The Sanskrit Epics, page 15
Then from the foamy sea was freed
Uchchaihśravas,208 the generous steed,
And Kaustubha, of gems the gem,209
And Soma, Moon God, after them.
At length when many a year had fled,
Up floated, on her lotus bed,
A maiden fair and tender-eyed,
In the young flush of beauty’s pride.
She shone with pearl and golden sheen,
And seals of glory stamped her queen,
On each round arm glowed many a gem,
On her smooth brows, a diadem.
Rolling in waves beneath her crown
The glory of her hair flowed down,
Pearls on her neck of price untold,
The lady shone like burnisht gold.
Queen of the Gods, she leapt to land,
A lotus in her perfect hand,
And fondly, of the lotus-sprung,
To lotus-bearing Vishṇu clung.
Her Gods above and men below
As Beauty’s Queen and Fortune know.210
Gods, Titans, and the minstrel train
Still churned and wrought the troubled main.
At length the prize so madly sought,
The Amrit, to their sight was brought.
For the rich spoil, ‘twixt these and those
A fratricidal war arose,
And, host ‘gainst host in battle, set,
Aditi’s sons and Diti’s met.
United, with the giants’ aid,
Their fierce attack the Titans made,
And wildly raged for many a day
That universe-astounding fray.
When wearied arms were faint to strike,
And ruin threatened all alike,
Vishṇu, with art’s illusive aid,
The Amrit from their sight conveyed.
That Best of Beings smote his foes
Who dared his deathless arm oppose:
Yea, Vishṇu, all-pervading God,
Beneath his feet the Titans trod
Aditi’s race, the sons of light,
slew Diti’s brood in cruel fight.
Then town-destroying211 Indra gained
His empire, and in glory reigned
O’er the three worlds with bard and sage
Rejoicing in his heritage.
Canto XLVI. Diti’s Hope.
BUT DITI, WHEN her sons were slain,
Wild with a childless mother’s pain,
To Kaśyap spake, Marícha’s son,
Her husband: “O thou glorious one!
Dead are the children, mine no more,
The mighty sons to thee I bore.
Long fervour’s meed, I crave a boy
Whose arm may Indra’s life destroy.
The toil and pain my care shall be:
To bless my hope depends on thee.
Give me a mighty son to slay
Fierce Indra, gracious lord! I pray.”
Then glorious Kaśyap thus replied
To Diti, as she wept and sighed:
“Thy prayer is heard, dear saint! Remain
Pure from all spot, and thou shalt gain
A son whose arm shall take the life
Of Indra in the battle strife.
For full a thousand years endure
Free from all stain, supremely pure;
Then shall thy son and mine appear,
Whom the three worlds shall serve with fear.”
These words the glorious Kaśyap said,
Then gently stroked his consort’s head,
Blessed her, and bade a kind adieu,
And turned him to his rites anew.
Soon as her lord had left her side,
Her bosom swelled with joy and pride.
She sought the shade of holy boughs,
And there began her awful vows.
While yet she wrought her rites austere,
Indra, unbidden, hastened near,
With sweet observance tending her,
A reverential minister.
Wood, water, fire, and grass he brought,
Sweet roots and woodland fruit he sought,
And all her wants, the Thousand-eyed,
With never-failing care, supplied,
With tender love and soft caress
Removing pain and weariness.
When, of the thousand years ordained,
Ten only unfulfilled remained,
Thus to her son, the Thousand-eyed,
The Goddess in her triumph cried:
“Best of the mighty! there remain
But ten short years of toil and pain;
These years of penance soon will flee,
And a new brother thou shalt see.
Him for thy sake I’ll nobly breed,
And lust of war his soul shall feed;
Then free from care and sorrow thou
Shalt see the worlds before him bow.”212
Canto XLVII. Sumati.
THUS TO LORD Indra, Thousand-eyed,
Softly beseeching Diti sighed.
When but a blighted bud was left,
Which Indra’s hand in seven had cleft:213
“No fault, O Lord of Gods, is thine;
The blame herein is only mine.
But for one grace I fain would pray,
As thou hast reft this hope away.
This bud, O Indra, which a blight
Has withered ere it saw the light —
From this may seven fair spirits rise
To rule the regions of the skies.
Be theirs through heaven’s unbounded space
On shoulders of the winds to race,
My children, drest in heavenly forms,
Far-famed as Maruts, Gods of storms.
One God to Brahmá’s sphere assign,
Let one, O Indra, watch o’er thine;
And ranging through the lower air,
The third the name of Váyu214 bear.
Gods let the four remaining be,
And roam through space, obeying thee.”
