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 JULY 5, 1872.]

215

THE RASAKALLOLA.

celebrate their Srāddhas ; we pay due respect to fire; we do not use meat without sacrificing it ; our females lately delivered or in their courses spread their bedding on the floor ; our marriages are celebrated at the most propitious hours, and the widow who has lost her husband

natural desires. We especially observe graces (akshare) before and after meals to render them wholesome.

Such are we, &c.

13. Our females are held pure only after passing seven nights from the commencement of their man

is not considered

ner, and a month from childbirth, when only they are

pure.” Such are we, the Parsis, observing daily these religious rites.

pure. We are beautiful in our dress, fair and of gol den colour, vigorous, and strong : Such are we, &c.

Till a Parsi woman who has borne a child

14. For expiation of sin we make confession (?)

has passed forty days, she cannot cook victuals ; she should be moderate in her talk and sleep ; nor ought she to bathe (snána) for forty days, to pray or adore the sun. We always venerate the aether, fire, earth, water, the moon, the sun, and Yazad : So is our tribe ever esteemed and acceptable. 10. Only with fuel six months dried (do we feed the sacred fire); and sandal wood, aloe-wood of Malaya, and benzoin, we use five times a-day to perform the Homa (fire oblation), uttering appoint ed words and formulas [in the Atash Naish] :

9.

and as panchagavya (five products of the cow) is used, we first anoint our persons with gaumutra, before washing them with water, and after nine days we are clean. We constantly keep all the sayings of our guru, and are happy in observing

The fire is kept under a dome in shade from the

sun's rays. We are ever true and just in our motives, and never addicted to young women. Such are we Parsis, &c. 11. As spoken by our guru (teacher) and enjoin ed by our writings, we preserve round the waist above the sadra, a woollen kusti, neat, of golden colour, long and entire like a mekhla (or zone); the many advantages of wearing it are equal to snána (ablution) in the Ganges: Such are we, &c. 12. In our minds we ever reflect upon the aether, the moon, fire, the earth, the sun, and worship Hormazd as the bestower of victory, religion, and

his directions for the ablution of our sins.

Such

are we—the fair, the bold, the brave, the athletic Parsis.

15. The inspired sage who appointed these reli gious observances for the guidance of men, promised eternal bliss to those who walked according to them. And we believe their supporters have found places in heaven. To their sacred memories devout Parsis strew sandal and pulse upon the ground. Such, &c. 16. (The Rana's Reply :) Welcome to those who walk faithfully in the way of Hormazd 1 May their race increase ! May their prayers obtain the remis sion of their sins, and the smile of the sun ; also may abundance of wealth, and the fulfilment of their desires flow from the liberality of Lakshmi ; and may the ornaments of person and of mind which now adorn them continue to distinguish them among people for ever !

NOTES ON THE RASAKALLOLA, AN ANCIENT ORIYA POEM. By JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., BALASOR.

THE Rasakallola or “Waves of Delight” is the most popular poem in Orissa. Its songs are sung by the peasantry in every part of the country, many of its lines have passed into proverbs, and have become “household words” with all

classes. It owes this great popularity in some measure to its comparative freedom from long Sanskrit words, being for the most part,

except when the poet soars into the higher style, written in the purest and simplest Oriya vernacular.

The great religious revival in India in the four teenth and fifteenth centuries, with which the

name of Chaitanya is inseparably connected throughout Orissa and Bengal, turned the cur rent of popular thought in the direction of the

manifestation of Krishna. It is to the Vaishnavas in all parts of India that we owe the earliest and most copious outpourings of poetic thought. In the majority of instances these poems are mono tonous, childish, and indescribably indecent vari ations on the leading features of the Bhāgavata

Purāna. The Rasakallola is one of this class, and superadds to the usual impurity of Indian poems on this subject, that special and peculiarly revolting obscenity which is the distinguishing characteristic of the Oriya mind. Fortunately, however, the earlier parts of the poem, relating as they do to incidents in the childhood of Krishna, are free from this objection, and from them we may be able to reproduce ex tracts which will exhibit the nature and style of

worship of Vishnu, under his newly-invented, or

this popular work without offending against

perhaps I should say, recently popularized,

propriety.


 * For remarriage 2