1:1b Comparison with the Ganges is implied, that river being called the purifier of the world.
1:2b 'This name may have been given to the father of Vlmki allegorically. If we look at the derivation of the word ("pra", before, and "chetas", mind) it is as if the poet were called the son of Prometheus, the Forethinker.' Schlegel.
1:3b Called in Sanskrit also "Bla-Knda", and in Hindi "Bl-Knd", i. e. the Book describing Rma's childhood, "bla" meaning a boy up to his sixteenth year.
1:4b A divine saint, son of Brahm. He is the eloquent messenger of the Gods, a musician of exquisite skill, and the inventor of the "vin" or Indian lute. He bears a strong resemblance to Hermes or Mercury.
1:5b This mystic syllable, said to typify the supreme Deity, the Gods collectively, the Vedas, the three spheres of the world, the three holy fires, the three steps of Vishnu etc., prefaces the prayers and most venerated writings of the Hindus.
2:1 This colloquy is supposed to have taken place about sixteen years after Rma's return from his wanderings and occupation of his ancestral throne.
2:2 Called also S'ri and Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, the Queen of Beauty as well as the Dea Fortuna. Her birth 'from the full-flushed wave' is described in Canto XLV of this Book.
2:3 One of the most prominent objects of worship in the Rig-veda, Indra was superseded in later times by the more popular deities Vishnu and S'iva. He is the God of the firmament, and answers in many respects to the Jupiter Pluvius of the Romans. See "Additional Notes".
2:4 The second God of the Trimrti or Indian Trinity. Derived from the root "vis'" to penetrate, the meaning of the name appears to be he who penetrates or pervades all things. An embodiment of the preserving power of nature, he is worshipped as a Saviour who has nine times been incarnate for the good of the world and will descend on earth once more. See "Additional Notes" and Muir's Sanskrit Texts "passim".
2:5 In Sanskrit "devarshi. Rishi" is the general appellation of sages, and another word is frequently prefixed to distinguish the degrees. A "Brahmarshi" is a theologian or Brhmanical sage; a Rjarshi is a royal sage or sainted king; a "Devarshi" is a divine or deified sage or saint.
2:1b "Triklaj'na". Literally knower of the three times. Both Schlegel and Gorresio quote Homer's.
Os aedae ta t eonta, ta t essomena, pro t eonta.
'That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view, The past, the present, and the future knew.'
The Bombay edition reads trilokajna, who knows the three worlds (earth, air and heaven.) 'It is by "topas" (austere fervour) that rishis of subdued souls, subsisting on roots, fruits and air, obtain a vision of the three worlds with all things moving and stationary.' Manu, Xi. 236.
2:2b Son of Manu, the first king of Kos'ala and founder of the solar dynasty or family of the Children of the Sun, the God of that luminary being the father of Manu.
2:3b The Indians paid great attention to the art of physiognomy and believed that character and fortune could be foretold not from the face only, but from marks upon the neck and hands. Three lines under the chin like those at the mouth of a conch ("S'an'kha") were regarded as a peculiarly auspicious sign indicating, as did also the mark of Vishnu's discus on the hand, one born to be a "chakravartin" or universal emperor. In the palmistry of Europe the line of fortune, as well as the line of life, is in the hand. Cardan says that marks on the nails and teeth also show what is to happen to us: 'Sunt etiam in nobis vestigia qudam futurorum eyentuum in unguibus atque etiam in dentibus.' Though the palmy days of Indian chiromancy have passed away, the art is still to some extent studied and believed in.
3:1 Long arms were regarded as a sign of heroic strength.
3:2 'Veda means originally knowing or knowledge, and this name ia given by the Brhmans not to one work, but to the whole body of their most ancient sacred literature. Veda is the same word which appears in the Greek οἰδα, I know, and in the English wise, wisdom, to wit. The name of Veda is commonly given to four collections of hymns, which are respectively known by the names of Rig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sma-veda, and Atharva-veda.'
'As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the ancestors of the Aryan race,--with those very people who at the rising and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening. These men were the true ancestors of our race, and the Veda is the oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany: not in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Palestine.' "Chips from a German Workshop," Vol. I. pp. 8. 4.
