“8. Indra, the destroyer of enemies, repairs assuredly to every ceremony where the libation is poured out, to drink the Soma juice for exhilaration.
“9. Do thou, Satakratu, accomplish our desire with cattle and horses: profoundly meditating, we praise thee.”
As the Greeks and Romans had their Homer and Virgil, so the
Hindoos have had their Valmiki and Vyasa. The great epics of
India are the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. These stand peerless
in their voluminous literature, and have held control of the
minds of the people since long before the Incarnation.
The Ramayana is probably the most ancient and connected epic poem in the Sanscrit, and exceeded only by the Vedas in antiquity. It contains the mythical history of Rama, one of the incarnations of the god Vishnu, and was written by the great poet Valmiki. For a very brief epitome of this wonderful and venerable development of Hindoo literature we are indebted to Speir's “Ancient India.”
The style and language of the Ramayana are those of an early heroic age, and there are signs of its having been popular in India at least three centuries before Christ. The original subject of the poem is sometimes considered as mythological, and sometimes as heroic; but the mythological portions stand apart, and have the air of after-thoughts, intended to give a religious and philosophical tone to what was at first a tale rehearsed at festivals in praise of the ancestors of kings. The mythological introduction states that Lanka, or Ceylon, had fallen under the dominion of a prince named Ravana, who was a demon of such power that by dint of penance he had extorted from the god Brahm a promise that no immortal should destroy him. Such a promise was as relentless as the Greek Fates, from which Jove himself could not escape; and Ravana, now invulnerable to the gods, gave up the asceism he had so long practiced, and tyrannized over the whole of Southern India in a fearful manner. At length, even the gods in heaven were distressed at the destruction of holiness and oppression of virtue consequent upon Ravana's
