st and
follow Lakshman. Bharata however refuses the succession, and determines to
accompany his brother. Rama's subjects are filled with grief, and say they
also will follow him wherever he goes. Messengers are sent to Satrughna,
the other brother, and he also resolves to accompany Rama; who at length
sets out in procession from his capital with all the ceremonial
appropriate to the "great departure," silent, indifferent to external
objects, joyless, with Sri on his right, the goddess Earth on his left,
Energy in front, attended by all his weapons in human shapes, by the Vedas
in the forms of Brahmans, by the Gayatri, the Omkara, the Vashatkara, by
rishis, by his women, female slaves, eunuchs, and servants. Bharata with
his family, and Satrughna, follow together with Brahmans bearing the
sacred fire, and the whole of the people of the country, and even with
animals, etc., etc. Rama, with all these attendants, comes to the banks of
the Sarayu. Brahma, with all the gods and innumerable celestial cars, now
appears, and all the sky is refulgent with the divine splendour. Pure and
fragrant breezes blow, a shower of flowers falls. Rama enters the waters
of the Sarayu; and Brahma utters a voice from the sky, saying: "Approach,
Vishnu; Raghava, thou hast happily arrived, with thy godlike brothers.
Enter thine own body as Vishnu or the eternal ether. For thou art the
abode of the worlds: no one comprehends thee, the inconceivable and
imperishable, except the large-eyed Maya thy primeval spouse." Hearing
these words, Rama enters the glory of Vishnu with his body and his
followers. He then asks Brahma to find an abode for the people who had
accompanied him from devotion to his person, and Brahma appoints them a
celestial residence accordingly.(1037)

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

Queen Fortune.

"A curious festival is celebrated in honour of this divinity (Lakshmi) on
the fifth lunar day of the light half of the month Magha (February), when
she is identified with Saraswati the consort of Brahma, and the goddess of
learning. In his treatise on festivals, a great modern authority,
Raghunandana, mentions, on the faith of a work called
_Samvatsara-sandipa_, that Lakshmi is to be worshipped in the forenoon of
that day with flowers, perfumes, rice, and water; that due honour is to be
paid to inkstand and writing-reed, and no writing to be done. Wilson, in
his essay on the _Religious Festivals of the Hindus_ (works, vol. ii, p.
1