Note 113 — BOOK XVI.
Reading edition
p. 54. l. 5. Like the pallid night, when Rahu. This is a favourite simile of the Indian poets.
That snatched my love from the uplifted sword, Like the pale moon from Rahu's ravenous jaws.
Wilson's Malati and Madhava, p. 62.
————-and now thou fall'st, a prey To death, like the full moon to Rahu's jaws Consigned.
Ibid. p. 115.
In Indian mythology, eclipses are caused by the dragon Rahu attempting to swallow up the moon. The origin of their hostility is given in a passage quoted by Mr. Wilkins from the Mahabharata, in his notes to the Bhagavat-Gita:—"And so it fell out that when the Soors were quenching their thirst for immortality, Rahu, an Asoor, assumed the form of a Soor, and begun to drink also; and the water had but reached his throat, when the sun and moon, in friendship to the Soors, discovered the deceit, and instantly Narayan cut off his head as he was drinking, with his splendid weapon, chakra. And the gigantic head of the Asoor, emblem of a monstrous summit, being thus separated from his body by the chakra's edge, bounded into the heavens with a dreadful cry, whilst the ponderous trunk fell, cleaving the ground asunder, and shaking the whole earth unto its foundations, with all its islands, rocks, and forest. And from this time the head of Rahu resolved on eternal enmity, and continueth even unto this day at times to seize upon the sun and moon." p. 149.