{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry313.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry313.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry313.htm","text":"Then R\u00e1ma, best of all who guide\n Their steps by duty, thus replied:\n 'What marvel if Lord Indra send\n The kindly rain, O faithful friend?\n If, thousand-rayed, the God of Day\n Drive every darksome cloud away?\n Or, rising high, the Lord of Night\n Flood the broad heaven with silver light?\n What marvel, King, that one like thee\n The glory of his friends.should be?\n No marvel, O my lord, that thou\n Hast shown thy noble nature now.\n Thy heart, Sugriva, well I know:\n Naught from thy lips but truth may flow,\n With thee for friend and champion all\n My foes beneath my arm will fall.\n The R\u00e1kshas, when my queen he stole,\n Brought sure destruction on his soul,\n Like Anuhl\u00e1da \u00a02b who beguiled\n Queen Sach\u00ed called Puloma's child.\n Yes, near, Sugriva, is the day\n When I my demon foe shall slay,\n As conquering Indra in his ire\n Slew Queen Paulomi's haughty sire.'\u00a03b\n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0 He ceased: thick clouds of dust rose high\n To every quarter of the sky:\n The very sun grew faint and pale\n Behind the darkly-gathering veil.\n The mighty clouds that hung o'erhead\n From east to west thick darkness spread,\n And earth to her foundations shook\n With hill and forest, lake and brook.\n Then hidden was the ground beneath\n Fierce warriors armed with fearful teeth,\n Hosts numberless, each lord in size\n A match for him who rules the skies:\n From many a sea and distant hill,\n From rock and river, lake and rill.\n Some like the morning sun were bright.\n Some, like the moon, were silver white:\n These green as lotus fibres, those\n White-coated from their native snows.\u00a01\n Then S'atabali came in view\n Girt by a countless retinue.\n Like some gold mountain high in air\n T\u00e1r\u00e1's illustrious sire\u00a02 was there.\n There Rum\u00e1's father,\u00a03 far-renowned,\n With tens of thousands ranged around.\n There, tinted like the tender green\n Of lotus filaments, was seen,\n Compassed by countless legions, one\n Whose face was as the morning sun,\n Han\u00fam\u00e1n's father good and great,\n Kesar\u00ed,\u00a04 wisest in debate.\n There the proud king Gav\u00e1ksha, feared\n For his strong warrior arm, appeared.\n There Dh\u00famra, mighty lord, the dread\n Of foes, his ursine legions led.\n There Panas, first for warlike fame,\n With twenty million warriors came.\n There glorious N\u00edla, dark of hue,\n Arrayed his countless troops in view.\n There moved lord Gavaya brave and bold,\n Resplendent like a hill of gold,\n And near him Dar\u00edmukha stood\n With millions from the hill and wood\n And *Dwivid famed for strength and speed,\n And Mamda, both of Asvin seed.\n There Gaja, strong and glorious, led\n The countless troops around him spread,\n And J\u00e1mbav\u00e1n\u00a05 the king whose sway\n The bears delighted to obey,\n \n \n With swarming myriads onward pressed\n True to his lord Sugr\u00edva's hest;\n And princely Ruman, dear to fame,\n Led millions whom no hosts could tame,\n All these and many a chief beside\u00a01b\n Came onward fierce in warlike pride.\n They covered all the plain, and still\n Pressed forward over wood and hill.\n In rows for many a league around\n They rested on the grassy ground;\n Or to Sugr\u00edva made their way.\n Like clouds about the Lord of Day,\n And to the king their proud heads bent\n In power and might preeminent.\n Sugr\u00edva then to R\u00e1ma sped.\n And raised his reverent hands, and said\n That every chief from coast to coast\n Was present with his warrior host.\n \n \n \n \n370:1b The numbers are unmanageable in English verse. The poet speaks of hundreds of arbudas; and an arbuda is a hundred millions.\n370:2b Anuhl\u00e1da or Anuhr\u00e1da is one of the four sons of the mighty Hiranyakasipu, an Asur or a Daitya son of Kasyapa and Diti and killed by Vishnu in his incarnation of the Man-Lion Narasinha. According to the Bh\u00e1gavata Pur\u00e1na the Daitya or Asur Hiranyakasipu and Hirany\u00e1ksha his brother, both killed by Vishnu, were born again as R\u00e1van and Kumbhakarna his brother.'\n370:3b Putoma, a demon, was the father-in-law of Indra who destroyed him in order to avert an imprecation. Paulomit is a patronymic denoting Sachi the daughter of Puloma.\n371:1 \"Observe the variety of colours which the poem attributes to all these inhabitants of the different mountainous regions, some white, others yellow, &c. Such dif- ferent colours were perhaps peculiar and distinctive characteristics of those various races.\" GORRESSIO.\n371:2 Sushen.\n371:3 Tara.\n371:4 Kesari was the husband of Hanumn\u00e1n's mother, and is here called his father.\n371:5 \"I here unite under one heading two animals of p. 372 but which from some gross resemblances, probably helped by an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo myth.....a reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail(?), sensuality, capacity of instruction in dancing and in music, are all characteristics which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as well as in monkeys In the R\u00e1m\u00e1yanam, the wise J\u00e1mnavant, the Odysseus of the expedition of Lank\u00e1, is called now king of the bears (rikshaparthivah), now great monkey (Mah\u00e1kapih). DeGubernatis: Zoological Mythology, Vol. II. p. 97.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XXXIX.: The V\u00e1nar Host.","type":"page"}