The Ramayana Part 201

Page 431.

_"Art thou not he who slew of old_ _The Serpent-G.o.ds, and stormed their hold."_

All these exploits of Rava? are detailed in the _Uttaraka??a_, and epitomized in the Appendix.

Page 434.

_Within the consecrated hall_.

The Brahman householder ought to maintain three sacred fires, the _Garhapatya_, the _Ahavaniya_ and the _Daks.h.i.+?a_. These three fires were made use of in many Brahmanical solemnities, for example in funeral rites when the three fires were arranged in prescribed order.

Page 436.

_Fair Punjikasthala I met._

"I have not noticed in the uttara Ka?da any story about the daughter of Varu?a, but the commentator on the text (VI 60, 11) explains the allusion to her thus:

"The daughter of Varu?a was Punjikasthali. On her account, a curse of Brahma, involving the penalty of death, [was p.r.o.nounced] on the rape of women." MUIR, _Sanskrit Texts_, Part IV. Appendix.

Page 452.

_"__Shall no funereal honours grace_ _The parted lord of Raghu's race?__"_

"Here are indicated those admirable rites and those funeral prayers which Professor Muller has described in his excellent work, _Die Todtenbestattung bei den Brahmanen_, Sita laments that the body of Rama will not be honoured with those rites and prayers, nor will the Brahman priest while laying the ashes from the pile in the bosom of the earth, p.r.o.nounce over them those solemn and magnificent words: 'Go unto the earth, thy mother, the ample, wide, and blessed earth.... And do thou, O Earth, open and receive him as a friend with sweet greeting: enfold him in thy bosom as a mother wraps her child in her robes.' " GORRESIO.

Page 462.

_Each glorious sign_ _That stamps the future queen is mine_.

We read in Josephus that Caesar was so well versed in chiromancy that when one day a _soi-disant_ son of Herod had audience of him, he at once detected the impostor because his hand was dest.i.tute of all marks of royalty.

Page 466.

_In battle's wild Gandharva dance_.

"Here the commentator explains: 'the battle resembled the dance of the Gandharvas,' in accordance with the notion of the Gandharvas entertained in his day. They were regarded as celestial musicians enlivening with their melodies Indra's heaven and the banquets of the G.o.ds. But the Gandharvas before becoming celestial musicians in popular tradition, were in the primitive and true signification of the name heroes, spirited and ardent warriors, followers of Indra, and combined the heroical character with their atmospherical deity. Under this aspect the dance of the Gandharvas may be a very different thing from what the commentator means, and may signify the horrid dance of war." GORRESIO.

The Homeric expression is similar, "to dance a war-dance before Ares."

Page 470.

_By Anara?ya's lips of old._

"The story of Anara?ya is told in the Uttara Ka??a of the Ramaya?a....

Anara?ya a descendant of Ixvaku and King of Ayodhya, when called upon to fight with Rava?a or acknowledge himself conquered, prefers the former alternative; but his army is overcome, and he himself is thrown from his chariot.

When Rava?a triumphs over his prostrate foe, the latter says that he has been vanquished not by him but by fate, and that Rava?a is only the instrument of his overthrow; and he predicts that Rava?a shall one day be slain by his descendant Rama." _Sanskrit Texts_, IV., Appendix.

Page 497.

"With regard to the magic image of Sita made by Indrajit, we may observe that this thoroughly oriental idea is also found in Greece in Homer's Iliad, where Apollo forms an image of aeneas to save that hero beloved by the G.o.ds: it occurs too in the aeneid of Virgil where Juno forms a fict.i.tious aeneas to save Turnus:

Tum dea nube cava tenuem sine viribus umbram In faciem aeneae (visu mirabile monstrum) Dardaniis ornat telis; clipeumque jubasque Divini a.s.simulat capitis; dat inania verba; Dat sine mente sonum, gressusque effingit euntis.

(_aeneidos_, lib. X.)" GORRESIO.

Page 489.

_"To Raghu's son my chariot lend."_

"a.n.a.logous to this pa.s.sage of the Ramayana, where Indra sends to Rama his own chariot, his own charioteer, and his own arms, is the pa.s.sage in the aeneid where Venus descending from heaven brings celestial arms to her son aeneas when he is about to enter the battle: