"Offer worship quickly to Indra; recite hymns; let the outpoured drops exhilarate him; pay adoration to his superior strength!"
"When, Indra, thou harnessest thy horses, there is no such charioteer as thou; none is equal to thee in strength; none, howsoever well horsed, has overtaken thee!"
"He, who alone bestows wealth upon the man who offers him oblations, is the undisputed sovereign: Indra, ho!"
"When will he trample with his foot upon the man who offers no oblations, as upon a coiled snake? When will Indra listen to our praises? Indra, ho!"
"Indra grants formidable strength to him who worships him, having libations prepared: Indra, ho!"
The song that was chanted low by the well of Barrackpore to the maddened Rajpoot, to the dreaming Moor, was fiercely shouted by the well of Cawnpore to a chorus of shrieking women, English wives and mothers, and spluttering of blood-choked babes, and clash of red knives, and drunken shouts of slayers, ruthless and obscene.
When Asirvadam the Brahmin conjured the wild demon of revolt to light the horrid torch and bare the greedy blade, he tore a chapter from the Book of Menu:—
"Let no man, engaged in combat, smite his foe with concealed weapons, nor with arrows mischievously barbed, nor with poisoned arrows, nor with darts blazing with fire."
"Nor let him strike his enemy alighted on the ground; nor an effeminate man, nor one who sues for life with closed palms, nor one whose hair is loose, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am thy captive.'"
"Nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat-of-mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is dismayed, nor one who is a spectator, but no combatant, nor one who is fighting with another man."