Tale VI.
[1.] Brschiss. I know not what country it is which is thus designated, unless the word be derived from brizi, the ancient Persian for rice, and is intended to denote a rice-producing territory.
[2.] Palm-tree. India grows a vast number of varieties of the palm-tree; the general name is trinadruma, “grass-tree” (Ritter iv. 1, 827). The date-palm was only introduced by the Arabians (Lassen, iii. 312). The fan-palm (borassus flabelliformis) is called trinarâga = “the grass-king,” in Sanskrit also tâla; the Buddhist priests in Dekhan and also in China and Mongolia use its leaves as fans and sunshades, and hence are often called tâlapatri, palm-bearers. Tâlânka and Tâladhvaga are also titles of Krishna, when he carries a banner bearing a palm-tree in memory of a legend which makes him the discoverer of the means of utilizing the fruit of the cocoa-nut palm. “The mountain Gôvardhana on the banks of the Jamunâ was thickly grown over with the cocoa-nut palm, but it was kept in guard by a dæmon, named Dhênuka, in the form of an ass, at the head of a great herd of asses, so that no one could approach it. Krishna, however, in company with Rama, went through the wood unarmed, but when they would have shaken down the fruit from the trees, Dhênuka, who was sitting in its branches, kicked them with his hoofs and bit them. Krishna pulled him down from off the tree, and wrestled with him till he had crushed him to death; in the same way he dealt with the whole herd. A lurid light gleamed through the whole wood from the bodies of the dead asses, but from that time forward, all the people had free use of the trees.” (Hari, v. 70, v. 3702 et seq. p. 577.)
[3.] The brandy spoken of is, probably, koumis, distilled from mare’s milk, and makes a very intoxicating drink. Concerning its preparation, see Pallas, Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolen.