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The Ramayana
by VALMIKI
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1006 The Maruts or Storm-Gods.

1007 The Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the Hindus.

1008 The Man par excellence, the representative man and father of the human race regarded also as God.

1009 The Vasus, a class of deities originally personifications of natural phenomena.

1010 A class of celestial beings who dwell between the earth and the sun.

1011 The seven horses are supposed to symbolize the seven days of the week.

1012 One for each month in the year.

1013 The garden of Kuvera, the God of Riches.

1014 The consort of Indra.

1015 The Swayamvara, Self-choice or election of a husband by a princess or daughter of a Kshatriya at a public assembly of suitors held for the purpose. For a description of the ceremony see Nala and Damayanti an episode of the Mahabharat translated by the late Dean Milman, and Idylls from the Sanskrit.

1016 The Pitris or Manes, the spirits of the dead.

1017 Kuvera, the God of Wealth.

1018 Varun, God of the sea.

1019 Mahadeva or Siva whose ensign is a bull.

1020 The Address to Rama, both text and commentary, will be found literally translated in the Additional Notes. A paraphrase of a portion is all that I have attempted here.

1021 Ravan's queen.

1022 Or Mainaka.

1023 Here, in the North-west recension, Sita expresses a wish that Tara and the wives of the Vanar chiefs should be invited to accompany her to Ayodhya. The car decends, and the Vanar matrons are added to the party. The Bengal recension ignores this palpable interruption.

1024 The arghya, a respectful offering to Gods and venerable men consisting of rice, duiva grass, flowers etc., with water.

1025 I have abridged Hanuman's outline of Rama's adventures, with the details of which we are already sufficiently acquainted.

1026 In these respectful salutations the person who salutes his superior mentions his own name even when it is well known to the person whom he salutes.

1027 I have omitted the chieftains' names as they could not be introduced without padding. They are Mainda, Dwivid, Nila, Rishabh, Sushen, Nala, Gavaksha, Gandhamadan, Sarabh, and Panas.

1028 The following addition is found in the Bengal recension: But Vaisravan (Kuvera) when he beheld his chariot said unto it: "Go, and carry Rama, and come unto me when my thought shall call thee, And the chariot returned unto Rama;" and he honoured it when he had heard what had passed.

1029 Here follows in the original an enumeration of the chief blessings which will attend the man or woman who reads or hears read this tale of Rama. These blessings are briefly mentioned at the end of the first Canto of the first book, and it appears unnecessary to repeat them here in their amplified form. The Bengal recension (Gorresio's edition) gives them more concisely as follows: "This is the great first poem blessed and glorious, which gives long life to men and victory to kings, the poem which Valmiki made. He who listens to this wondrous tale of Rama unwearied in action shall be absolved from all his sins. By listening to the deeds of Rama he who wishes for sons shall obtain his heart's desire, and to him who longs for riches shall riches be given. The virgin who asks for a husband shall obtain a husband suited to her mind, and shall meet again her dear kinsfolk who are far away. They who hear this poem which Valmiki made shall obtain all their desires and all their prayers shall be fulfilled."

1030 The Academy, Vol. III., No 43, contains an able and interesting notice of this work from the pen of the Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge: "The Uttarakanda," Mr. Cowell remarks, "bears the same relation to the Ramayana as the Cyclic poems to the Iliad. Just as the Cypria of Stasinus, the AEthiopis of Arctinus, and the little Iliad of Lesches completed the story of the Iliad, and not only added the series of events which preceded and followed it, but also founded episodes of their own on isolated allusions in Homer, so the Uttarakanda is intended to complete the Ramayana, and at the same time to supplement it by intervening episodes to explain casual allusions or isolated incidents which occur in it. Thus the early history of the giant Ravana and his family fills nearly forty Chapters, and we have a full account of his wars with the gods and his conquest of Lanka, which all happened long before the action of the poem commences, just as the Cypria narrated the birth and early history of Helen, and the two expeditions of the Greeks against Troy; and the latter chapters continue the history of the hero Rama after his triumphant return to his paternal kingdom, and the poem closes with his death and that of his brothers, and the founding by their descendants of various kingdoms in different parts of India."

1031 MUIR, Sanskrit Texts, Part IV., pp. 414 ff.

1032 MUIR, Sanskrit Texts, Part IV., 391, 392.

1033 See Academy, III., 43.

1034 Academy, Vol. III., No. 43.

1035 E. B. Cowell. Academy, No. 43. The story of Sita's banishment will be found roughly translated from the Raghuvansa, in the Additional Notes.

