Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/46

 4 CHILDHOOD. Dohá 3-4. I reverence the saints of equable temperament, who regard neither friend nor foe ; like a gracious flower which sheds its fragrance alike on both infold- ing hands.' Ye saints, whose upright intention, whose catholic charity, and whose ready sympathy I acknowledge, hear my child-like prayer, be gracious to me and inspire me with devotion to the feet of Ráma. Chaupái. Again, I would propitiate those saintly wretches? who without a cause swerve right or left; with whom a neighbour's loss is gain; who rejoice in desolation and weep over prosperity; who are as an eclipse to the full-moon glory of Hari and Hara; who become as a giant with a thousand arms to work another's woe; who have a thousand eyes to detect a neighbour's faults, but, like flies on glt, settle on his good points only to spoil them; quick as fire, implacable as the god of hell3; rich in crime and sin as Kuver is in gold ; like an eclipse for the clouding of friendship, and as dead asleep as Kumbha- karan to everything good; if they can do any injury, as ready to sacrifice themselves as hailstones, that melt after destroying a crop; spiteful as the great serpent with a thousand tongnes; and like Pritharáj, with a thousand ears, to tell and hear of others' faults; like the thousand-eyed Indra, too, ever delight- ing in much strong drink and in a voice of thunder. Dohá 5. I know when they hear of philosophers, who regard friend and foe both as friends, they are enraged; but I clasp my hands and entreat them piteously. Chaupái, I have performed the rôle of supplication, nor will they forget their part. However carefully you may bring up a crow, it will still be a crow and a thief. I propitiate at once the feet of saints and sinners, who each give pain, but with a difference : for the first kill by absence, while the second torture by their 1 Though the right hand is the one by which it has been plucked, and the left that in which it is held and preserved. 2 In the foliowing lines the poet defends himself by anticipation against possible objections, and roundly abuses the whole army of critics. 3 Yama, the iindu Pluto, is here cailed Mahishesa, from mahisha, a 'buífalo,' that being the animal on which he is represented as riding. 4 Rávan's gigantic brother, Kumbha-karn, obtained as a boon from Brahna, that whenever he had satisfied his voracious appetite the slumber of repletion might be of the longest und deepest, aud that he might only wake to eat again. 3It is not related that Prithuráj had really ten thousand ears, but only that he prayed that he might be as quick to hear whatever redounded to the giory of God as if his cars were so many.