[26] I have had the good fortune to be present at a marriage ceremony, carried out professedly in accordance with Vedic rites, which closely resembled the wedding of Rama and his brothers, as described by Valmiki. [27] In this description of Rama and in other places I have borrowed the epithets I find in Dutt’s translation of the “Ramayana,” in order to preserve something of the peculiar character of the original. [28] Here is a pretty picture for an artist, Hindu or other. [29] Dasahratha himself attributed these misfortunes to his having when a youth unwittingly killed, with a chance arrow, a young hermit in the forest. The boy’s father, himself a hermit, cursed Dasahratha, and the effects of the malediction were apparent in the troubles attending the king’s declining years. [30] This significant passage from the “Ramayana” ought to clear away the doubts that may linger in anyone’s mind regarding the fact that animal food was commonly eaten in ancient India, since animal sacrifices are constantly referred to. Of course there is abundant positive evidence on the subject as in the preceding page. [31] Near Salem in Southern India are “some chalk hills supposed by the natives to be formed of the bones of the mythical bird Jatayus, killed by Ravana when carrying off Sita.”--+PROFESSOR SIR MONIER WILLIAMS’S+ “Modern India,” p. 165. [32] Mr. Griffith’s “Ramayana,” vol. iii., p. 324. [33] As respects the Vanars it has to be noted that while implying that they were _monkeys_ and nothing more, the poet has, for the most part, represented them--if we may judge by their sentiments and actions--as beings of a very superior order. [34] This car from the hand of Visvakarma recalls the famous embossed shield of Achilles, the masterpiece of Vulcan’s art, made of brass, tin, gold and silver, and divided into twelve compartments, each representing a distinct and complicated scene (for example, a wedding procession or a battle) wrought with marvellous skill. [35] There can be no doubt whatever that the seclusion of women was the common practice in ancient India. Wherever polygamy exists the seclusion of women is a necessity, and that polygamy did exist in the India of the “Ramayana” is abundantly evident from what we are told concerning the courts of Dasahratha, Sugriva and Ravana. The Greeks kept their women a good deal in the background; but Helen’s position in the court of her husband Menelaus, or Penelope’s in that of Ulysses, was far more free than the position of any queen mentioned in the “Ramayana.” [36] The lover of English poetry will recall to mind the similar description of sleeping beauties in the sixth canto of “Don Juan,” stanzas lxiv.-lxix.