and
believed that character and fortune could be foretold not from the
face only but from marks upon the neck and hands. Three lines under
the chin like those at the mouth of a conch (_Śańkha_) were regarded
as a peculiarly auspicious sign indicating, as did also the mark of
Vishṇu’s discus on the hand, one born to be a _chakravartin_ or
universal emperor. In the palmistry of Europe the line of fortune,
as well as the line of life, is in the hand. Cardan says that marks
on the nails and teeth also show what is to happen to us: “Sunt
etiam in nobis vestigia quædam futurorum eventuum in unguibus atque
etiam in dentibus.” Though the palmy days of Indian chiromancy have
passed away, the art is still to some extent studied and believed
in.
17 Long arms were regarded as a sign of heroic strength.
18 “Veda means originally knowing or knowledge, and this name is given
by the Bráhmans not to one work, but to the whole body of their most
ancient sacred literature. Veda is the same word which appears in
the Greek οίδα, I know, and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit. The
name of Veda is commonly given to four collections of hymns, which
are respectively known by the names of Rig-veda, Yajur-veda,
Sáma-veda, and Atharva-veda.”
“As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient type
of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but
varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and
feelings contain in reality the first roots and germs of that
intellectual growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own
generation with the ancestors of the Aryan race,—with those very
people who at the rising and setting of the sun listened with
trembling hearts to the songs of the Veda, that told them of bright
powers above, and of a life to come after the sun of their own lives
had set in the clouds of the evening. These men were the true
ancestors of our race, and the Veda is the oldest book we have in
which to study the first beginnings of our language, and of all that
is embodied in language. We are by nature Aryan, Indo-European, not
Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to be found in India,
Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany: not in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or
Palestine.”
_Chips from a German Workshop_, Vol. I. pp. 8. 4.
19 As with the ancient Persians and Scythians, Indian princes were
carefully instructed in archery which stands for military science in
general, of which, among Hindu heroes, it was the most important
branch.
20 Chief of the three queens of Daśaratha and mother of Ráma.
21 From _hima_ snow, (Greek χειμ-ών, Latin hiems) and _álaya_ abode,
the Mansion of snow.
22 The moon (_Soma_, _Indu_, _Chandra_ _etc._) is masculine with the
Indians as with the Germans.
23 Kuvera, the Indian Plutus, or God of Wealth.
24 The events here briefly mentioned will be related fully in the
course of the poem. The first four cantos are introductory, and are
evidently the work of a later hand than Valmiki’s.
25 “Chandra, or the Moon, is fabled to have been married to the
twenty-seven daughters of the patriarch Daksha, or Aśviní and the
rest, who are in fact personifications of the Lunar Asterisms. His
favourite amongst them was Rohiṇí to whom he so wholly devoted
himself as to neglect the rest. They complained to their father, and
Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain,
he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he
remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of
Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha
modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced
that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it
should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane
and increase of the Moon. _Padma_, _Puráṇa_, _Swarga-Khaṇḍa,_ Sec.
II. _Rohiṇí_ in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing
five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran.” WILSON, _Specimens
of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. p._ 234.
The Bengal recension has a different reading:
“Shone with her husband like the light
Attendant on the Lord of Night.”
26 The garb prescribed for ascetics by Manu.
27 “Mount Meru, situated like Kailása in the lofty regions to the north
of the Himálayas, is celebrated in the traditions and myths of
India. Meru and Kailása are the two Indian Olympi. Perhaps they were
held in such veneration because the Sanskrit-speaking Indians
remembered the ancient home where they dwelt with the other
primitive peoples of their family before they descended to occupy
the vast plains which extend between the Indus and the Ganges.”
GORRESIO.
28 The third God of the Indian Triad, the God of destruction and
reproduction. See _Additional Notes_.
29 The epithet _dwija_, or _twice-born_, is usually appropriate to
Bráhmans, but is applicable to the three higher castes. Investiture
with the sacred thread and initiation of the neophyte into certain
religious mysteries are regarded as his regeneration or second
birth.
30 His shoes to be a memorial of the absent heir and to maintain his
right. Kálidása (Raghuvaṅśa, XII. 17.) says that they were to be
_adhidevate_ or guardian deities of the kingdom.
31 Jaṭáyu, a semi-divine bird, the friend of Ráma, who fought in
defence of Sítá.
32 Raghu was one of the most celebrated ancestors of Ráma whose
commonest appellation is, therefore, Rághava or descendant of Raghu.
Kálidása in the _Raghuraṇśa_ makes him the son of Dilípa and
great-grandfather of Ráma. See _Idylls from the Sanskrit_, “Aja” and
“Dilípa.”
33 Dundhubi.
34 Literally _ten yojanas_. The yojana is a measure of uncertain length
variously reckoned as equal to nine miles, five, and a little less.
35 Ceylon.
36 The Jonesia Aśoka is a most beautiful tree bearing a profusion of
red blossoms.
_ 37 Brahmá_, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first God of the
Indian Trinity, although, as Kálidása says:
“Of Brahmá, Vishṇu, Śiva, each may be
First, second, third, amid the blessed Three.”
Brahmá had guaranteed Rávaṇ’s life against all enemies except man.
38 Ocean personified.
39 The rocks lying between Ceylon and the mainland are still called
Ráma’s Bridge by the Hindus.
40 “The Bráhmans, with a system rather cosmogonical than chronological,
divide the present mundane period into four ages or _yugas_ as they
call them: the Krita, the Tretá, the Dwápara, and the Kali. The
Krita, called also the Deva-yuga or that of the Gods, is the age of
truth, the perfect age, the Tretá is the age of the three sacred
fires, domestic and sacrificial; the Dwápara is the age of doubt;
the Kali, the present age, is the age of evil.” GORRESIO.
41 The ancient kings of India enjoyed lives of more than patriarchal
length as will appear in the course of the poem.
42 Śúdras, men of the fourth and lowest pure caste, were not allowed to
read the poem, but might hear it recited.
43 The three _ślokes_ or distichs which these twelve lines represent
are evidently a still later and very awkward addition to the
introduction.
44 There are several rivers in India of this name, now corrupted into
_Tonse_. The river here spoken of is that which falls into the
Ganges a little below Allahabad.
45 “In Book II, Canto LIV, we meet with a saint of this name presiding
over a convent of disciples in his hermitage at the confluence of
the Ganges and the Jumna. Thence the later author of these
introductory cantos has borrowed the name and person, inconsistently
indeed, but with the intention of enhancing the dignity of the poet
by ascribing to him so celebrated a disciple.” SCHLEGEL.
46 The poet plays upon the similarity in sound of the two words:
_śoka_, means grief, _śloka_, the heroic measure in which the poem
is composed. It need scarcely be said that the derivation is
fanciful.
47 Brahmá, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first person of the
divine triad of India. The four heads with which he is represented
are supposed to have allusion to the four corners of the earth which
he is sometimes considered to personify. As an object of adoration
Brahmá has been entirely superseded by Śiva and Vishṇu. In the whole
of India there is, I believe, but one temple dedicated to his
worship. In this point the first of the Indian triad curiously