Note 9 — Chapter CII

When that good young ascetic heard this, he said, “Only a kos distant from this place is a spot called Panchavatí, and not far from it was the hermitage of the hermit Agastya, who with small effort cast down from heaven the haughty king Nahusha; where Ráma, who by command of his father took up his dwelling in a forest, accompanied by Lakshmaṇa and his wife Sítá, long waited on that hermit; where Kabandha,9 who guided Ráma to the slaughter of the Rákshasas, proceeded to attack Ráma and Lakshmaṇa, as Ráhu does the sun and moon, whose arm a yojana in length Ráma felled, so that it resembled Nahusha in his serpent form, come to supplicate Agastya; where even now the Rákshasas hearing the roaring of the clouds at the beginning of the rainy season, call to mind the twanging of the bow of Ráma; where the aged deer, that were fed by Sítá, beholding the regions deserted in every direction, with eyes filling with tears, reject the mouthful of grass; where Márícha, who brought about Sítá’s separation from her husband, assumed the form of a golden deer and enticed away Ráma, as if to save from slaughter those deer, that were still left alive; where, in many a great lake full of the water of the Káverí, it appears as if Agastya had vomited up in driblets the sea that he swallowed. Not far from that hermitage, on a table-land of the Vindhya, is a stronghold tangled and inaccessible, named Karabhagríva. In it dwells that mighty Durgapiśácha of terrible valour, chief of the Mátangas, whom kings cannot conquer. And he commands a hundred thousand bowmen of that tribe, every one of whom is followed by five hundred warriors. With the aid of those brigands he robs caravans, destroys his enemies, and enjoys this great forest, caring nought for this or that king.10