Book II

, Canto III. Thus Homer frequently introduces into Troy the rites of Hellenic worship.

617 Vitex Negundo.

618 Mályavat: “The name of this mountain appears to me to be erroneous, and I think that instead of Mályavat should be read Malayavat, Malaya is a group of mountains situated exactly in that southern part of India where Ráma now was, while Mályavat is placed to the north east.” GORRESIO.

619 Mantles of the skin of the black antelope were the prescribed dress of ascetics and religious students.

620 The sacred cord worn as the badge of religious initiation by men of the three twice-born castes.

621 The hum with which students conduct their tasks.

622 I omit here a long general description of the rainy season which is not found in the Bengal recension and appears to have been interpolated by a far inferior and much later hand than Valmiki’s. It is composed in a metre different from that of the rest of the Canto, and contains figures of poetical rhetoric and common-places which are the delight of more recent poets.

623 Praushthapada or Bhadra, the modern Bhadon, corresponds to half of August and half of September.

624 The Sáman or Sáma-veda, the third of the four Vedas, is really merely a reproduction of parts of the Rig-veda, transposed and scattered about piece-meal, only 78 verses in the whole being, it is said, untraceable to the present recension of the Rig-veda.

625 Áshádha is the month corresponding to parts of June and July.

626 Bharat, who was regent during Ráma’s absence.

627 Or with Gorresio, following the gloss of another commentary: “Has completed every holy rite and accumulated stores of merit.”

628 The river on which Ayodhyá was built.

629 I omit a _śloka_ or four lines on gratitude and ingratitude repeated word for word from the last Canto.

630 The Indian crane; a magnificent bird easily domesticated.

631 The troops who guard the frontiers on the north, south, east and west.

632 The Chátaka, Cuculus, Melanoleucus, is supposed to drink nothing but the water for the clouds.

633 The time for warlike expeditions began when the rains had ceased.

634 The rainbow.

635 Indra’s associates in arms, and musicians of his heaven.

636 Maireya, a spirituous liquor from the blossoms of the Lythrum fruticosum, with sugar, &c.

637 Their names are as follows: Angad, Maínda, Dwida, Gavaya, Gaváksha, Gaja, Śarabha, Vidyunmáli, Sampáti, Súryáksa, Hanumán, Vírabáhu, Subáhu, Nala, Kúmuda, Susheṇa, Tára, Jámbuvatu, Dadhivakra, Níla, Supátala, and Sunetra.

638 The Kalpadruma or Wishing-tree is one of the trees of Svarga or Indra’s Paradise: it has the power of granting all desires.

639 The meaning is that if a man promises to give a horse and then breaks his word he commits a sin as great as if he had killed a hundred horses.

640 The story is told in