'Bharat, the brother of Rāma, was left regent of the kingdom of Ajodhya,[8] during his absence at the conquest of Ceylon. He happened at night to see Hanumān passing with the mountain upon his back, and thinking he might be one of the king of Ceylon's demons about mischief, he let fly one of his blunt arrows at him. It hit him on the leg, and he fell, mountain and all, to the ground. As he fell, he called out in his agony, 'Rām, Rām', from which Bharat discovered his mistake. He went up, raised him in his arms, and with his kind attentions restored him to his senses. Learning from him the object of his journey, and fearing that his wounded brother Lachhman would die before he could get to Ceylon with the requisite remedy, he offered to send Hanumān on upon the barb of one of his arrows, mountain and all. To try him Hanumān took up his mountain and seated himself with it upon the barb of the arrow as desired. Bharat placed the arrow to the string of his bow, and drawing it till the barb touched the bow, asked Hanumān whether he was ready. 'Quite ready,' said Hanumān, 'but I am now satisfied that you really are the brother of our prince, and regent of his kingdom, which was all I desired. Pray let me descend; and be sure that I shall be at Ceylon in time to save your wounded brother.' He got off, knelt down, placed his forehead on Bharat's feet in submission, resumed his load, and was at Ceylon by the time the day broke next morning, leaving behind him the small and insignificant fragment, on which the town and temples of Govardhan now stand.
'While little Krishna was frisking about among the milkmaids of Govardhan,' continued my old friend, 'stealing their milk, cream, and butter, Brahmā, the creator of the universe, who had heard of his being an incarnation of Vishnu, the great preserver of the universe, visited the place, and had some misgivings, from his size and employment, as to his real character. To try him, he took off through the sky a herd of cattle, on which some of his favourite playmates were attending, old and young, boys and all. Krishna, knowing how much the parents of the boys and owners of the cattle would be distressed, created, in a moment, another herd and other attendants so exactly like those that Brahmā had taken, that the owners of the one, and the parents of the other, remained ignorant of the change. Even the new creations themselves remained equally ignorant; and the cattle walked into their stalls, and the boys into their houses, where they recognized and were recognized by their parents, as if nothing had happened.
'Brahmā was now satisfied that Krishna was a true incarnation of Vishnu, and restored to him the real herd and attendants. The others were removed out of the way by Krishna, as soon as he saw the real ones coming back.'
'But,' said I to the good old man, who told me this with a grave face, 'must they not have suffered in passing from the life given to death; and why create them merely to destroy them again?'
'Was he not God the Creator himself?' said the old man; 'does he not send one generation into the world after another to fulfil their destiny, and then to return to the earth from which they came, just as he spreads over the land the grass and corn? All is gathered in its season, or withers as that passes away and dies.' The old gentleman might have quoted Wordsworth:
We die, my friend,
Nor we alone, but that which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon,
Even of the good is no memorial left.[9]
I was one day out shooting with my friend, the Rājā of Maihar,[10] under the Vindhya range, which rises five or six hundred feet, almost perpendicularly. He was an excellent shot with an English double-barrel, and had with him six men just as good. I asked him whether we were likely to fall in with any hares, using the term 'khargosh', or 'ass-eared'.
'Certainly not,' said the Rājā, 'if you begin by abusing them with such a name; call them "lambkanās", sir, "long-eared", and we shall get plenty.'
He shot one, and attributed my bad luck to the opprobrious name I had used. While he was reloading, I took occasion to ask him how this range of hills had grown up where it was.
'No one can say,' replied the Rājā, 'but we believe that when Rāma went to recover his wife Sītā from the demon king of Ceylon, Rāvan, he wanted to throw a bridge across from the continent to the island, and sent some of his followers up to the Himālaya mountains for stones. He had completed his bridge before they all returned, and a messenger was sent to tell those who had not yet come to throw down their burdens, and rejoin him in all haste. Two long lines of these people had got thus far on their return when the messenger met them. They threw down their loads here, and here they have remained ever since, one forming the Vindhya range to the north of this valley, and the other the Kaimūr range to the south.'