[37] The contrast between the fair Vaidehi and her ruthless persecutors in the enchanting ashoka grove might make a striking subject for the canvas of an able artist. Indeed, there is in the “Ramayana” no lack of suggestive and satisfactory _motifs_ for the chisel and the brush. It is, indeed, a mine not yet wrought. [38] Whoever has not forgotten his Virgil will probably be reminded of the famous storm in the “Æneid” and of Neptune’s serene and majestic appearance above the troubled waters of the sea. [39] Some hundred thousand billions (see note to Griffith’s “Ramayana,” vol. v., p. 88). [40] _Camped_; but not like a modern army under canvas. The Vanars, I trow, needed no commissariat department, living as they did on fruits and roots. And the sons of Raghu were nearly as well used to woodland fare and lodging as their simian allies. [41] “The chariots of Ravana’s present army are said to have been one hundred and fifty million in number, with three hundred million elephants and twelve hundred million horses and asses. The footmen are merely said to have been unnumbered.”--Note to Griffith’s “Ramayana,” book vi., canto xcvi. [42] At this point the great epic of Valmiki properly ends; but a supplementary work, also popularly attributed to Valmiki, exists which affords further details of the lives of the principal personages of the poem. Upon the particulars supplied in this work the succeeding paragraphs are based. [43] Professor E. B. Cowell (“Academy,” No. 43). In Bhavabhuti’s drama, entitled “Uttara Rama Charitra,” the _dénouement_ is different. Sita’s purity is attested by the goddess Ganga (the Ganges) and by Prithivi (the earth). The people bow in respectful homage to her. Rama welcomes her back, and with her two sons, Kusa and Lava, they pass many happy years together. [44] Muir, “Sanskrit Texts,” part iv., appendix. [45] The “Ramayana” of Tulsi Das, which differs in some respects from the original poem of Valmiki, has been translated into English by Mr. F. J. Growse of the Bengal Civil Service. [46] Ravana is described as having ten heads; but the effigy I saw had several faces, I do not think so many as ten, with the head of an ass surmounting all. [47] Properly the figure should have had twenty _arms_. [48] Bishop Heber was told that, in the _good old times_, the poor children were always “poisoned in the sweetmeats given to them the last day of the show, that it might be said their spirits were absorbed into the deities whom they had represented.”--+HEBER’S+ “Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India” (1824-25), p. 191. [49] _Vide_ “On the Ramayana,” by Dr. Albrecht Weber (Trübner and Co., 1863). [50] “Indian Epic Poetry,” p. 3 (Williams and Norgate, London, 1863). [51] “Early History of Northern India,” by J. F. Hewitt, “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” 1890, p. 744. [52] “Nouvelle Géographie Universelle,” par Elisée Reclus, tome viii., p. 873, _et seq._ Keane’s “Asia,” pp. 678-680.