made incorporeal, and from that time was called 'the bodiless
one.'

49.
_Like the flame,
That ever hidden in the secret depths
Of ocean, smoulders there unseen_.

This submarine fire was called Aurva,
from the following fable. The Rishi Aurva, who had gained great
power by his austerities, was pressed by the gods and others to
perpetuate his race. He consented, but warned them that his
offspring would consume the world. Accordingly, he created from
his thigh a devouring fire, which, as soon as it was produced,
demanded nourishment, and would have destroyed the whole earth,
had not Brahma appeared and assigned the ocean as its habitation,
and the waves as its food. The spot where it entered the sea was
called 'the mare's mouth.' Doubtless the story was invented to
suit the phenomenon of some marine volcano, which may have
exhaled through the water bituminous inflammable gas, and which,
perhaps in the form of a horse's mouth, was at times visible
above the sea.

50 _Who on his 'scutcheon bears the monster-fish_.

The Hindu Cupid is said to have subdued a marine monster, which
was, therefore, painted on his banner.

51 _The graceful undulation of her gait_.

_Hansa-gamini_, 'walking like a swan,' was an epithet for a
graceful woman. The Indian lawgiver, Manu, recommends that a
Brahman should choose for his wife a young maiden, whose gait was
like that of a phoenicopter, or flamingo, or even like that of a
young elephant. The idea in the original is, that the weight of
her hips had caused the peculiar appearance observable in the
print of her feet. Largeness of the hips was considered a great
beauty in Hindu women, and would give an undulatory motion to
their walk. 52 _The Madhavi_.

A large and beautiful creeper (_Gaertnera racemosa_), bearing
white, fragrant flowers, to which constant allusion is made in
Sanskrit plays.

53 _Pines to be united with the Moon_.

A complete revolution of the moon, with respect to the stars, being
made in twenty-seven days, odd hours, the Hindus divide the heavens
into twenty-seven constellations (asterisms) or lunar stations, one
of which receives the moon for one day in each of his monthly journeys.
As the Moon, Chandra, is considered to be a masculine deity, the Hindus
fable these twenty-seven constellations as his wives, and personify
them as the daughters of Daksha. Of these twenty-seven wives, twelve
of whom give names to the twelve months, Cha