Story of the Bráhman Kála.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Somadeva Bhatta, active 11th century and Tawney, C. H. (Charles Henry)
Then the king of the gods immediately prostrated himself before Kaśyapa his spiritual guide, and returned as he came, accompanied by all the Lokapálas; and Maya and the others, by the order of that excellent hermit, departed from his hermitage to meet success in their proposed undertaking.
Source notes
1 Alluding to Indra’s slaying the demon Vṛitra, who was regarded as a Bráhman, and to his conduct with Ahalyá.
2I. q. Śiva.
3i. e., Śiva.
4 One of the seven under-worlds.
5I. q. Acesines and Hydraotes.
6I. e., a day of Brahmá consisting of 1000 yugas.
7 Cp. the halo or aureole round the heads of Christian saints, the circle of rays and nimbus round the head of Greek divinities, and the beam that came out of Charles the Great’s mouth and illumined his head. (Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, translated by Stallybrass, p. 323.) Cp. Livy I, 39; and Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi (Burnouf) p. 4.
8Kála means Time, Fate, Death.
9 I divide sa śivákhyánám and take sa to be the demonstrative pronoun.
10I. e. the Yoga system.
11 This superstition appears to be prevalent in China. See Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. I, p. 23, and other passages. It was no doubt carried there by the same wave of Buddhism that carried there many similar notions connected with the transmigration of souls, for instance the belief that children are born able to speak, and that this is very inauspicious. (Cp. Giles’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. I, p. 184 with the story of Dharmagupta and Chandraprabhá in the 17th chapter of this work.) The existence of this latter belief in Europe is probably to be ascribed to the influence of Buddhism.
12 Here I read Śrutaśarma-sapakshatvam.
13 Uśanas here means Śukra, the spiritual guide of the Asuras.
14 I read paśyásya rúpam. This gives a better sense. It is partly supported by a MS. in the Sanskrit College. The same MS. in the next line reads tvám tu paśyati chaiko’pi—I read tvám tu paśyatu chaisho’pi.
15 Lit. “the shape of the moon”; put for the moon, because the author is speaking of a woman. See Böhtlingk and Roth s. v.
16I. e. áryaputra, used by a wife in addressing a husband.
17 A MS. in the Sanskrit College reads asau where Brockhaus reads amúr.
18 The Petersburg lexicographers remark that sampadád is “wohl fehlerhaft.” A MS. in the Sanskrit College has sádarád. But this seems improbable with sádare in the line above. Babu Śyámá Charaṇ Mukhopádhyáya conjectures sammadád which I have adopted.
19 The eight Lokapálas or guardians of the world.
20I. e. the Vidyádharas.
21 His charioteer.