1036 E. B. Cowell. Academy, Vol, III, No. 43.

1037 MUIR, Sanskrit Texts, Part IV., Appendix.

1038 Ghi: clarified butter. Gur: molasses.

1039 Haridwar (Anglice Hurdwar) where the Ganges enters the plain country.

1040 Campbell in "Journ. As. Soc. Bengal," 1866, Part ii. p. 132; Latham, "Descr. Eth." Vol. ii. p. 456; Tod, "Annals of Rajasthan," Vol. i. p. 114.

1041 Said by the commentator to be an eastern people between the Himalayan and Vindhyan chains.

1042 Videha was a district in the province of Behar, the ancient Mithila or the modern Tirhoot.

1043 The people of Malwa.

1044 "The Kasikosalas are a central nation in the Vayu Purana. The Ramayana places them in the east. The combination indicates the country between Benares and Oude.… Kosala is a name variously applied. Its earliest and most celebrated application is to the country on the banks of the Sarayu, the kingdom of Rama, of which Ayodhya was the capital.… In the Mahabharata we have one Kosala in the east and another in the south, besides the Prak-Kosalas and Uttara Kosalas in the east and north. The Puranas place the Kosalas amongst the people on the back of Vindhya; and it would appear from the Vayu that Kusa the son of Rama transferred his kingdom to a more central position; he ruled over Kosala at his capital of Kusasthali of Kusavati, built upon the Vindhyan precipices." WILSON'S Vishnnu Purana, Vol. II. pp. 157, 172.

1045 The people of south Behar.

1046 The Pundras are said to be the inhabitants of the western provinces of Bengal. "In the Aitareyabrahmana, VII. 18, it is said that the elder sons of Visvamitra were cursed to become progenitors of most abject races, such as Andhras, Pundras, Sabaras, Pulindas, and Mutibas." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana Vol. II. 170.

1047 Anga is the country about Bhagulpore, of which Champa was the capital.

1048 A fabulous people, "men who use their ears as a covering." So Sir John Maundevile says: "And in another Yle ben folk that han gret Eres and long, that hangen down to here knees," and Pliny, lib. iv. c. 13: "In quibus nuda alioquin corpora praegrandes ipsorum aures tota contegunt." Isidore calls them Panotii.

1049 "Those whose ears hang down to their lips."

1050 "The Iron-faces."

1051 "The One-footed."

"In that Contree," says Sir John Maundevile, "ben folk, that han but o foot and thei gon so fast that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so large that it schadeweth alle the Body azen the Sonne, when thei wole lye and rest hem." So Pliny, Natural History, lib. vii. c. 2: speaks of "Hominumn gens … singulis cruribus, mirae pernicitatis ad saltum; eosdemque Sciopodas vocari, quod in majori aestu, humi jacentes resupini, umbra se pedum protegant."

These epithets are, as Professor Wilson remarks, "exaggerations of national ugliness, or allusions to peculiar customs, which were not literally intended, although they may have furnished the Mandevilles of ancient and modern times."

Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. p. 162.

1052 The Kirrhadae of Arrian: a general name for savage tribes living in woods and mountains.

1053 Said by the commentator to be half tigers half men.

1054 The kingdom seems to have corresponded with the greater part of Berar and Khandesh.

1055 The Bengal recension has Kishikas, and places them both in the south and the north.

1056 The people of Mysore.

1057 "There are two Matsyas, one of which, according to the Yantra Samraj, is identifiable with Jeypoor. In the Digvijaya of Nakula he subdues the Matsyas further to the west, or Gujerat." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. 158. Dr. Hall observes: "In the Mahabharata Sabha-parwan, 1105 and 1108, notice is taken of the king of Matsya and of the Aparamatsyas; and, at 1082, the Matsyas figure as an eastern people. They are placed among the nations of the south in the Ramayana Kishkindha-kanda, XLI., II, while the Bengal recension, Kishkindha-kanda, XLIV., 12, locates them in the north."

1058 The Kalingas were the people of the upper part of the Coromandel Coast, well known, in the traditions of the Eastern Archipelago, as Kling. Ptolemy has a city in that part, called Caliga; and Pliny Calingae proximi mari. WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. 156, Note.

