{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry340.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry340.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry340.htm","text":"But none of all the host was found\n To clear the sea with desperate bound,\n Though each, as Angad bade, declared\n His proper power and what he dared. \u00a01\n Then spake good J\u00e1mbavan the sage,\n Chief of them all for reverend age;\n \n \n 'I, V\u00e1nar chieftains, long ago\n Limbs light to leap could likewise show,\n But now on frame and spirit weighs\n The burthen of my length of days.\n Still task like this I may not slight,\n When R\u00e1ma and our king unite.\n So listen while I tell, O friends,\n What lingering strength mine age attends.\n If my poor leap may aught avail,\n Of ninety leagues, I will not fail.\n Far other strength in youth's fresh prime\n I boasted, in the olden time,\n When, at Prahl\u00e1da's \u00a01b solemn rite,\n I circled in my rapid flight\n Lord Vishnu, everlasting God,\n When through the universe he trod.\n But now my limbs are weak and old,\n My youth is fled, its fire is cold,\n And these exhausted nerves to strain\n In such a task were idle pain,'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then Angad due obeisance paid,\n And to the chief his answer made:\n 'Then I, ye noble V\u00e1nars, I\n Mvself the mighty leap will try:\n Although perchance the power I lack\n To leap from Lank\u00e1's island back'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus the impetuous chieftain cried,\n And J\u00e1mbavan the sage replied:\n 'Whate'er thy power and might may be,\n This task, O Prince, is not for thee.\n Kings go not forth themselves, but send\n The servants who their best attend.\n Thou art the darling and the boast,\n The honoured lord of all the host.\n In thee the root, O Angad, lies\n Of our appointed enterprise;\n And thee, on whom our hopes depend,\n Our care must cherish and defend.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then B\u00e1li's noble son replied:\n 'Needs must I go whate'er betide,\n *** For, if no chief this exploit dare,\n What waits us all save blank despair,--\n Upon the ground again to lie\n In hopeless misery, fast, and die?\n For not a hope of life I see\n If we neglect our king's decree*'\n Then spoke the aged chief again:\n '***Now your attempt shall not be in vain,\n For to the task will I incite\n A chieftain of sufficient might.'\n \n \n391:1 Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty.* and so on up to ninety.\n391:1b Prahl\u00e1*da, the son of H***iranyakasipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for his devotion to Vishnu, and was on this account persecuted by his father.","title":"BOOK IV: Canto LXV.: The Council.","type":"page"}