A Digit of the Moon

The hetæra plays in old Hindoo stories a still larger part than she did in Greek.

45

There is an untranslateable play on the word here.

46

Goura cannot mean white, because dhawala comes on a later day.

47

See below.

48

i. e. to take him in, with her husband away, would be bad enough, but, &c. A Hindoo even at the present day would murder his wife for a much smaller crime than this.

49

This appalling question, which has puzzled the wise men of all ages, is answered by the Princess as well as by any one else.

50

An allusion to the name Suwarnashílá, which means 'good as gold.'

51

This is an everyday phenomenon in Hindoo stories; and its appearance in the Golden Ass of Apuleius puts it beyond all doubt that his story came originally from India.

52

A master of policy.

53

Meaning both 'a connoisseur,' and 'a devourer of beauty,' with an allusion to Ráhu, who causes eclipses by devouring the moon.

54

A fabled power of swans, frequently alluded to in Sanskrit poetry.

55

Should any reader be of opinion that I ought to have omitted or emasculated this story, I can only reply that I wish all Bowdlerisers no worse fate than that of the ascetic in the tent.

56

History repeats itself. M. Rousselet, who travelled in India in the sixties, mentions, in his L'Inde des Rajas, a case that he saw in Rájputána of a holy man who suspended himself in a tree 'like a ham.'

57

i. e. 'laughter incarnate.'

58

Attahasa, 'loud laughter,' is a name of Shiwa. Kálidás (in his Cloud, v. 62) compares the snowy peaks of Mount Kailas to the laughter of Shiwa 'rolled into a ball.' (Note, that laughter is always white in Sanskrit poetry.)

59

Spado factus sum. The 'dweller' is Párwatí, or Durgá, Shiwa's other half, in the strict sense of the term.

60

Digambara, i.e. you must be stark-naked, or in a state of nature.

61

A particular follower of Shiwa.

62

Another sect of Shiwa worshippers.

63

The lowest of all the castes, a synonym for all that is vile and impure, like the 'Jew dog' of the Middle Ages.

64

Yama (pronounce Yum) is the judge of the dead, and Chitragupta his recorder, who keeps account of man's actions.

65

An independent woman is a synonym for a harlot, in Sanskrit.

66

Smara means 'love' and also 'memory.'

67

The point of this crafty little story almost evaporates in translation. It is artfully contrived to entrap the Princess into saying 'an ape:' but she is too cunning. Tawny-haired means, literally, 'ape-coloured.'

68

The pun is untranslateable: it may mean also, 'tossing up its gory locks' (kákapaksha).

69