1059 The Kausikas do not appear to be identifiable.

1060 The Andhras probably occupied the modern Telingana.

1061 The Pundras have already been mentioned in Canto XL.

1062 The inhabitants of the lower part of the Coromandel Coast; so called, after them, Cholamandala.

1063 A people in the Deccan.

1064 The Keralas were the people of Malabar proper.

1065 A generic term for persons speaking any language but Sanskrit and not conforming to the usual Hindu institutions.

1066 "Pulinda is applied to any wild or barbarous tribe. Those here named are some of the people of the deserts along the Indus; but Pulindas are met with in many other positions, especially in the mountains and forests across Central India, the haunts of the Bheels and Gonds. So Ptolemy places the Pulindas along the banks of the Narmada, to the frontiers of Larice, the Lata or Lar of the Hindus,—Khandesh and part of Gujerat." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana, Vol. II. 159, Note.

Dr. Hall observes that "in the Bengal recension of the Ramayana the Pulindas appear both in the south and in the north. The real Ramayana K.-k., XLIII., speaks of the northern Pulindas."

1067 The Surasenas were the inhabitants of Mathura, the Suraseni of Arrian.

1068 These the Mardi of the Greeks and the two preceding tribes appear to have dwelt in the north-west of Hindustan.

1069 The Kambojas are said to be the people of Arachosia. They are always mentioned with the north-western tribes.

1070 "The term Yavanas, although, in later times, applied to the Mohammedans, designated formerly the Greeks.… The Greeks were known throughout Western Asia by the term Yavan, or Ion. That the Macedonian or Bactrian Greeks were most usually intended is not only probable from their position and relations with India, but from their being usually named in concurrence with the north-western tribes, Kambojas, Daradas, Paradas, Bahlikas, Sakas &c., in the Ramayana. Mahabharata, Puranas, Manu, and in various poems and plays." WILSON'S Vishnu Purana Vol. II. p. 181, Note.

1071 These people, the Sakai and Sacae of classical writers, the Indo-Scythians of Ptolemy, extended, about the commencement of our era, along the west of India, from the Hindu Kosh to the mouths of the Indus.

1072 The corresponding passage in the Bengal recension has instead of Varadas Daradas the Dards or inhabitants of the modern Dardistan along the course of the Indus, above the Himalayas, just before it descends to India.

1073 From the word yonder it would appear that the prayer is to be repeated at the rising of the Sun.

1074 The creator of the world and the first of the Hindu triad.

1075 He who pervades all beings; or the second of the Hindu triad who preserves the world.

1076 The bestower of blessings; the third of the Hindu triad and the destroyer of the world.

1077 A name of the War-God; also one who urges the senses to action.

1078 The lord of creatures; or the God of sacrifices.

1079 A name of the King of Gods; also all-powerful.

1080 The giver of wealth. A name of the God of riches.

1081 One who directly urges the mental faculties to action.

1082 One who moderates the senses, also the God of the regions of the dead.

1083 One who produces nectar (amrita) or one who is always possessed of light; or one together with Uma (Ardhanarisvara).

1084 The names or spirits of departed ancestors.

1085 Name of a class of eight Gods, also wealthy.

1086 They who are to be served by Yogis; or a class of Gods named Sadhyas.

1087 The two physicians of the Gods: or they who pervade all beings.

1088 They who are immortal; or a class of Gods forty-nine in number.

1089 Omniscient; or the first king of the world.

1090 He that moves; life; or the God of wind.

1091 The God of fire.

1092 Lord of creatures.

1093 One who prolongs our lives.

1094 The material cause of knowledge and of the seasons.

1095 One who shines. The giver of light.

1096 The hymn entitled the Adityahridaya begins from this verse and the words, thou art, are understood in the beginning of this verse.

1097 One who enjoys all (pleasurable) objects; The son of Aditi, the lord of the solar disk.

1098 One who creates the world, i.e., endows beings with life or soul, and by his rays causes rain and thereby produces corn.

1099 One who urges the world to action or puts the world in motion, who is omnipresent.

1100 One who walks through the sky; or pervades the soul.

1101 One who nourishes the world, i.e., is the supporter.

1102 One having rays (Gabhasti) or he who is possessed of the all-pervading goddess Lakshmi.

1103 One resembling gold.

1104 One who is resplendent or who gives light to other objects.

1105 One whose seed (Retas) is gold; or quicksilver, the material cause of gold.

1106 One who is the cause of day.

1107 One whose horses are of tawny colour; or one who pervades the whole space or quarters.

1108 One whose knowledge is boundless or who has a thousand rays.

1109 One who urges the seven (Pranas) that is the two eyes, the two ears, the nostrils and the organ of speech, or whose chariot, is drawn by seven horses.

