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MAY 3, 1872.]
BHAVABHUTT.
145
of siddha had been given in the text, thus, without the slightest fault in her, and while she "the excellence of the family of Raghu is indeed was in a condition requiring the tenderest care, is perfected."
too solemn a subject for popular merriment or If we take exception to the rendering of another mimic shows. The description in the Uttara word, it is to invite discussion as to its proper Rama Charita is equally affecting and graphic. representation in English, of the Sanskrit vocable R&m a had scarcely returned to Ayodhya and tapas. This word has been rendered penance by resumed the reins of government amid the congraboth translators in their translation of tapo- tulations of his relatives, ministers, and spiritual van a penance-grove. We submit that :-(1) If guides, when Rish yasring a proclaimed a great tapas be penance then t&pas a must be penitent; sacrifice, which took away Vasishtha and his wife but this derivative has been translated " ascetic" by from the capital of the empire. The king received both of them. (2) Students are often in the habit from them benedictory messages and injunctionsof rendering tapas "penance ;" but should this on the one hand (Arundhati pressing the adrendering be stereotyped in scholarly versions ? (3) vice) to pay to his queen sit & all the tender atThe Hindu notion of ta pas is simply, hard exer- tention which a virtuous wife in a delicate state cises of body or mind, or of both-i.e. self-inflictions, of health, could claim from a husband, and on the asceticism, -the very idea which the translators other hand (Vasishtha himself laying the comhave given expression to in their rendering of mand) to govern the kingdom consistently with t&pasa. The root tap is doubtless the same as popular approbation. R & ma was a good king as the root of the Greek TU TW, and the radical meaning well as an affectionate husband, and willingly prois also identical. Where a penitent submits to tapas mised hearty compliance with both the precepts. (in the Roman Catholic sense) for the remission of Meanwhile, with & view to ascertain the popular sin, it may of course be called "penance,". but will and the opinion of the public on his measures, where a god or a Rishi, held to be sinless and pure, he had employed a confidential emissary to bring practises tapas, and mortifies himself, it cannot be him daily reports of the town-talk in his capital. called 'penance' according to Hindu notions. It is He was thunder-struck on learning, immediately then a work of supererogation-prolific of great after his receipt and acceptance of Vasishtba's merit and high supernatural power. The tap o- commands, that the citizens talked scandal about vana was never looked upon as a penitentiary; and Sit &, because of her capture by R & vana and although it might occasionally admit what might compulsory stay at Lank A. Rama, a little bebe called penances, yet it was venerated as a holyfore this awfully scandalous report reached his ears, site--the scene of self-inflictions and mortifications had answered Vasishtha's message by promisin the sense of supererogatory works by which ing to guide himself according to the wishes of Rishis of great repute obtained large accretions of his subjects, to propitiate whom (&radhapya lomerit and righteousness, calculated to exalt them to kasya) he was ready to sacrifice everythingan equality with the gods themselves.
" affection, pity, and happiness," yea and if fate so The drama of Maha-Vira-Charita is founded on will, the daughter of Janaka herself, his beloved the story of Rám a concluding with his return to queen. Ayodhy & after the destruction of R& vana and Bhavabhati has represented, with all the the installation of Vibhishana as king of Lanka. pathos which the refined vocabulary of Sanskrit The sequel of the story forms the subject of the could impart, and his own extraordinary genius Uttara Ráma Charita.
could conceive, the distractions produced in Rama's The story of R&m a down to the death of R&- mind on receiving the report of his Brahman emisvans and the recovery of Sita is so well known sary to the prejudice of his honoured and beloved that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. Råma's queen. The indignation of posterity has affixed to conflict with the demon-chief is recounted by the the reporter of such a defamatory gossip the appel Hindus in all parts of India. It has occasioned lation of "Durmukha," or foul-mouthed. The poet, the greatest annual festival in Bengal, the Durg- however, represents him as reluctantly and regretpuja, when, for a whole fortnight, all business is fully communicating the awful intelligence in the suspended. Even thieves and rogues allow them- faithful discharge of a disagreeable office which he selves & vacation at that period, for magistrates had undertaken at the king's own desire. With and policemen get but little custom during those inexpressible mental pain, R & ma decided on folholidays. On the day that the Bengalis consign their lowing what policy and worldly honour required, Durga to the waters, Hindus of other provinces per- rather than what real justice and conjugal obligaform the Rama - 1914, concluding with the death tions demanded. Pilate-like, he abandoned one of R&vana, of which that day is the anniversary. whom he knew to be innocent, and stole away from
The sequel of the story is neither go popularly a wife sleeping by his side, as guileless, as she was known nor ere all the legends of it concurrent. dutiful, and directed his brother Lakshmana The topic has always appeared to devout Hindus to conduct her to the woods. Sit & was thus banone of extreme delicacy. The banishment of Sita, ished to the forests, and left unprotected in the
