[60] According to the Máhábharat, when the _Súras_ and _Asúras_ (the gods and _Dáityas_, or “demons”) had, by the whirling of the ocean, obtained the _Amrita_, or “the nectar of immortality,” a fierce dispute arose among them about the possession of it; but Vishnu succeeded in obtaining it for the Súras. Ráhu, a demon under the disguise of a Súra, was about to drink it, when, informed of it by the sun and the moon, the god just mentioned, by a blow with his chakra, struck off the demon’s head, which, flying up to heaven, since keeps an inextinguishable hatred against the two luminaries who had betrayed him, and now and then swallows the sun or the moon.――A. T. [61] The name of Brahma’s heaven is properly सत्य लोक _satya loka_, “the world of truth.” [62] The words between the asterisks are not in the manuscripts.――D. S. [63] Not in the manuscripts.――D. S. [64] A particular account of the Muhammedan doctors is to be given hereafter.――A. T. [65] In Sanskrit कृत युगं _Krita-Yugam_ and सत्य युगं _Satya-Yugam_, “the righteous age.”――D. S. [66] त्रेतायुग from त्रै _trai_, “to preserve.” [67] द्वापर युग _Dwapar_, from _dwa_, “two,” and _par_, “after, subsequent.” [68] The beginning of the Kali Yug is placed about 3001 years anterior to the Christian era.――D. S. [69] For a more detailed account of the occupations of the several deities, male and female, see _Moore’s Hindu Pantheon_, p. 333; and also plates, 52 and 54.――D. S. [70] A month of mortals is a day and a night of the _Pitris_, or patriarchs inhabiting the moon; and the division of a month being into equal halves, the half beginning from the full moon is their day for actions; and that beginning from the new moon is their night for slumber. A year of mortals is a day and a night of the gods, or regents of the universe, seated round the north pole; and again their division is this: their day is the northern, and their night the southern, course of the sun.――D. S. [71] Learn now the duration of a day and a night of Brahma, and of the several ages which shall be mentioned in order succinctly: Sages have given the name of Krita to an age containing four thousand years of the gods; the twilight preceding it consists of as many hundreds, and the twilight following it of the same number. In the other three ages, with their twilights preceding and following, are thousands and hundreds diminished by one. The divine years, in the four ages just enumerated, being added together, their sum, or twelve thousand, is called the age of the gods. And by reckoning a thousand such divine ages, a day of Brahma may be known: his night also has an equal duration.