{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry314.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry314.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry314.htm","text":"With practiced eye the king reviewed\n The V\u00e1nars' counties multitude,\n And, joying that his hest was done,\n Thus spake to Raghu's mighty son:\n 'See, all the V\u00e1nar hosts who fear\n My sovereign might are gathered here.\n Chiefs strong as Indra's self, who speed\n Wher'er they list, these armies lead.\n Fierce and terrific to the view\n As Daityas or the D\u00e1nav\u00a02b crew,\n \n \n Famed in all lands for souls afire\n With lofty thoughts, they never tire,\n O'er hill and vale they wander free,\n And islets of the distant sea.\n And these gathered myriads, all\n Will serve thee, R\u00e1ma, at thy call.\n Whate'er thy heart advises, say:\n Thy mandates will the host obey.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then answered R\u00e1ma, as he pressed\n The V\u00e1nar monarch to his breast:\n 'O search for my lost S\u00edt\u00e1, strive\n To find her if she still survive:\n And in thy wondrous wisdom trace\n Fierce R\u00e1van to his dwelling-place.\n And when by toil and search we know\n Where S\u00edt\u00e1 lies and where the foe,\n With thee, dear friend, will I devise\n Fit means to end the enterprise.\n Not mine, not Lakshman's is the power\n To guide us in the doubtful hour.\n Thou, sovereign of the *Vanars, thou\n Must be our hope and leader now.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 He ceased: at King Sugr\u00edva's call\n Near came a V\u00e1nar strong and tall.\n Huge as a towering mountain, loud\n As some tremendous thunder cloud,\n A prince who warlike legions led:\n To him his sovereign turned and said:\n 'Go, take ten thousand \u00a01 of our race\n Well trained in lore of time and place,\n And search the eastern region; through\n Groves, woods, and hills thy way pursue,\n There seek for S\u00edt\u00e1, trace the spot\n Where R\u00e1van hides, and weary not.\n Search for the captive in the caves\n Of mountains, and by woods and waves.\n To Surj\u00fa,\u00a02 Kau\u00e1*ik\u00ed,\u00a03 repair,\n Bhag\u00edrath's daughter\u00a04 fresh and fair.\n Search mighty *Y\u00e1mun's\u00a05 peak, explore\n Swift Yamu*n\u00e1's\u00a06 delightful shore,\n Sarasvati\u00a07 and Sindhu's\u00a08 tide,\n \n \n And rapid S'ona's\u00a01b pebbly side.\n Then roam afar by Mah\u00ed's\u00a02b bed\n Where K\u00e1lamah\u00ed's groves are spread.\n Go where the silken tissue shines,\n Go to the land of silver mines.\u00a03b\n Visit each isle and mountain steep\n And city circled by the deep,\n And distant villages that high\n About the peaks of Mandar lie.\n Speed over Yavadwipa's land,\u00a04b\n And see Mount S'is'ir\u00a05b proudly stand\n Uplifting to the skies his head\n By Gods and D\u00e1navs visited.\n Search each ravine and mountain pass,\n Each tangled thicket deep in grass.\n Search every cave with utmost care\n If haply R\u00e1ma's queen be there.\n Then pass beyond the sounding sea\n Where heavenly beings wander free,\n And S'ona's\u00a06b waters swift and strong\n With ruddy billows foam along.\n Search where his shelving banks descend,\n Search where the hanging woods extend\n Try if the pathless thickets screen\n The robber and the captive queen.\n Search where the torrent floods that rend\n The mountain to the plains descend:\n Search dark abysses where they rave,\n Search mountain slope and wood and cave\n Then on with rapid feet and gain\n The inlands of the fearful main\n Where, tortured by the tempest's lash,\n Against rude rocks the billows d*ash:\n An ocean like a sable cloud,\n Whose margent monstrous serpents crowd;\n \n \n An ocean rising with a roar\n To beat upon an iron shore.\n On, onward still! your feet shall tread\n Shores of the sea whose waves are red,\n Where spreading wide your eyes shall see\n The guilt-tormenting cotton tree \u00a01\n And the wild spot where Garud \u00a02 dwells\n Which gems adorn and ocean shells,\n High as Kall\u00e1sa, nobly decked,\n Wrought by the heavenly architect. \u00a03\n Hnge giants named Mandehas \u00a04 there\n In each foul shape they love to wear,\n Numbing the soul with terror's chill,\n Hang from the summit of the hill.