me: UN EXPEDIENT POUR TUER RAVANA.

HIPPOLYTE FAUCHE.

Uttarakanda.

The Ramayan ends, epically complete, with the triumphant return of Rama
and his rescued queen to Ayodhya and his consecration and coronation in
the capital of his forefathers. Even if the story were not complete, the
conclusion of the last Canto of the sixth Book, evidently the work of a
later hand than Valmiki's, which speaks of Rama's glorious and happy reign
and promises blessings to those who read and hear the Ramayan, would be
sufficient to show that, when these verses were added, the poem was
considered to be finished. The Uttarakanda or Last Book is merely an
appendix or a supplement and relates only events antecedent and subsequent
to those described in the original poem. Indian scholars however, led by
reverential love of tradition, unanimously ascribe this Last Book to
Valmiki, and regard it as part of the Ramayan.

Signor Gorresio has published an excellent translation of the Uttarakanda,
in Italian prose, from the recension current in Bengal;(1030) and Mr. Muir
has epitomized a portion of the book in the Appendix to the Fourth Part of
his Sanskrit Texts (1862). From these scholars I borrow freely in the
following pages, and give them my hearty thanks for saving me much
wearisome labour.

"After Rama had returned to Ayodhya and taken possession of the throne,
the rishis [saints] assembled to greet him, and Agastya, in answer to his
questions recounted many particulars regarding his old enemies. In the
Krita Yuga (or Golden Age) the austere and pious Brahman rishi Pulastya, a
son of Brahma, being teased with the visits of different damsels,
proclaimed that any one of them whom he again saw near his hermitage
should become pregnant. This had not been heard by the daughter of the
royal rishi Trinavindu, who one day came into Pulastya's neighbourhood,
and her pregnancy was the result (Sect. 2, vv. 14 ff.). After her return
home, her father, seeing her condition, took her to Pulastya, who accepted
her as his wife, and she bore a son who received the name of Visravas.
This son was, like his father, an austere and religious sage. He married
the daughter of the muni Bharadvaja, who bore him a son to whom Brahma
gave the name of Vaisravan-Kuvera (Sect. 3, vv. 1 ff.). He performed
austerities for thousands of years, when he obtained from Brahma as a boon
that he should be one of the guardians of the world (along with Indra,
Varuna, and Ya