National Epics Part 3

"My throat thick swollen with bursting tears, my power of speech that seemed to choke, With hands above my head, my fears breaking my quivering voice, I spoke: The Kshatriya Dasaratha I, O hermit sage, 't is not thy son!

Most holy ones, unknowingly a deed of awful guilt I've done.

With bow in hand I took my way along Sarayu's pleasant brink, The savage buffalo to slay, or elephant come down to drink.

"A sound came murmuring to my ear,--'twas of the urn that slowly filled, I deemed some savage wild-beast near,--my erring shaft thy son had killed.

A feeble groan I heard, his breast was pierced by that dire arrow keen: All trembling to the spot I pressed, lo there thy hermit boy was seen.

Flew to the sound my arrow, meant the wandering elephant to slay, Toward the river brink it went,--and there thy son expiring lay.

The fatal shaft when forth I drew, to heaven his parting spirit soared, Dying he only thought of you, long, long, your lonely lot deplored.

Thus ignorantly did I slay your child beloved, O hermit sage!

Turn thou on me, whose fated day is come, thy all-consuming rage!'

He heard my dreadful tale at length, he stood all lifeless, motionless; Then deep he groaned, and gathering strength, me the meek suppliant did address.

'Kshatriya, 't is well that thou hast turned, thy deed of murder to rehea.r.s.e, Else over all thy land had burned the fire of my wide-wasting curse.

If with premeditated crime the unoffending blood thou 'dst spilt, The Thunderer on his throne sublime had shaken at such tremendous guilt.

Against the anchorite's sacred head, hadst, knowing, aimed thy shaft accursed, In th' holy Vedas deeply read, thy skull in seven wide rents had burst.

But since, unwitting, thou hast wrought that deed of death, thou livest still, O son of Taghu, from thy thought dismiss all dread of instant ill.

Oh lead me to that doleful spot where my poor boy expiring lay, Beneath the shaft thy fell hand shot, of my blind age the staff, the stay.

On the cold earth 'twere yet a joy to touch my perished child again, (So long if I may live) my boy in one last fond embrace to strain His body all bedewed with gore, his locks in loose disorder thrown, Let me, let her but touch once more, to the dread realm of Yama gone.'

Then to that fatal place I brought alone that miserable pair; His sightless hands and hers I taught to touch their boy that slumbered there.

Nor sooner did they feel him lie, on the moist herbage coldly thrown, But with a shrill and feeble cry upon the body cast them down.

The mother as she lay and groaned, addressed her boy with quivering tongue, And like a heifer sadly moaned, just plundered of her new-dropped young:

"'Was not thy mother once, my son, than life itself more dear to thee?

Why the long way thou hast begun, without one gentle word to me?

One last embrace, and then, beloved, upon thy lonely journey go!

Alas! with anger art thou moved, that not a word thou wilt bestow?'

"The miserable father now with gentle touch each cold limb pressed, And to the dead his words of woe, as to his living son addressed: 'I too, my son, am I not here?--thy sire with thy sad mother stands; Awake, arise, my child, draw near, and clasp each neck with loving hands.

Who now, 'neath the dark wood by night, a pious reader shall be heard?

Whose honeyed voice my ear delight with th' holy Veda's living word?

The evening prayer, th' ablution done, the fire adored with wors.h.i.+p meet, Who now shall soothe like thee, my son, with fondling hand, my aged feet?

And who the herb, the wholesome root, or wild fruit from the wood shall bring?

To us the blind, the dest.i.tute, with helpless hunger peris.h.i.+ng?

Thy blind old mother, heaven-resigned, within our hermit-dwelling lone, How shall I tend, myself as blind, now all my strength of life is gone?

Oh, stay, my child, oh. Part not yet, to Yama's dwelling go not now, To-morrow forth we all will set,--thy mother and myself and thou: For both, in grief for thee, and both so helpless, ere another day, From this dark world, but little loath, shall we depart, death's easy prey!

And I myself, by Yama's seat, companion of thy darksome way, The guerdon to thy virtues meet from that great Judge of men will pray.

Because, my boy, in innocence, by wicked deed thou hast been slain, Rise, where the heroes dwell, who thence ne'er stoop to this dark world again.

Those that to earth return no more, the sense-subdued, the hermits wise, Priests their sage masters that adore, to their eternal seats arise.

Those that have studied to the last the Veda's, the Vedanga's page, Where saintly kings of earth have pa.s.sed, Nahusa and Yayati sage; The sires of holy families, the true to wedlock's sacred vow; And those that cattle, gold, or rice, or lands, with liberal hands bestow; That ope th' asylum to th' oppressed, that ever love, and speak the truth; Up to the dwellings of the blest, th' eternal, soar thou, best-loved youth.

