Book I

. XII. 37.

555 Indra.

556 Báli the king _de facto_.

557 With the Indians, as with the ancient Greeks, the throbbing of the right eye in a man is an auspicious sign, the throbbing of the left eye is the opposite. In a woman the significations of signs are reversed.

558 The Vedas stolen by the demons Madhu and Kaiṭabha.

“The text has [Sanskrit text] which signifies literally ‘the lost vedic tradition.’ It seems that allusion is here made to the Vedas submerged in the depth of the sea, but promptly recovered by Vishṇu in one of his incarnations, as the brahmanic legend relates, with which the orthodoxy of the Bráhmans intended perhaps to allude to the prompt restoration and uninterrupted continuity of the ancient vedic tradition.”

GORRESIO.

559 Like the wife of a Nága or Serpent-God carried off by an eagle. The enmity between the King of birds and the serpent is of very frequent occurrence. It seems to be a modification of the strife between the Vedic Indra and the Ahi, the serpent or drought-fiend; between Apollôn and the Python, Adam and the Serpent.

560 He means that he has never ventured to raise his eyes to her arms and face, though he has ever been her devoted servant.

561 The wood in which Skanda or Kártikeva was brought up:

“The Warrior-God Whose infant steps amid the thickets strayed Where the reeds wave over the holy sod.”

See also