The Sanskrit Epics, page 12
And diadem with golden corn.
The queen Ghritáchí, nymph most fair,
Married to Kuśanábha, bare
A hundred daughters, lovely-faced,
With every charm and beauty graced.
It chanced the maidens, bright and gay
As lightning-flashes on a day
Of rain time, to the garden went
With song and play and merriment,
And there in gay attire they strayed,
And danced, and laughed, and sang, and played.
The God of Wind who roves at will
All places, as he lists, to fill,
Saw the young maidens dancing there,
Of faultless shape and mien most fair.
“I love you all, sweet girls,” he cried,
“And each shall be my darling bride.
Forsake, forsake your mortal lot,
And gain a life that withers not.
A fickle thing is youth’s brief span,
And more than all in mortal man.
Receive unending youth, and be
Immortal, O my loves, with me.”
The hundred girls, to wonder stirred,
The wooing of the Wind-God heard,
Laughed, as a jest, his suit aside,
And with one voice they thus replied:
“O mighty Wind, free spirit who
All life pervadest, through and through,
Thy wondrous power we maidens know;
Then wherefore wilt thou mock us so?
Our sire is Kuśanábha, King;
And we, forsooth, have charms to bring
A God to woo us from the skies;
But honour first we maidens prize.
Far may the hour, we pray, be hence,
When we, O thou of little sense,
Our truthful father’s choice refuse,
And for ourselves our husbands choose.
Our honoured sire our lord we deem,
He is to us a God supreme,
And they to whom his high decree
May give us shall our husbands be.”
He heard the answer they returned,
And mighty rage within him burned.
On each fair maid a blast he sent:
Each stately form he bowed and bent.
Bent double by the Wind-God’s ire
They sought the palace of their sire,
There fell upon the ground with sighs,
While tears and shame were in their eyes.
The king himself, with troubled brow,
Saw his dear girls so fair but now,
A mournful sight all bent and bowed,
And grieving thus he cried aloud:
“What fate is this, and what the cause?
What wretch has scorned all heavenly laws?
Who thus your forms could curve and break?
You struggle, but no answer make.”
They heard the speech of that wise king
Of their misfortune questioning.
Again the hundred maidens sighed,
Touched with their heads his feet, and cried:
“The God of Wind, pervading space,
Would bring on us a foul disgrace,
And choosing folly’s evil way
From virtue’s path in scorn would stray.
But we in words like these reproved
The God of Wind whom passion moved:
“Farewell, O Lord! A sire have we,
No women uncontrolled and free.
Go, and our sire’s consent obtain
If thou our maiden hands wouldst gain.
No self-dependent life we live:
If we offend, our fault forgive.”
But led by folly as a slave,
He would not hear the rede we gave,
And even as we gently spoke
We felt the Wind-God’s crushing stroke.”
The pious king, with grief distressed,
The noble hundred thus addressed:
“With patience, daughters, bear your fate,
Yours was a deed supremely great
When with one mind you kept from shame
The honour of your father’s name.
Patience, when men their anger vent,
Is woman’s praise and ornament;
Yet when the Gods inflict the blow
Hard is it to support the woe.
Patience, my girls, exceeds all price:
’Tis alms, and truth, and sacrifice.
Patience is virtue, patience fame:
Patience upholds this earthly frame.
And now, I think, is come the time
To wed you in your maiden prime.
Now, daughters, go where’er you will:
Thoughts for your good my mind shall fill.”
The maidens went, consoled, away:
The best of kings, that very day,
Summoned his ministers of state
About their marriage to debate.
Since then, because the Wind-God bent
The damsels’ forms for punishment,
That royal town is known to fame
By Kanyákubja’s174 borrowed name.
There lived a sage called Chúli then,
Devoutest of the sons of men;
His days in penance rites he spent,
A glorious saint, most continent.
To him absorbed in tasks austere
The child of Urmilá drew near,
Sweet Somadá, the heavenly maid
And lent the saint her pious aid.
Long time near him the maiden spent,
And served him meek and reverent,
Till the great hermit, pleased with her,
Thus spoke unto his minister:
“Grateful am I for all thy care:
Blest maiden, speak, thy wish declare.”
The sweet-voiced nymph rejoiced to see
The favour of the devotee,
And to that eloquent old man,
Most eloquent she thus began:
“Thou hast, by heavenly grace sustained,
Close union with the Godhead gained.
I long, O Saint, to see a son
By force of holy penance won.
Unwed, a maiden life I live:
A son to me, thy suppliant, give.”
The saint with favour heard her prayer,
And gave a son exceeding fair.