For none of such a holy race within the lowest seat may dwell; But that will be his fatal place by whom my only offspring fell.'

"So groaning deep, that wretched pair, the hermit and his wife, essayed The meet ablution to prepare, their hands their last faint effort made.

Divine, with glorious body bright, in splendid car of heaven elate, Before them stood their son in light, and thus consoled their helpless state: 'Meed of my duteous filial care, I've reached the wished for realms of joy; And ye, in those glad realms, prepare to meet full soon your dear-loved boy.

My parents, weep no more for me, yon warrior monarch slew me not, My death was thus ordained to be, predestined was the shaft he shot.'

Thus as he spoke, the anchorite's son soared up the glowing heaven afar, In air his heavenly body shone, while stood he in his gorgeous car.

But they, of that lost boy so dear the last ablution meetly made, Thus spoke to me that holy seer, with folded hands above his head.

'Albeit by thy unknowing dart my blameless boy untimely fell, A curse I lay upon thy heart, whose fearful pain I know too well.

As sorrowing for my son I bow, and yield up my unwilling breath, So, sorrowing for thy son shalt thou at life's last close repose in death.'

That curse dread sounding in mine ear, to mine own city forth I set, Nor long survived that hermit seer, to mourn his child in lone regret.

This day that Brahmin curse fulfilled hath fallen on my devoted head, In anguish for my parted child have all my sinking spirits fled.

No more my darkened eyes can see, my clouded memory is o'ercast, Dark Yama's heralds summon me to his deep, dreary realm to haste.

Mine eye no more my Rama sees, and grief-o'erborne, my spirits sink, As the swoln stream sweeps down the trees that grow upon the crumbling brink.

Oh, felt I Rama's touch, or spake one word his home-returning voice, Again to life I should awake, as quaffing nectar draughts, rejoice, But what so sad could e'er have been, celestial partner of my heart, As Rama's beauteous face unseen, from life untimely to depart?

His exile in the forest o'er, him home returned to Oude's high town, Oh happy those, that see once more, like Indra from the sky come down.

No mortal men, but G.o.ds I deem,--moonlike, before whose wondering sight My Rama's glorious face shall beam, from the dark forest bursting bright.

Happy that gaze on Rama's face with beauteous teeth and smile of love, Like the blue lotus in its grace, and like the starry king above.

Like to the full autumnal moon, and like the lotus in its bloom, That youth who sees returning soon,--how blest shall be that mortal's doom."

Dwelling in that sweet memory, on his last bed the monarch lay, And slowly, softly seemed to die, as fades the moon at dawn away.

"Ah, Rama! ah, my son!" thus said, or scarcely said, the king of men, His gentle hapless spirit fled in sorrow for his Rama then, The shepherd of his people old at midnight on his bed of death, The tale of his son's exile told, and breathed away his dying breath.

_Milman's Translation._

THE MAHA-BHARATA.

"It is a deep and n.o.ble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."

Though parts of the MahA-BhArata, or story of the great war, are of great antiquity, the entire poem was undoubtedly collected and re-written in the first or second century A. D. Tradition ascribes the MahA-BhArata to the Brahman Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa.

The MahA-BhArata, unlike the RAmAyana, is not the story of some great event, but consists of countless episodes, legends, and philosophical treatises, strung upon the thread of a single story. These episodes are called Upakhyanani, and the five most beautiful are called, in India, the five precious stones.

Its historical basis is the strife between the Aryan invaders of India and the original inhabitants, ill.u.s.trated in the strife between the sons of the Raja Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhrita-rashtra, which forms the main story of the poem.

Though marred by the exaggerations peculiar to the Hindu, the poem is a great treasure house of Indian history, and from it the Indian poets, historical writers, and philosophers have drawn much of their material.

The MahA-BhArata is written in the Sanskrit language; it is the longest poem ever written, its eighteen cantos containing two hundred thousand lines.

It is held in even higher regard than the RAmAyana, and the reading of it is supposed to confer upon the happy reader every good and perfect gift.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE MAHA-BHARATA.

G.W. c.o.x's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;

John Dowson's Cla.s.sical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion, Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;

F. Max Muller's Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 1859 (Introduction);

E. A. Reed's Hindu Literature, 1891, pp. 272-352;

Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature, 1878, pp. 184-191;

J. T. Wheeler's History of India, 4 vols., 1876, vol. ii.;

J. C. Oman's Great Indian Epics, 1874, pp. 87-231;