Ghats of the Peninsula.

774 Matarisva is identified with Vayu, the wind.

775 Of course not equal to the whole earth, says the Commentator, but
equal to Janasthan.

776 This appears to be the Indian form of the stories of Phaethon and
Daedalus and Icarus.

777 According to the promise, given him by Brahma. See Book I, Canto
XIV.

778 In the Bengal recension the fourth Book ends here, the remaining
Cantos being placed in the fifth.

779 Each chief comes forward and says how far he can leap. Gaja says he
can leap ten yojans. Gavaksha can leap twenty. Gavaya thirty, and so
on up to ninety.

780 Prahlada, the son of Hiranyakasipu, was a pious Datya remarkable for
his devotion to Vishnu, and was on this account persecuted by his
father.

781 The Bengal recension calls him Arishtanemi's brother. "The
commentator says 'Arishtanemi is Aruna.' Aruna the charioteer of the
sun is the son of Kasyapa and Vinata and by consequence brother of
Garuda, called Vainateya from Vinata, his mother." GORRESSIO.

782 A nymph of Paradise.

783 Hanu or Hanu means jaw. Hanuman or Hanuman means properly one with a
large jaw.

784 Vishnu, the God of the Three Steps.

785 Narayan, "He who moved upon the waters," is Vishnu. The allusion is
to the famous three steps of that God.

786 The Milky Way.

787 This Book is called Sundar or the Beatiful. To a European taste it
is the most intolerably tedious of the whole poem, abounding in
repetition, overloaded description, and long and useless speeches
which impede the action of the poem. Manifest interpolations of
whole Cantos also occur. I have omitted none of the action of the
Book, but have occasionally omitted long passages of common-place
description, lamentation, and long stories which have been again and
again repeated.

788 Brahma the Self-Existent.

789 Mainaka was the son of Himalaya and Mena or Menaka.

790 Thus Milton makes the hills of heaven self-moving at command:

"At his command the uprooted hills retired
Each to his place, they heard his voice and went
Obsequious"

791 The spirit of the mountain is separable from the mountain. Himalaya
has also been represented as standing in human form on one of his
own peaks.

792 Sagar or the Sea is said to have derived its name from S