3:1b As with the ancient Persians and Scythians, Indian princes were carefully instructed in archery which stands for military science in general, of which, among Hindu heroes, it was the most important branch.
3:2b Chief of the three queens of Das'aratha and mother of Rma.
3:3b From "hima" snow, (Greek χειμ-ών Latin hiems) and "laya" abode, the Mansion of snow.
3:4b The moon ("Soma, Indu, Chandra etc.") is masculine with the Indians as with the Germans.
3:5b Kuvera, the Indian Plutus, or God of Wealth.
3:6b The events here briefly mentioned will be related fully in the course of the poem. The first four cantos are introductory, and are evidently the work of a later hand than Valmiki's.
4:1 'Chandra, or the Moon, is fabled to have been married to the twenty-seven daughters of the patriarch Daksha, or Asvin and the rest, who are in fact personifications of the Lunar Asterisms. His favourite amongst them was Rohin to whom he so wholly devoted himself as to neglect the rest. They complained to their father, and Daksha repeatedly interposed, till, finding his remonstrances vain, he denounced a curse upon his son-in-law, in consequence of which he remained childless and became affected by consumption. The wives of Chandra having interceded in his behalf with their father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. "Padma, Purna, Swarga-Khanda," Sec. II. "Rohini" in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing live stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran.' WILSON, Specimens of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. p. 234.
The Bengal recension has a different reading:
'Shone with her husband like the light
Attendant on the Lord of Night.'
4:1b The garb prescribed for ascetics by Manu.
4:2b Mount Meru, situated like Kailsa in the lofty regions to the north of the Himlayas, is celebrated in the traditions and myths of India. Meru and Kailsa are the two Indian Olympi. Perhaps they were held in such veneration because the Sanskrit-speaking Indians remembered the ancient home where they dwelt with the other primitive peoples of their family before they descended to occupy the vast plains which extend between the Indus and the Ganges.' Gobresio.
4:3b The third God of the Indian Triad, the God of destruction and reproduction. See "Additional Notes".
4:4b The epithet "dmija", or "twice-born", is usually appropriate to Brhmans, but is applicable to the three higher castes. Investiture with the sacred thread and initiation of the neophyte into certain religious mysteries are regarded as his regeneration or second birth.
4:5b His shoes to be a memorial of the absent heir and to maintain his right. Klidsa (Raghuvans'a, Xii. 17.) says that they were to be "ahidevate" or guardian deities of the kingdom.
5:1 Jatyu, a semi-divine bird, the friend of Rma, who fought in defence of Sit.
5:2 Raghu was one of the most celebrated ancestors of Rma whose commonest appellation is, therefore, Rghava or descendant of Raghu. Klidsa in the Raghuvans'a makes him the son of Dilipa and great-grandfather of Rma. See "Idylls from the Sanskrit", 'Aja' and 'Dilipa'.
5:1b Dundhubi
5:2b Literally "ten yojanas". The yojana is a measure of uncertain length variously reckoned as equal to nine miles, five, and a little less.
5:3b Ceylon
6:1 The Jonesia As'oka is a most beautiful tree bearing a profusion of red blossoms.
6:2 \"Brahm", the Creator, is usually regarded as the first God of the Indian Trinity, although, as Klidsa says:
'Of Brahma, Vishnu, S'iva, each may be First, second, third, amid the blessed Three.'
Brahm had guaranteed Rvan's life against all enemies except man.
6:3 Ocean personified.
6:4 The rocks lying between Ceylon and the mainland are still called Rma's Bridge by the Hindus.
6:1b The Brhmans, with a system rather cosmogonical than chronological, divide the present mundane period into four ages or "yugas" as they call them: the Krita, the Tret, the Dwpara, and the Kali. The Krita, cailed also the Deva-yuga or that of the Gods, is the age of truth, the perfect age, the Tret is the age of the three sacred fires, domestic and sacrificial; the Dwpara is the age of doubt; the Kali, the present age, is the age of evil.' Gorresio.
6:2b The ancient kings of India enjoyed lives of more than patriarchal length as will appear in the course of the poem.
6:3b S'dras, men of the fourth and lowest pure caste, were not allowed to read the poem, but might hear it recited.
6:4b The three "s'lokas" or distichs which these twelve lines represent are evidently a still later and very awkward addition to the introduction.