Rámáyan of Válmíki (World's Classics Series). Valmiki
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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.
14 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.
15 Chief of the three queens of Daśaratha and mother of Ráma.
16 From hima snow, (Greek χειμ-ών, Latin hiems) and álaya abode, the Mansion of snow.
17 The moon (Soma, Indu, Chandra etc.) is masculine with the Indians as with the Germans.
18 Kuvera, the Indian Plutus, or God of Wealth.
19 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.
20 “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.”
21 The garb prescribed for ascetics by Manu.
22 “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.
23 The third God of the Indian Triad, the God of destruction and reproduction. See Additional Notes.
24 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.
25 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.
26 Jaṭáyu, a semi-divine bird, the friend of Ráma, who fought in defence of Sítá.
27 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.”
28 Dundhubi.
29 Literally ten yojanas. The yojana is a measure of uncertain length variously reckoned as equal to nine miles, five, and a little less.
30 Ceylon.
31 The Jonesia Aśoka is a most beautiful tree bearing a profusion of red blossoms.
32 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.
33 Ocean personified.
34 The rocks lying between Ceylon and the mainland are still called Ráma’s Bridge by the Hindus.
35 “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.
36 The ancient kings of India enjoyed lives of more than patriarchal length as will appear in the course of the poem.
37 Śúdras, men of the fourth and lowest pure caste, were not allowed to read the poem, but might hear it recited.
38 The three ślokes or distichs which these twelve lines represent are evidently a still later and very awkward addition to the introduction.
Canto 2. Brahmá‘s Visit
Válmíki, graceful speaker, heard,
To highest admiration stirred.
To him whose fame the tale rehearsed
He paid his mental worship first;
Then with his pupil humbly bent
Before the saint most eloquent.
Thus honoured and dismissed the seer
Departed to his heavenly sphere.