e still called
Rama's Bridge by the Hindus.

40 "The Brahmans, with a system rather cosmogonical than chronological,
divide the present mundane period into four ages or _yugas_ as they
call them: the Krita, the Treta, the Dwapara, and the Kali. The
Krita, called also the Deva-yuga or that of the Gods, is the age of
truth, the perfect age, the Treta is the age of the three sacred
fires, domestic and sacrificial; the Dwapara is the age of doubt;
the Kali, the present age, is the age of evil." GORRESIO.

41 The ancient kings of India enjoyed lives of more than patriarchal
length as will appear in the course of the poem.

42 Sudras, men of the fourth and lowest pure caste, were not allowed to
read the poem, but might hear it recited.

43 The three _slokes_ or distichs which these twelve lines represent
are evidently a still later and very awkward addition to the
introduction.

44 There are several rivers in India of this name, now corrupted into
_Tonse_. The river here spoken of is that which falls into the
Ganges a little below Allahabad.

45 "In Book II, Canto LIV, we meet with a saint of this name presiding
over a convent of disciples in his hermitage at the confluence of
the Ganges and the Jumna. Thence the later author of these
introductory cantos has borrowed the name and person, inconsistently
indeed, but with the intention of enhancing the dignity of the poet
by ascribing to him so celebrated a disciple." SCHLEGEL.

46 The poet plays upon the similarity in sound of the two words:
_soka_, means grief, _sloka_, the heroic measure in which the poem
is composed. It need scarcely be said that the derivation is
fanciful.

47 Brahma, the Creator, is usually regarded as the first person of the
divine triad of India. The four heads with which he is represented
are supposed to have allusion to the four corners of the earth which
he is sometimes considered to personify. As an object of adoration
Brahma has been entirely superseded by Siva and Vishnu. In the whole
of India there is, I believe, but one temple dedicated to his
worship. In this point the first of the Indian triad curiously
resembles the last of the divine fraternity of Greece, Aides the
brother of Zeus and Poseidon. "In all Greece, says Pausanias, there
i