[16] There is no vulgarity in this idea: it is a poetical degree in the scale of passion. An abhisáriká is a lady so mastered by her love that she cannot wait for her lover, but goes to him of her own accord. There are all sorts of conditions laid down to regulate her going: she must not go in broad daylight, but in a thunderstorm, or dusk.
[17] Láwanya means loveliness as well as salt.
[18] The exact equivalent, and indeed the only possible translation of kupanditá.
[19] This is due to the peculiar dress of Hindoo women, all in one piece, and put on so that the edge that runs around the feet afterwards runs up diagonally and winds around the whole figure. No national costume was ever better calculated to set off the sinuosities and soft grace of a woman's figure to advantage than the marvellous simplicity of the sarí which is nothing more than a very long strip of almost anything you please.
[20] i.e. the clever one: a name, like Nipuniká, employed in Hindoo plays to denote the qualities of a grisette: Suzanne.
[21] Anuraktámritam bálá wiraktá wisham ewa sá.
[22] A female door-keeper. This appears to have been customary in old times. Runjeet Singh had a body-guard of women, dressed like boys.
[23] The roots of these great figs "grow down" (hence their name) from the branches, often coalescing with the trunks into the most extraordinary shapes: it needs no imagination to see Dryads under the bark: they are visible to the naked eye. The huge leaves and great white blossom of the shála make it one of the most beautiful of earthly trees: as the champak is one of the most weird, like a great candlestick of innumerable branches whose pale flower-cups grow out of the end of its clumsy fingers without leaves.
[24] Durgá, the inaccessible one, is one of Párwatí's innumerable names. It has reference to a mountain steep, with accessory meanings, moral and theological.
[25] There are constant references in Hindoo poetry to swinging, which is a national pastime in India, with a special festival in its honour.