\n When darts the sun his earliest beam\n They plunge them in the ocean stream,\n New vigour from his rays obtain,\n And hang upon the rocks again\n Speed onward still: your steps shall be\n At length beside the Milky Sea\n Whose everv ripple as it curls\n Gleams glorious with its wealth of pearls.\n Amid that sea like pale clouds spread\n The white Mount Rishabh \u00a05 rears his head.\n About the mountain's glorious waist\n Woods redolent of bloom are braced.\n A lake where lotuses unfold\n Their silver buds with threads of gold,\n Sudar*s'an ever bright and fair\n Where white swans sport, lies gleaming there,\n The wandering Kinnar's \u00a06 dear resort,\n Where heavenly nymphs and Yakshas \u00a07 sport.\n \n \n On! leave the Milky Sea behind:\n Another flood your search shall find,\n A waste of waters, wild and drear.\n That chills each living heart with fear.\n There see the horse's awful head,\n Wrath-born, that flames in Ocean's bed.\u00a01b\n There rises up a fearful cry\n From the sea things that move thereby,\n When, helpless, powerless for flight,\n They gaze upon the horrid sight.\n Past to the northern shore, and then\n Beyond the flood three leagues and ten\n Your wondering glances will behold\n Mount J\u00e1tar\u00fapa \u00a02b bright with gold.\n There like the young moon pale of hue\n The monstrous serpent \u00a03b will ye view,\n The earth's supporter, whose bright eyes\n Resemble lotus leaves in size.\n He rests upon the mountain's brow,\n And all the Gods before him bow.\n Ananta with a thousand heads\n His length in robes of azure spreads.\n A triple-headed palm of gold--\n Meet standard for the lofty-souled--\n Springs towering from the mountain's crest\n Beneath whose shade he loves to rest,\n So that in eastern realms each God\n May use it as a measuring-rod.\n Beyond, with burning gold aglow,\n The eastern steep his peaks will show,\n Which in unrivalled glory rise\n A hundred leagues to pierce the skies,\n And all the neighbouring air is bright\n With golden trees that clothe the height.\n A lofty peak uprises there\n Ten leagues in height and one league square\n *Saumanas*, wrought of glistering gold,\n Ne'er to be loosened from its hold.\n There his first step Lord Vishnu placed\n When through the universe he paced,\n And with his second lightly pressed\n The loftiest peak of Meru's crest.\n When north of Jambudw\u00edp \u00a04b the sun\n \n \n A portion of his course has run.\n And hangs above this mountain height,\n Then creatures see the genial light.\n Vaikh\u00e1nases,\u00a01 saints far renowned,\n And B\u00e1laklulvas,\u00a02 love the ground\n Where in their glory half divine.\n Touched by the morning glow, they shine\n The light that flashes from that steep\n Illumines all Sudars'andwip,\u00a03\n And on each creature, as it glows,\n The sight and strength of life bestows.\n Search well that mountain's woody side\n If R\u00e1van there his captive hide.\n The rising sun, the golden hill\n The air with growing splendours fill,\n Till flashes from the east the red\n Of morning with the light they shed.\n This, where the sun begins his state,\n Is earth and heaven's most eastern gate.\n Through all the mountain forest seek\n By waterfall and cave and peak.\n Search every nook and bosky dell,\n If R\u00e1van there with S\u00edt\u00e1 dwell.\n There, V\u00e1nars, there your steps must stay:\n No farther eastward can ye stray.\n Beyond no sun, no moon given light,\n But all is sunk in endless night.\n Thus far, O V\u00e1nar lords, may you\n O'er sea and land your search pursue.\n But wild and dark and known to none\n Is the drear space beyond the sun.\n That mountain whence the sun ascends\n Your long and weary journey ends.\u00a04\n Now go, and in a month return,\n And let success my praises earn,\n He who beyond tho month shall stay\n Will with his life the forfeit pay.'\n \n \n\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u97621b:1b Gandham\u00e1dana, Angad, T\u00e1ra, Indraj\u00e1nu, Rambha, Durmukha, Hanum\u00e1n, Nala, Da mukha, S'arabha, Kumuda, Vahni.\n\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u9762\u97622b:2b Daityas and D\u00e1navas are fiends and enemies of the Gods, life the Titans of Greek mythology.\n372:1 I reduce the unwieldy numbers of the original to more modest figures.\n372:2 Saray\u00fa now Sarj\u00fa is the river on which Ayodhy\u00e1 was built.\n372:3 Kaus'iki is a river which flows through Behar, commonly called Kosi.\n372:4 Bhagirath's daughter is Ganga or the Ganges. The legend is told at length in Book I. Canto XLIV The Descent of Gang\u00e1.\n372:5 A mountain not identified.\n372:6 The Jumna. The river is personified as the twin sister of Yama, and hence regarded as the daughter of the Sun.\n372:7 The Sarasvat\u00ed (corruptly called Sursooty, is supposed to join the Ganges and Jumna at Pray\u00e1g or Allahabad. It rises in the mountains bounding the north-east part of the province of Delhi, and running in a south-westerly direction becomes lost in the sands of the great desert.\n372:8 The Sindhu is the Indus, the Sanskrit s becoming h in Persian and being in this instance dropped by the Greeks.\n372:1b The Sone which rises in the district of Nagpore and falls into the Ganges above Patna.\n372:2b Mahi* is a river rising in Malwa and falling into the gulf of Cambay after a westerly course of 280 miles.\n372:3b There is nothing to show what parts of the country the poet intended to denote as silk-producing and silver-producing.\n372:4b Yavadwipa means the island of Yava, wherever that may be.\n372:5b S'is'ir is said to be a mountain ridge projecting from the base of Meru on the south. WILSON'S Vishnu Pur\u00e1na, ed. Hall, Vol. II. p. 117.\n372:6b This appears to be some mythical stream and not the well-known Sone. The name means red-coloured.\n373:1 A fabulous thorny rod of the cotton tree used for torturing the wicked in hell. The tree gives its name, S\u00e1lmali, to one of the seven Dw\u00edpas, or great divisions of the known continent: and also to a hell where the wicked are tormented with the pickles of the tree.\n373:2 The king of the feathered creation.\n373:3 Vis\u00b4vakarm\u00e1, the Muleiher of the Indian heaven.\n373:4 \"The terrific fiends named Mandehas attempt to devour the sun: for Brahm\u00e1 denounced this curse upon them, that without the power to perish they should die every day (and revive by night) and therefore a fierce contest occurs (daily) between them and the sun.\"\nWILSON'S Vishnu Pur\u00e1na. Vol.II. p. 250.\n373:5 Said in the Vishnu Pur\u00e1na to be a ridge projecting from the base of Meru to the north.\n373:6 Kinnars are centaurs reversed, beings with equine head and human bodies.\n373:7 Yakshas are demi-gods attendant on \"Ruyera\"* the God of wealth.\n373:1b Aurva was one of the descendants of Bhrigu From his wrath proceeded a flame that threatened to destroy the world, had not Aurva cast it into the ocean where it remained concealed, and having the face of a horse. The legend is told in the Mah\u00e1bharat. I. 6*3*02.\n373:2b The word J\u00e1tarupa means gold.\n373:3b The celebrated mythological serpent king Sesha, called also Ananta or the infinite, represented as bearing the earth on one of his thousand heads.\n373:4b Jambudw\u00edpa is in the centre of the seven great dw\u00edpas or continents into which the world is divided, and in the centre of Jambudw\u00edpa is the golden p. 374 mountain Meru 84,000 yojans high, and crowned by the great city of Brahm\u00e1, Sse WILSON'S Vishnu Pur\u00e1na, Vol II, p. 110.\n374:1 Vaikh\u00e1nases are a race of hermit saints said to have sprung from the nails of Praj\u00e1pati.\n374:2 \"The wife of Eratu, Samnnti, brought forth the sixty thousand V\u00e1lakhilyas, pigmy sages, no bigger than a joint of the thumb, chaste, pious, resplendent as the rays of the Sun\" WlLSOK'S Vishnu Pur\u00e1na.\n374:3 The continent in which Sudarsan or Meru stands, i. e. Jambudwip.\n374:4 The names of some historical peoples which occur in this Canto and in the Cantos describing the south and north will he found in the ADDITIONAL NOTES. They are bare lists, not susceptible of a metrical version.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto XL.: The Army of The East.","type":"page"}