Book I

, Canto XVI.

539 A range of hills in Malabar; the Western Ghats in the Deccan.

540 Válmíki makes the second vowel in this name long or short to suit the exigencies of the verse. Other Indian poets have followed his example, and the same licence will be used in this translation.

541 I omit a recapitulatory and interpolated verse in a different metre, which is as follows:—Reverencing with the words, So be it, the speech of the greatly terrified and unequalled monkey king, the magnanimous Hanumán then went where (stood) the very mighty Ráma with Lakshmaṇ.

542 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.”

543 Himálaya is of course _par excellence_ the Monarch of mountains, but the complimentary title is frequently given to other hills as here to Malaya.

544 Twisted up in a matted coil as was the custom of ascetics.

545 The sun and moon.

546 The rainbow.

547 The Vedas are four in number, the Rich or Rig-veda, the Yajush or Yajur-veda; the Sáman or Sáma-veda, and the Atharvan or Atharva-veda. See p. 3. Note.

548 The chest, the throat, and the head.

549 “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_.

550 Bráhmans the sacerdotal caste. Kshatriyas the royal and military, Vaiśyas the mercantile, and Śúdras the servile.

551 A protracted sacrifice extending over several days. See Book I , p. 24 Note.

552 Possessed of all the auspicious personal marks that indicate capacity of universal sovereignty. See Book I . p. 2, and Note 3.

553 Kabandha. See