Him, Chúli’s spiritual child,
His mother Brahmadatta175 styled.
King Brahmadatta, rich and great,
In Kámpilí maintained his state,
Ruling, like Indra in his bliss,
His fortunate metropolis.
King Kuśanábha planned that he
His hundred daughters’ lord should be.
To him, obedient to his call,
The happy monarch gave them all.
Like Indra then he took the hand
Of every maiden of the band.
Soon as the hand of each young maid
In Brahmadatta’s palm was laid,
Deformity and cares away,
She shone in beauty bright and gay.
Their freedom from the Wind-God’s might
Saw Kuśanábha with delight.
Each glance that on their forms he threw
Filled him with raptures ever new.
Then when the rites were all complete,
With highest marks of honour meet
The bridegroom with his brides he sent
To his great seat of government.
The nymph received with pleasant speech
Her daughters; and, embracing each,
Upon their forms she fondly gazed,
And royal Kuśanábha praised.
Canto XXXV. Visvámitra’s Lineage.
“THE RITES WERE o’er, the maids were wed,
The bridegroom to his home was sped.
The sonless monarch bade prepare
A sacrifice to gain an heir.
Then Kuśa, Brahmá’s son, appeared,
And thus King Kuśanábha cheered:
“Thou shalt, my child, obtain a son
Like thine own self, O holy one.
Through him for ever, Gádhi named,
Shalt thou in all the worlds be famed.”
He spoke, and vanished from the sight
To Brahmá’s world of endless light.
Time fled, and, as the saint foretold,
Gádhi was born, the holy-souled.
My sire was he; through him I trace
My line from royal Kuśa’s race.
My sister — elder-born was she —
The pure and good Satyavatí,176
Was to the great Richíka wed.
Still faithful to her husband dead,
She followed him, most noble dame,
And, raised to heaven in human frame,
A pure celestial stream became.
Down from Himálaya’s snowy height,
In floods for ever fair and bright,
My sister’s holy waves are hurled
To purify and glad the world.
Now on Himálaya’s side I dwell
Because I love my sister well.
She, for her faith and truth renowned,
Most loving to her husband found,
High-fated, firm in each pure vow,
Is queen of all the rivers now.
Bound by a vow I left her side
And to the Perfect convent hied.
There, by the aid ’twas thine to lend,
Made perfect, all my labours end.
Thus, mighty Prince, I now have told
My race and lineage, high and old,
And local tales of long ago
Which thou, O Ráma, fain wouldst know.
As I have sate rehearsing thus
The midnight hour is come on us.
Now, Ráma, sleep, that nothing may
Our journey of to-morrow stay.
No leaf on any tree is stirred:
Hushed in repose are beast and bird:
Where’er you turn, on every side,
Dense shades of night the landscape hide,
The light of eve is fled: the skies,
Thick-studded with their host of eyes,
Seem a star-forest overhead,
Where signs and constellations spread.
Now rises, with his pure cold ray,
The moon that drives the shades away,
And with his gentle influence brings
Joy to the hearts of living things.
Now, stealing from their lairs, appear
The beasts to whom the night is dear.
Now spirits walk, and every power
That revels in the midnight hour.”
The mighty hermit’s tale was o’er,
He closed his lips and spoke no more.
The holy men on every side,
“Well done! well done,” with reverence cried;
“The mighty men of Kuśa’s seed
Were ever famed for righteous deed.
Like Brahmá’s self in glory shine
The high-souled lords of Kuśa’s line,
And thy great name is sounded most,
O Saint, amid the noble host.
And thy dear sister — fairest she
Of streams, the high-born Kauśikí —
Diffusing virtue where she flows,
New splendour on thy lineage throws.”
Thus by the chief of saints addressed
The son of Gádhi turned to rest;
So, when his daily course is done,
Sinks to his rest the beaming sun.
Ráma with Lakshmaṇ, somewhat stirred
To marvel by the tales they heard,
Turned also to his couch, to close
His eyelids in desired repose.
Canto XXXVI. The Birth Of Gangá.
THE HOURS OF night now waning fast
On Śona’s pleasant shore they passed.
Then, when the dawn began to break,
To Ráma thus the hermit spake:
“The light of dawn is breaking clear,
The hour of morning rites is near.
Rise, Ráma, rise, dear son, I pray,
And make thee ready for the way.”
Then Ráma rose, and finished all
His duties at the hermit’s call,
Prepared with joy the road to take,
And thus again in question spake:
“Here fair and deep the Śona flows,
And many an isle its bosom shows:
What way, O Saint, will lead us o’er
And land us on the farther shore?”
The saint replied: “The way I choose
Is that which pious hermits use.”
