Book I

, Canto XLV.

813 Viśvakarmá is the architect of the Gods, the Hephaestos or Mulciber of the Indian heaven.

814 Rávaṇ in the resistless power which his long austerities had endowed him with, had conquered his brother Kuvera the God of Gold and taken from him his greatest treasure this enchanted car.

815 Like Milton’s heavenly car, “Itself instinct with spirit.”

816 Women, says Válmíki. But the Commentator says that automatic figures only are meant. Women would have seen Hanumán and given the alarm.

817 Rávaṇ had fought against Indra and the Gods, and his body was still scarred by the wounds inflicted by the tusks of Indra’s elephant and by the fiery bolts of the Thunderer.

818 The Vasus are a class of eight deities, originally personifications of natural phenomena.

819 The Maruts are the winds or Storm-Gods.

820 The Ádityas originally seven deities of the heavenly sphere of whom Varuṇa is the chief. The name Áditya was afterwards given to any God, specially to Súrya the Sun.

821 The Aśvins are the Heavenly Twins, the Castor and Pollux of the Hindus.

822 The poet forgets that Hanumán has reduced himself to the size of a cat.

823 Sítá “not of woman born,” was found by King Janak as he was turning up the ground in preparation for a sacrifice. See