Page:The Ramayana (Manmatha Nath Dutt) Canto 1.djvu/9

 0M51 E.D9 129729 THE RAMAYANA IN AN ENGLISH GARB. The immortal Epic of Valmiki is undonbtedly one of the gems of literature,—indeed, some considering it as the Kohinur of the literary region, which has for centuries, and from a time reaching to the dim and far past been shedding unparalleled and undying halo upon the domain presided over by "the vision and the faculty divine." The burthen of the bird's song is the perpetual contest between good and evil, that is everywhere going on in this mysteriously-ordered world of ours, and which seemingly sometimes ending in the victory of the former, and at others in that of the latter, vitally and spiritually results in the utter overthrow and confusion of evil and in the triumph and final conquest of good. Rama sprung from bright lions of the effulgent luminary of day, and bringing his life and being from a long and illustrious ancestry of sovereigns, Rama taking birth among the sons of men for chastising and repressing rampant Iniquity and Injustice, typifies the spirit of good that obtains in this world,-Ravana, that grim and terrible Ten-headed one, a Rakshasa by virtue of birth and worthy to be the chief and foremost of Rakshasas by virtue of his many disdeeds and impieties, who challenges and keeps in awe the whole host of the celestials,-"to whom the Sun did not shine too hot, and about whom the Wind did not dare to breathe," represents the spirit of unrighteousness and evil. Lakshmana, disregarding the pomp and splendours of princely life, to follow his beloved brother Rama into the forest, and cheer- fully undergoing there a world of trials and privations, and daily and nightly keeping watch and ward over his brother and his spouse in their cottage, and Bharata, stoutly and persistently declining, despite the exhortations of the elders and the spiritual guides, to govern the kingdem during Rama's absence in the forest, and holding the royal umbrella over his brother's sandals, are personations of the ne plus THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ORK