The Town-destroyer, Thousand-eyed,
Who smote fierce Bali till he died,
Joined suppliant hands, and thus replied:
“Thy children heavenly forms shall wear;
The names devised by thee shall bear,
And, Maruts called by my decree,
Shall Amrit drink and wait on me.
From fear and age and sickness freed,
Through the three worlds their wings shall speed.”
Thus in the hermits’ holy shade
Mother and son their compact made,
And then, as fame relates, content,
Home to the happy skies they went.
This is the spot — so men have told —
Where Lord Mahendra215 dwelt of old,
This is the blessed region where
His votaress mother claimed his care.
Here gentle Alambúshá bare
To old Ikshváku, king and sage,
Viśála, glory of his age,
By whom, a monarch void of guilt,
Was this fair town Viśálá built.
His son was Hemachandra, still
Renowned for might and warlike skill.
From him the great Suchandra came;
His son, Dhúmráśva, dear to fame.
Next followed royal Srinjay; then
Famed Sahadeva, lord of men.
Next came Kuśáśva, good and mild,
Whose son was Somadatta styled,
And Sumati, his heir, the peer
Of Gods above, now governs here.
And ever through Ikshváku’s grace,
Viśálá’s kings, his noble race,
Are lofty-souled, and blest with length
Of days, with virtue, and with strength.
This night, O prince, we here will sleep;
And when the day begins to peep,
Our onward way will take with thee,
The king of Míthilá to see.”
Then Sumati, the king, aware
Of Viśvámitra’s advent there,
Came quickly forth with honour meet
The lofty-minded sage to greet.
Girt with his priest and lords the king
Did low obeisance, worshipping,
With suppliant hands, with head inclined,
Thus spoke he after question kind;
“Since thou hast deigned to bless my sight,
And grace awhile thy servant’s seat,
High fate is mine, great Anchorite,
And none may with my bliss compete.”
Canto XLVIII. Indra And Ahalyá
WHEN MUTUAL COURTESIES had past,
Viśálá’s ruler spoke at last:
“These princely youths, O Sage, who vie
In might with children of the sky,
Heroic, born for happy fate,
With elephants’ or lions’ gait,
Bold as the tiger or the bull,
With lotus eyes so large and full,
Armed with the quiver, sword, and bow,
Whose figures like the Aśvins216 show,
Like children of the deathless Powers,
Come freely to these shades of ours,217 —
How have they reached on foot this place?
What do they seek, and what their race?
As sun and moon adorn the sky,
This spot the heroes glorify.
Alike in stature, port, and mien,
The same fair form in each is seen,”
He spoke; and at the monarch’s call
The best of hermits told him all,
How in the grove with him they dwelt,
And slaughter to the demons dealt.
Then wonder filled the monarch’s breast,
Who tended well each royal guest.
Thus entertained, the princely pair
Remained that night and rested there,
And with the morn’s returning ray
To Mithilá pursued their way.
When Janak’s lovely city first
Upon their sight, yet distant, burst,
The hermits all with joyful cries
Hailed the fair town that met their eyes.
Then Ráma saw a holy wood,
Close, in the city’s neighbourhood,
O’ergrown, deserted, marked by age,
And thus addressed the mighty sage:
“O reverend lord. I long to know
What hermit dwelt here long ago.”
Then to the prince his holy guide,
Most eloquent of men, replied:
“O Ráma, listen while I tell
Whose was this grove, and what befell
When in the fury of his rage
The high saint cursed the hermitage.
This was the grove — most lovely then —
Of Gautam, O thou best of men,
Like heaven itself, most honoured by
The Gods who dwell above the sky.
Here with Ahalyá at his side
His fervid task the ascetic plied.
Years fled in thousands. On a day
It chanced the saint had gone away,
When Town-destroying Indra came,
And saw the beauty of the dame.
The sage’s form the God endued,
And thus the fair Ahalyá wooed:
“Love, sweet! should brook no dull delay
But snatch the moments when he may.”
She knew him in the saint’s disguise,
Lord Indra of the Thousand Eyes,
But touched by love’s unholy fire,
She yielded to the God’s desire.
“Now, Lord of Gods!” she whispered, “flee,
From Gautam save thyself and me.”
Trembling with doubt and wild with dread
Lord Indra from the cottage fled;
But fleeing in the grove he met
The home-returning anchoret,
Whose wrath the Gods and fiends would shun,
Such power his fervent rites had won.
Fresh from the lustral flood he came,
In splendour like the burning flame,
With fuel for his sacred rites,
And grass, the best of eremites.
