The End of Vana Parva


Footnote 1:[(return)] It means these six things, unfavourable to crops—excessive rain, drought, rats, locusts, birds, and a neighbouring hostile king.

Footnote 2:[(return)] In as much as the rites performed by the Sudras have their origin in the Vedas.

Footnote 3:[(return)] More literally, the state of the gods. It may appropriately be remarked here that the ordinary Hindu gods, of the post-Vedic period, like the gods of Ancient Greece and Italy, were simply a class of superhuman beings, distinctly contra-distinguished from the Supreme Spirit, the Paramatman or Parabrahma. After death, a virtuous man was supposed to be transformed into one of these so-called gods.

Footnote 4:[(return)] This is the well-known and popular doctrine of transmigration of souls.

Footnote 5:[(return)] The word in the text is Kora-dushakas, supposed by Wilson to be the Paspalum frumentacea (vide Dict.).

Footnote 6:[(return)] The word in the text is mlecchibhutam. The Sanskrit grammar affords a great facility for the formation of verbs from substantives. Mlecchify may be hybrid, but it correctly and shortly signifies the Sanskrit word.

Footnote 7:[(return)] Pushya is the eighth lunar asterism consisting of three stars, of which one is, the Cancer. (Vide Wilson's Diet.).

Footnote 8:[(return)] An Indian creeper of the order of Goertnera racemosa. It bears large white flowers of much fragrance.