{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry055.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry055.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry055.htm","text":"So o'er the field that host lay strewn,\n By Vis'v\u00e1mitra's darts o'erthrown.\n Then thus Vas'ishtha charged the cow:\n 'Create with all thy vigour now.'\n \n \n Forth sprang K\u00e1mbojas, as she lowed;\n Bright as the sun their faces glowed,\n Forth from her udder Barbars poured,--\n Soldiers who brandished spear and sword,--\n And Yavans with their shafts and darts,\n And S'akas from her hinder parts.\n And every pore upon her fell,\n And every hair-producing cell,\n With Mlechchhas\u00a03b and Kir\u00e1tas\u00a04b teemed,\n And forth with them H\u00e1r\u00edtas streamed.\n And Vis'v\u00e1mitra's mighty force,\n Car, elephant, and foot, and horse,\n Fell in a moment's time, subdued\n By that tremendous multitude.\n The monarch's hundred sons, whose eyes\n Beheld the rout in wild surprise,\n Armed with all weapons, mad with rage,\n Rushed fiercely on the holy sage.\n One cry he raised, one glance he shot,\n And all fell scorched upon the spot:\n Burnt by the sage to ashes, they\n With horse, and foot, and chariot, lay.\n The monarch mourned, with shame and pain,\n His army lost, his children slain,\n Like Ocean when his roar is hushed,\n Or some great snake whose fangs are crushed:\n \n \n \n appear that it is the object of this legend\n to represent this miraculous creation as\n the origin of these tribes, and that nothing\n more may have been intended than that\n the cow called into existence large armies,\n of the same stock with particular tribes\n previously existing.}\n \n \n Or as in swift eclipse the Sun\n Dark with the doom he cannot shun:\n Or a poor bird with mangled wing--\n So, reft of sons and host, the king.\n No longer, by ambition fired,\n The pride of war his breast inspired.\n He gave his empire to his son--\n Of all he had, the only one:\n And bade him rule as kings are taught\n Then straight a hermit-grove he sought.\n Far to Him\u00e1laya's side he fled,\n Which bards and N\u00e1gas visited,\n And, Mah\u00e1deva's\u00a01 grace to earn,\n He gave his life to penance stern.\n A lengthened season thus passed by,\n When S'iva's self, the Lord most High,\n Whose banner shows the pictured bull,\u00a02\n Appeared, the God most bountiful:\n \n \n 'Why fervent thus in toil and pain?\n Wliat brings thee here? what boon to gain?\n Thy heart's desire, O Monarch, speak:\n I grant the boons which mortals seek.'\n The king, his adoration paid,\n To Mah\u00e1deva answer made:\n 'If thou hast deemed me fit to win\n Thy favour, O thou void of sin,\n On me, O mighty God, bestow\n The wondrous science of the bow,\n All mine, complete in every part,\n With secret spell and mystic art.\n To me be all the arms revealed\n That Gods, and saints, and Titans wield,\n And every dart that arms the hands\n Of spirits, fiends and minstrel bands.\n Be mine, O Lord supreme in place,\n This token of thy boundless grace.'\n \n \n The Lord of Gods then gave consent,\n And to his heavenly mansion went.\n Triumphant in the arms he held,\n The monarch's breast with glory swelled.\n So swells the ocean, when upon\n His breast the full moon's beams have shone.\n Already in his mind he viewed\n Vas'ishtha at his feet subdued.\n He sought that hermit's grove, and there\n Launched his dire weapons through the air,\n Till scorched by might that none could stay\n The hermitage in ashes lay.\n Where'er the inmates saw, aghast,\n The dart that Vis'v\u00e1mitra cast,\n To every side they turned and fled\n In hundreds forth disquieted.\n Vas'ishtha's pupils caught the fear,\n And every bird and every deer,\n And fled in wild confusion forth\n \n \n Eastward and westward, south and north,\n And so Vas'ishtha's holy shade\n A solitary wild was made,\n Silent awhile, for not a sound\n Disturbed the hush that was around.\n \n \n Vas'ishtha then, with eager cry,\n Called, 'Fear not, friends, nor seek to fly.\n This son of G\u00e1dhi dies to-day,\n Like hoar-frost in the morning's ray.'\n Thus having said, the glorious sage\n Spoke to the king in words of rage:\n 'Because thou hast destroyed this grove\n Which long in holy quiet throve,\n By folly urged to senseless crime,\n Now shalt thou die before thy time.'\n \n \n \n \n \n \n66:1b See page 13, note 6.\n66:2b Barbarians, non-Sanskrit-speaking tribes.\n66:3b A comprehensive term for foreign or outcast races of different faith and language from the Hindus.\n66:4b The Kir\u00e1tas and H\u00e1r\u00edtas are savage aborigines of India who occupy hills and jungles and are altogether different in race and character from the Hindus. Dr. Muir remarks in his Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I. p. 488 (second edition\n67:1 The Great God, S'iva.\n67:2 Nandi, the snow-white bull, the attendant and favourite vehicle of Siva.","title":"BOOK I: Canto LV.: The Hermitage Burnt.","type":"page"}