88. I long to begin binding the flowers round his head.
It is evident from the Málati-Mádhava, and other plays, that a victim, about to be offered as a sacrifice, had a wreath of flowers bound round the head.
89. The great vernal festival.
In celebration of the return of Spring, and said to be in honour of Krishna, and of his son Káma-deva, the god of love. It is identified with the Holí or Dolá-yátra, the Saturnalia, or rather, Carnival of the Hindús, when people of all conditions take liberties with each other, especially by scattering red powder and coloured water on the clothes of persons passing in the street, as described in the play called Ratnávalí, where the crowd are represented as using syringes and waterpipes. Flowers, and especially the opening blossoms of the mango, would naturally be much employed for decoration at this festival, as an offering to the god of love. It was formerly held on the full moon of the month Chaitra, or about the beginning of April, but it is now celebrated on the full moon of Phálguna, or about the beginning of March. The other great Hindú festival, held in the autumn, about October, is called Durgá-pújá, being in honour of the goddess Durgá. The Holí festival is now so disfigured by unseemly practices and coarse jests that it is reprobated by the respectable natives, and will probably, in the course of time, either die out or be prohibited by legal enactment.
90. Am not I named after the Koïl?
Compare note 66.
91. Thy fire unerring shafts.
Compare note 47.
92. The amaranth
That is, the Kuruvaka, either the crimson amaranth, or a purple species of Barleria.