The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse

“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.

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.

It was the custom of the kings of the solar dynasty to resign in their extreme old age the kingdom to the heir, and spend the remainder of their days in holy meditation in the forest:

“For such through ages in their life's decline

Is the good custom of Ikshváku's line.”

Raghuraṅśa.

See Book I, Canto XXXIX. An Indian prince in more modern times appears to have diverted himself in a similar way.

It is still reported in Belgaum that Appay Deasy was wont to amuse himself “by making several young and beautiful women stand side by side on a narrow balcony, without a parapet, overhanging the deep reservoir at the new palace in Nipani. He used then to pass along the line of trembling creatures, and suddenly thrusting one of them headlong into the water below, he used to watch her drowning, and derive pleasure from her dying agonies.”—History of the Belgaum District. By H. J. Stokes, M. S. C.

“So in Homer the horses of Achilles lamented with many bitter tears the death of Patroclus slain by Hector:”

“Ἵπποι δ' Αἰακίδαο, μάχης ἀπάνευθεν ἐότες,

Κλᾶιον, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα πυθέσθην ἡνιόχοιο

Ἐν κονίνσι πεσόντος ὑφ' Ἕκτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο”

Iliad. XVII. 426.

“Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man.”Gorresio.

So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:

“Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:

Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.”

King Henry V, Act IV, 6.

It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos LXVIII and LXXII. Professor Wilson observes (Vishṇu Puráṇa, p. 139. Dr. Hall's Edition) “States, and tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers, have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, Barnagore represents Baráhanagar, Dakshineśwar is metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaría into Willoughbury.… There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect.”

For further information regarding the road from Ayodhyá to Rájagriha, see Additional Notes.

It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.

Carey and Marshman translate, “the one-tailed city.”

“The Jonesia Asoca is a tree of considerable size, native of southern India. It blossoms in February and March with large erect compact clusters of flowers, varying in colour from pale-orange to scarlet, almost to be mistaken, on a hasty glance, for immense trusses of bloom of an Ixora. Mr. Fortune considered this tree, when in full bloom, superior in beauty even to the Amherstia.

The first time I saw the Asoc in flower was on the hill where the famous rock-cut temple of Kárlí is situated, and a large concourse of natives had assembled for the celebration of some Hindoo festival. Before proceeding to the temple the Mahratta women gathered from two trees, which were flowering somewhat below, each a fine truss of blossom, and inserted it in the hair at the back of her head.… As they moved about in groups it is impossible to imagine a more delightful effect than the rich scarlet bunches of flowers presented on their fine glossy jet-black hair.”Firminger, Gardening for India.

I omit five ślokas which contain nothing but a list of trees for which, with one or two exceptions, there are no equivalent names in English. The following is Gorresio's translation of the corresponding passage in the Bengal recension:—

“Oh come risplendono in questa stagione di primavera i vitici, le galedupe, le bassie, le dalbergie, i diospyri … le tile, le michelie, le rottlerie, le pentaptere ed i pterospermi, i bombaci, le grislee, gli abri, gli amaranti e le dalbergie; i sirii, le galedupe, le barringtonie ed i palmizi, i xanthocymi, il pepebetel, le verbosine e le ticaie, le nauclee le erythrine, gli asochi, e le tapie fanno d'ogni intorno pompa de' lor fiori.”

The semi divine Hanumán possesses, like the Gods and demons, the power of wearing all shapes at will. He is one of the Kámarúpís.

Like Milton's good and bad angels “as they please

They limb themselves, and colour, shape, or size

Assume as likes them best, condense or rare.”

“In our own metrical romances, or wherever a poem is meant not for readers but for chanters and oral reciters, these formulæ, to meet the same recurring case, exist by scores. Thus every woman in these metrical romances who happens to be young, is described as ‘so bright of ble,’ or complexion; always a man goes ‘the mountenance of a mile’ before he overtakes or is overtaken. And so on through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit Homer has his eternal τον δ'αρ' ὑποδρα ιδων, or τον δ'απαμειβομενος προσφη, &c.

To a reader of sensibility, such recurrences wear an air of child-like simplicity, beautifully recalling the features of Homer's primitive age. But they would have appeared faults to all commonplace critics in literary ages.”

De Quincey. Homer and the Homeridæ.