sage Vi[s']wamitra (both king and saint),
who raised himself by his austerities from the regal to the
Brahmanical caste, is said to be the son of Gadhi, King of Kanuj,
grandson of Kusanatha, and great-grandson of Kusika or Kusa. On
his accession to the throne, in the room of his father Gadhi, in
the course of a tour through his dominions, he visited the
hermitage of the sage Vasishtha, where the Cow of Plenty, a cow
granting all desires, excited his cupidity. He offered the sage
untold treasures for the cow; but being refused, prepared to take
it by force. A long war ensued between the king and the sage
(symbolical of the struggles between the military and Brahmanical
classes), which ended in the defeat of Vi[s']wamitra, whose vexation
was such, that he devoted himself to austerities, in the hope of
attaining the condition of a Brahman. The Ramayana recounts how,
by gradually increasing the rigour of his penance through
thousands of years, he successively earned the title of Royal
Sage, Sage, Great Sage, and Brahman Sage. It was not till he had
gained this last title that Vasishtha consented to acknowledge
his equality with himself, and ratify his admission into the
Brahmanical state. It was at the time of Vi[s']wamitra's advancement
to the rank of a Sage, and whilst he was still a Kshatriya, that
Indra, jealous of his increasing power, sent the nymph Menaka to
seduce him from his life of mortification and continence. The Ramayana
records his surrender to this temptation, and relates that the nymph
was his companion in the hermitage for ten years, but does not allude
to the birth of [S']akoontala during that period.

28. _The inferior gods, I am aware, are jealous_.

According to the Hindu system, Indra and the other inferior
deities were not the possessors of Swarga, or heaven, by
indefeasible right. They accordingly viewed with jealousy, and
even alarm, any extraordinary persistency by a human being in
acts of penance, as it raised him to a level with themselves;
and, if carried beyond a certain point, enabled him to dispossess
them of Paradise. Indra was therefore the enemy of excessive
self-mortification, and had in his service numerous nymphs who
were called his 'weapons,' and whose business it was to impede by
their seductions the devotion of holy men.

29. _Gautami_.

The name of the matron or Superior of the female part of the
society of hermits. Every association of religious devotees seems
to have inclu