---

Скачать книгу

---

penance stern and resolute.

      The king who filled Ayodhyá‘s throne,

      By Ambarísha’s name far known,

      At that same time, it chanced, began

      A sacrificial rite to plan.

      But Indra took by force away

      The charger that the king would slay.

      The victim lost, the Bráhman sped

      To Ambarísha’s side, and said:

      “Gone is the steed, O King, and this

      Is due to thee, in care remiss.

      Such heedless faults will kings destroy

      Who fail to guard what they enjoy.

      The flaw is desperate: we need

      The charger, or a man to bleed.

      Quick! bring a man if not the horse,

      That so the rite may have its course.”

      The glory of Ikshváku’s line

      Made offer of a thousand kine,

      And sought to buy at lordly price

      A victim for the sacrifice.

      To many a distant land he drove,

      To many a people, town, and grove,

      And holy shades where hermits rest,

      Pursuing still his eager quest.

      At length on Bhrigu’s sacred height

      The saint Richíka met his sight

      Sitting beneath the holy boughs.

      His children near him, and his spouse.

      The mighty lord drew near, assayed

      To win his grace, and reverence paid;

      And then the sainted king addressed

      The Bráhman saint with this request:

      “Bought with a hundred thousand kine,

      Give me, O Sage, a son of thine

      To be a victim in the rite,

      And thanks the favour shall requite.

      For I have roamed all countries round,

      Nor sacrificial victim found.

      Then, gentle Hermit, deign to spare

      One child amid the number there.”

      Then to the monarch’s speech replied

      The hermit, penance-glorified:

      “For countless kine, for hills of gold,

      Mine eldest son shall ne’er be sold.”

      But, when she heard the saint’s reply,

      The children’s mother, standing nigh,

      Words such as these in answer said

      To Ambarísha, monarch dread:

      “My lord, the saint, has spoken well:

      His eldest child he will not sell.

      And know, great Monarch, that above

      The rest my youngest born I love.

      ’Tis ever thus: the father’s joy

      Is centred in his eldest boy.

      The mother loves her darling best

      Whom last she rocked upon her breast:

      My youngest I will ne’er forsake.”

      As thus the sire and mother spake,

      Young Śunahśepha, of the three

      The midmost, cried unurged and free:

      “My sire withholds his eldest son,

      My mother keeps her youngest one:

      Then take me with thee, King: I ween

      The son is sold who comes between.”

      The king with joy his home resought,

      And took the prize his kine had bought.

      He bade the youth his car ascend,

And hastened back the rites to end.3

1 “This cannot refer to the events just related: for Viśvámitra was successful in the sacrifice performed for Triśanku. And yet no other impediment is mentioned. Still his restless mind would not allow him to remain longer in the same spot. So the character of Viśvámitra is ingeniously and skilfully shadowed forth: as he had been formerly a most warlike king, loving battle and glory, bold, active, sometimes unjust, and more frequently magnanimous, such also he always shows himself in his character of anchorite and ascetic.” Schlegel.

2 Near the modern city of Ajmere. The place is sacred still, and the name is preserved in the Hindí. Lassen, however, says that this Pushkala or Pushkara, called by the Grecian writers Πευκελίτις, the earliest place of pilgrimage mentioned by name, is not to be confounded with the modern Pushkara in Ajmere.

3 “Ambarísha is the twenty-ninth in descent from Ikshváku, and is therefore separated by an immense space of time from Triśanku in whose story Viśvámitra had played so important a part. Yet Richíka, who is represented as having young sons while Ambarísha was yet reigning being himself the son of Bhrigu and to be numbered with the most ancient sages, is said to have married the younger sister of Viśvámitra. But I need not again remark that there is a perpetual anachronism in Indian mythology.” Schlegel..

      “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.

      Canto 62. Ambarísha’s Sacrifice.

      As thus the king that youth conveyed,

      His weary steeds at length he stayed

      At height of noon their rest to take

      Upon the bank of Pushkar’s lake.

      There while the king enjoyed repose

      The captive Śunahśepha rose,

      And hasting to the water’s side

      His uncle Viśvámitra spied,

      With many a hermit ‘neath the trees

      Engaged in stern austerities.

      Distracted with the toil and thirst,

      With woeful mien, away he burst,

      Swift to the hermit’s breast he flew,

      And weeping thus began to sue:

      “No sire have I, no mother dear,

      No kith or kin my heart to cheer:

      As justice bids, O Hermit, deign

      To save me from the threatened pain.

      O thou to whom the wretched flee,

      And find a saviour, Saint,

---

Скачать книгу