The Lord of Gods was sad of cheer
To see the mighty saint so near,
And when the holy hermit spied
In hermit’s garb the Thousand-eyed,
He knew the whole, his fury broke
Forth on the sinner as he spoke:
“Because my form thou hast assumed,
And wrought this folly, thou art doomed,
For this my curse to thee shall cling,
Henceforth a sad and sexless thing.”
No empty threat that sentence came,
It chilled his soul and marred his frame,
His might and godlike vigour fled,
And every nerve was cold and dead.
Then on his wife his fury burst,
And thus the guilty dame he cursed:
“For countless years, disloyal spouse,
Devoted to severest vows,
Thy bed the ashes, air thy food,
Here shalt thou live in solitude.
This lonely grove thy home shall be,
And not an eye thy form shall see.
When Ráma, Daśaratha’s child,
Shall seek these shades then drear and wild,
His coming shall remove thy stain,
And make the sinner pure again.
Due honour paid to him, thy guest,
Shall cleanse thy fond and erring breast,
Thee to my side in bliss restore,
And give thy proper shape once more.”218
Thus to his guilty wife he said,
Then far the holy Gautam fled,
And on Himálaya’s lovely heights
Spent the long years in sternest rites.”
Canto XLIX. Ahalyá Freed.
THEN RÁMA, FOLLOWING still his guide,
Within the grove, with Lakshmaṇ, hied,
Her vows a wondrous light had lent
To that illustrious penitent.
He saw the glorious lady, screened
From eye of man, and God, and fiend,
Like some bright portent which the care
Of Brahmá launches through the air,
Designed by his illusive art
To flash a moment and depart:
Or like the flame that leaps on high
To sink involved in smoke and die:
Or like the full moon shining through
The wintry mist, then lost to view:
Or like the sun’s reflection, cast
Upon the flood, too bright to last:
So was the glorious dame till then
Removed from Gods’ and mortals’ ken,
Till — such was Gautam’s high decree —
Prince Ráma came to set her free.
Then, with great joy that dame to meet,
The sons of Raghu clapped her feet;
And she, remembering Gautam’s oath,
With gentle grace received them both;
Then water for their feet she gave,
Guest-gift, and all that strangers crave.
The prince, of courteous rule aware,
Received, as meet, the lady’s care.
Then flowers came down in copious rain,
And moving to the heavenly strain
Of music in the skies that rang,
The nymphs and minstrels danced and sang:
And all the Gods with one glad voice
Praised the great dame, and cried, “Rejoice!
Through fervid rites no more defiled,
But with thy husband reconciled.”
Gautam, the holy hermit knew —
For naught escaped his godlike view —
That Ráma lodged beneath that shade,
And hasting there his homage paid.
He took Ahalyá to his side,
From sin and folly purified,
And let his new-found consort bear
In his austerities a share.
Then Ráma, pride of Raghu’s race,
Welcomed by Gautam, face to face,
Who every highest honour showed,
To Mithilá pursued his road.
Canto L. Janak.
THE SONS OF Raghu journeyed forth,
Bending their steps ‘twixt east and north.
Soon, guided by the sage, they found,
Enclosed, a sacrificial ground.
Then to the best of saints, his guide,
In admiration Ráma cried:
“The high-souled king no toil has spared,
But nobly for his rite prepared,
How many thousand Bráhmans here,
From every region, far and near,
Well read in holy lore, appear!
How many tents, that sages screen,
With wains in hundreds, here are seen!
Great Bráhman, let us find a place
Where we may stay and rest a space.”
The hermit did as Ráma prayed,
And in a spot his lodging made,
Far from the crowd, sequestered, clear,
With copious water flowing near.
Then Janak, best of kings, aware
Of Viśvámitra lodging there,
With Śatánanda for his guide —
The priest on whom he most relied,
His chaplain void of guile and stain —
And others of his priestly train,
Bearing the gift that greets the guest,
To meet him with all honour pressed.
The saint received with gladsome mind
Each honour and observance kind:
Then of his health he asked the king,
And how his rites were prospering,
Janak, with chaplain and with priest,
Addressed the hermits, chief and least,
Accosting all, in due degree,
With proper words of courtesy.
Then, with his palms together laid,
The king his supplication made:
“Deign, reverend lord, to sit thee down
With these good saints of high renown.”
Then sate the chief of hermits there,
Obedient to the monarch’s prayer.
Chaplain and priest, and king and peer,
Sate in their order, far or near.
Then thus the king began to say:
“The Gods have blest my rite to-day,
And with the sight of thee repaid
The preparations I have made.
Grateful am I, so highly blest,
That thou, of saints the holiest,
Hast come, O Bráhman, here with all
These hermits to the festival.