For many a league they journeyed on
Till, when the sun of mid-day shone,
The hermit-haunted flood was seen
Of Jáhnaví,177 the Rivers’ Queen.
Soon as the holy stream they viewed,
Thronged with a white-winged multitude
Of sárases178 and swans,179 delight
Possessed them at the lovely sight;
And then prepared the hermit band
To halt upon that holy strand.
They bathed as Scripture bids, and paid
Oblations due to God and shade.
To Fire they burnt the offerings meet,
And sipped the oil, like Amrit sweet.
Then pure and pleased they sate around
Saint Viśvámitra on the ground.
The holy men of lesser note,
In due degree, sate more remote,
While Raghu’s sons took nearer place
By virtue of their rank and race.
Then Ráma said: “O Saint, I yearn
The three-pathed Gangá’s tale to learn.”
Thus urged, the sage recounted both
The birth of Gangá and her growth:
“The mighty hill with metals stored,
Himálaya, is the mountains’ lord,
The father of a lovely pair
Of daughters fairest of the fair:
Their mother, offspring of the will
Of Meru, everlasting hill,
Mená, Himálaya’s darling, graced
With beauty of her dainty waist.
Gangá was elder-born: then came
The fair one known by Umá’s name.
Then all the Gods of heaven, in need
Of Gangá’s help their vows to speed,
To great Himálaya came and prayed
The mountain King to yield the maid.
He, not regardless of the weal
Of the three worlds, with holy zeal
His daughter to the Immortals gave,
Gangá whose waters cleanse and save,
Who roams at pleasure, fair and free,
Purging all sinners, to the sea.
The three-pathed Gangá thus obtained,
The Gods their heavenly homes regained.
Long time the sister Umá passed
In vows austere and rigid fast,
And the king gave the devotee
Immortal Rudra’s180 bride to be,
Matching with that unequalled Lord
His Umá through the worlds adored.
So now a glorious station fills
Each daughter of the King of Hills:
One honoured as the noblest stream,
One mid the Goddesses supreme.
Thus Gangá, King Himálaya’s child,
The heavenly river, undefiled,
Rose bearing with her to the sky
Her waves that bless and purify.”
[I am compelled to omit Cantos XXXVII and XXXVIII, The Glory of Umá, and the Birth of Kártikeya, as both in subject and language offensive to modern taste. They will be found in Schlegel’s Latin translation.]
Canto XXXIX. The Sons Of Sagar.
THE SAINT IN accents sweet and clear
Thus told his tale for Ráma’s ear,
And thus anew the holy man
A legend to the prince began:
“There reigned a pious monarch o’er
Ayodhyá in the days of yore:
Sagar his name: no child had he,
And children much he longed to see.
His honoured consort, fair of face,
Sprang from Vidarbha’s royal race,
Keśini, famed from early youth
For piety and love of truth.
Aríshṭanemi’s daughter fair,
With whom no maiden might compare
In beauty, though the earth is wide,
Sumati, was his second bride.
With his two queens afar he went,
And weary days in penance spent,
Fervent, upon Himálaya’s hill
Where springs the stream called Bhrigu’ rill.
Nor did he fail that saint to please
With his devout austerities.
And, when a hundred years had fled,
Thus the most truthful Bhrigu said:
“From thee, O Sagar, blameless King,
A mighty host of sons shall spring,
And thou shalt win a glorious name
Which none, O Chief, but thou shall claim.
One of thy queens a son shall bear,
Maintainer of thy race and heir;
And of the other there shall be
Sons sixty thousand born to thee.”
Thus as he spake, with one accord,
To win the grace of that high lord,
The queens, with palms together laid,
In humble supplication prayed:
“Which queen, O Bráhman, of the pair,
The many, or the one shall bear?
Most eager, Lord, are we to know,
And as thou sayest be it so.”
With his sweet speech the saint replied:
“Yourselves, O Queens, the choice decide.
Your own discretion freely use
Which shall the one or many choose:
One shall the race and name uphold,
The host be famous, strong, and bold.
Which will have which?” Then Keśini
The mother of one heir would be.
Sumati, sister of the king181
Of all the birds that ply the wing,
To that illustrious Bráhman sued
That she might bear the multitude
Whose fame throughout the world should sound
For mighty enterprise renowned.
Around the saint the monarch went,
Bowing his head, most reverent.
Then with his wives, with willing feet,
Resought his own imperial seat.
Time passed. The elder consort bare
A son called Asamanj, the heir.
Then Sumati, the younger, gave
Birth to a gourd,182 O hero brave,
Whose rind, when burst and cleft in two,