1110 Vide Gabhastiman.

1111 One who destroys darkness, or ignorance.

1112 One from whom our blessings or the enjoyments of Paradise come.

1113 The architect of the gods; or one who lessens the miseries of our birth and death.

1114 One who gives life to the lifeless world.

1115 One who pervades the internal and external worlds; or one who is resplendent.

1116 He who is identified with the Hindu triad, i.e. the creator (Brahma) the supporter (Vishnu) and the destroyer (Siva).

1117 Cold or good natured. He is so called because he allays the three sorts of pain.

1118 One who is the lord of all.

1119 Vide Divakara.

1120 One who teaches Brahma and others the Vedas.

1121 One from whom Rudra the destroyer or the third of the Hindu triad springs.

1122 One who is knowable through Aditi, i.e., the eternal Brahmavidya.

1123 Great happiness or the sky.

1124 The destroyer of cold or stupidity.

1125 The Lord of the sky.

1126 Vide Timironmathana.

1127 One who is known through the Upanishads.

1128 He who is the cause of heavy rain.

1129 He who is a friend to the good, or who is the cause of water.

1130 One who moves in the solar orbit.

1131 One who determines the creation of the world; or who is possessed of heat.

1132 One who has a mass of rays; or who has Kaustubha and other precious stones as his ornaments.

1133 He who urges all to action; or who is yellow in colour.

1134 One who is the destroyer of all.

1135 One who is omniscient; or a poet.

1136 One who is identified with the whole world.

1137 One who is of huge form.

1138 One who pleases all by giving nourishment; or who is red in colour.

1139 One who is the cause of the whole world.

1140 One who protects the whole world.

1141 The most glorious of all that are glorious.

1142 One who is identical with the twelve months.

1143 One who gives victory over all the worlds to those who are faithfully devoted to him; or the porter of Brahma, named Jaya.

1144 One who is identical with the blessing which can be obtained by conquering all the worlds; or with the porter of Brahma named Jayabhadra.

1145 One who has Hanuman as his conveyance.

1146 One who controls the senses; or is furious with those who are not his devotees.

1147 He who is free in moving the senses; or urges all beings to action.

1148 He who can be known through the Pranava (the mystical Om-kara.)

1149 One who is the knowledge of Brahma.

1150 One who devours all things.

1151 He who is the destroyer of all pains; and of love, and hate, the causes of pain; and ignorance which is the cause of love and hate.

1152 One who is bliss; or the mover.

1153 One who destroys ignorance and its effects.

1154 The doer of all actions.

1155 One who beholds the universe; who is a witness of good and bad actions.

1156 Sacrifice of the five sensual fires.

1157 According to Apastamba (says the commentator) "it should have been placed on the nose: this must therefore have been done in conformity with some other Sutras."

1158 A class of eight gods.

1159 A class of eleven gods called Rudras.

1160 Named Viryavan.

1161 A class of divine devotees named Sadhyas.

1162 One who resides in the water.

1163 The third incarnation of Vishnu, that bore the earth on his tusk.

1164 One whose armies are everywhere.

1165 One who controls the senses.

1166 He who resides in the heart, or who is full, or all-pervading.

1167 Vamana, or the Dwarf incarnation of Vishnu.

1168 The killer of Madhu, a demon.

1169 He from whose navel, the lotus, from which Brahma was born, springs.

1170 He who has a thousand horns. The horns are here the Sakhas of the Sama-veda.

1171 One who has a hundred heads. The heads are here meant to devote a hundred commandments of the Vedas.

1172 Siddhas are those who have already gained the summit of their desires.

1173 Sadhyas are those that are still trying to gain the summit.

1174 A mystic syllable uttered in Mantras.

1175 A mystic syllable made of the letters which respectively denote Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.

1176 A class of divine gods.

1177 Sanskaras are those sacred writings through which the divine commands and prohibitions are known.

1178 Bali, a demon whom Vamana confined in Patala.

1179 Vishnu, the second of the Hindu triad.

1180 Krishna, (black coloured) one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu.

1181 A. Weber, Akademische Vorlesungen, p. 181.

1182 Systema brahmanicum, liturgicum, mythologicum, civile, exmonumentis Indicis, etc.

1183 Not only have the races of India translated or epitomized it, but foreign nations have appropriated it wholly or in part, Persia, Java, and Japan itself.

1184 In the third century B.C.

THE END

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