The Ramayana-Book I – Canto XI-The Sacrifice Decreed

[Anne Terri]

"GOD'S LIVING BIBLE ---- THE THIRD TESTAMENT ----- RESEARCH LIBRARY" ©*

THE RÁMÁYAN OF VÁLMÍKI

Translated into English Verse
BY
RALPH T. H. GRIFFITH, M. A.,
[(Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith), b. 1826 d. 1906]
PRINCIPAL OF THE BENARES COLLEGE
London: Trübner & Co.
Benares: E. J. Lazarus and Co.
[1870-1874]

RAMAYANA-
BOOK I

CANTO XI: THE SACRIFICE DECREED.

19. Continued

The Dewy Season 2 came and went;
The spring returned again:
Then would the king, with mind intent,
His sacrifice ordain.

p. 20
He came to Rishyas'ring, and bowed
To him of look divine,
And bade him aid his offering vowed
For heirs, to save his line.
Nor would the youth his aid deny:
He spake the monarch fair,
And prayed him for that rite so high
All requisites prepare.
The king to wise Sumantra cried
Who stood aye ready near;
'Go summon quick each holy guide,
To counsel and to hear.'
Obedient to his lord's behest
Away Sumantra sped,
And brought Vas'ishtha and the rest,
In Scripture deeply read.
Suyajna, Vámadeva came,
Jávali, Kas'yap's son,
And old Vas'ishtha, dear to fame,
Obedient every one.
King Das'aratha met them there
And duly honoured each,
And spoke in pleasant words his fair
And salutary speech:
'In childless longing doomed to pine,
No happiness, O lords, is mine.
So have I for this cause decreed
To slay the sacrificial steed.
Fain would I pay that offering high
Wherein the horse is doomed to die,
With Rishyas'ring his aid to lend,
And with your glory to befriend.'
With loud applause each holy man
Received his speech, approved the plan,
And, by the wise Vas'ishtha led,
Gave praises to the king, and said:
'The sons thou cravest shalt thou see,
Of fairest glory, born to thee,
Whose holy feelings bid thee take
This righteous course for offspring's sake.'
Cheered by the ready praise of those
Whose aid he sought, his spirits rose,
And thus the king his speech renewed
With looks of joy and gratitude:
'Let what the coming rites require
Be ready as the priests desire,
And let the horse, ordained to bleed,
With fitting guard and priest, be freed, 1
Yonder on Sarjú's northern side
The sacrificial ground provide;
And let the saving rites, that naught
Ill-omened may occur, be wrought.
The offering I announce to-day
Each lord of earth may claim to pay,
Provided that his care can guard
the holy rite by flaws unmarred.
For wandering fiends, whose watchful spite
Waits eagerly to spoil each rite,
Hunting with keenest eye detect
The slightest slip, the least neglect;
And when the sacred work is crossed
The workman is that moment lost.
Let preparation due be made:
Your powers the charge can meet:
That so the noble rite be paid
In every point complete.'
And all the Bráhmans answered, Yea,
His mandate honouring,
And gladly promised to obey
The order of the king.
They cried with voices raised aloud:
'Success attend thine aim!'
Then bade farewell, and lowly bowed,
And hastened whence they came.
King Das'aratha went within,
His well loved wives to see:
And said: 'Your lustral rites begin,
For these shall prosper me.
A glorious offering I prepare
That precious fruit of sons may bear.'
Their lily faces brightened fast
Those pleasant words to hear,
As lilies, when the winter's past,
In lovelier hues appear.

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Footnotes

19:1 One of the Pleiades and generally regarded as the model of wifely excellence.

19:2 The Hindu year is divided into six seasons of two months each, spring, summer, rains, autumn, winter, and dews.

20:1 It was essential that the horse should wander free for a year before immolation as a sign that his masters paramount sovereignty was acknowledged by all neighbouring princes.

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NEXT The Ramayana-Book I-Canto XII.: The Sacrifice Begun.

The Ramayana (/rɑːˈmɑːjənə/; Sanskrit: रामायणम्, Rāmāyaṇam [rɑːˈmɑːjəɳəm]) is an ancient Indian epic poem which narrates the struggle of the divine prince Rama to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. Along with the Mahabharata, it forms the Hindu Itihasa.
The epic, traditionally ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, the legendary prince of the Kosala Kingdom. It follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest from the kingdom, by his father King Dasharatha, on request of his second wife Kaikeyi. His travels across forests in India with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, the kidnapping of his wife by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, resulting in a war with him, and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king.
There have been many attempts to unravel the epic's historical growth and compositional layers; various recent scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text range from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE, with later stages extending up to the 3rd century CE. Wikipedia

“God / Brahman Speaking To Anne Terri Through The Holy Spirit: Today is August 25, 2018, and I have Asked Anne to begin to place The Ramayana within Our Research Library, for future links to research areas within. AMEN” 

*© NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION
Scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B. Hare. OCRed and Proofed at Distributed Proofing, Juliet Sutherland, Project Manager. Post-processing, computer programming, and additional proofreading by John B. Hare at sacred-texts.com. This text is in the public domain. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact.

Note: This verse translation by Griffith...was scanned in 2000 from an original copy, which had very poor typesetting. Due to the difficulty of converting this 600 page text to etext, the project was put on hold for several years until OCR technology matured. Finally in 2003, the text was OCR-ed and proofed at Distributed Proofing. However, despite best efforts, there are several places in this text where the proofing was difficult or impossible. These are indicated by asterisks or (illegible). We are in the process of cleaning up these issues and hope to have a definitive version of this text at some point. In the meantime we hope you enjoy this epic, which is one of the most popular tales of Indian mythology.