Book I

. Canto XL.

393 A practice which has frequently been described, under the name of _dherna_, by European travellers in India.

394 Compare Milton’s “_beseeching or beseiging_.”

395 Ten-headed, ten-necked, ten faced, are common epithets of Rávaṇ the giant king of Lanká.

396 The spouse of Rohiṇí is the Moon: Ráhu is the demon who causes eclipses.

397 “Once,” says the Commentator Tírtha, “in the battle between the Gods and demons the Gods were vanquished, and the sun was overthrown by Ráhu. At the request of the Gods Atri undertook the management of the sun for a week.”

398 Now Nundgaon, in Oudh.

399 A part of the great Daṇḍak forest.

400 When the saint Máṇḍavya had doomed some saint’s wife, who was Anasúyá’s friend, to become a widow on the morrow.

401 Heavenly nymphs.

402 The _ball_ or present of food to all created beings.

403 The clarified butter &c. cast into the sacred fire.

404 The Moon-God: “he is,” says the commentator, “the special deity of Bráhmans.”

405 “Because he was an incarnation of the deity,” says the commentator, “otherwise such honour paid by men of the sacerdotal caste to one of the military would be improper.”

406 The king of birds.

_ 407 Kálántakayamopamam_, resembling Yáma the destroyer.

408 Somewhat inconsistently with this part of the story Tumburu is mentioned in Book II , Canto XII as one of the Gandharvas or heavenly minstrels summoned to perform at Bharadvája’s feast.

409 Rambhá appears in