Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12.232

c12.232

“A *yaksha*, or demi-god so-called, and a servant of the Hindu God of Wealth (Kuvera), had incurred the displeasure of his lord by neglecting a garden entrusted to his charge, and allowing it to be injured by the entrance of Airavata, the elephant of Indra, deity of the firmament. As a punishment for this offence, he was condemned to twelve months’ banishment from Alaka, the city of the *yakshas*, and consequent separation from his home and wife. The seat of his exile is the mountain Ramagiri, and, upon the opening of the poem, he is supposed to have passed a period of eight months in solitary seclusion. The poem opens at the commencement of the rainy season, when heavy clouds are gathering in the south and proceeding in a northerly course toward the Himalaya Mountains, and the fictitious position of the residence of the *yakshas*. To one of these the distressed demi-god addresses himself, and desires the cloud to waft his sorrows to a beloved and regretted wife. For this purpose he first describes the route which the messenger is to pursue, and this gives the poet an opportunity of alluding to the principal mountains, rivers, temples, etc., that are to be met with on the road from Ramagiri to Ujjain, and thence north to the Himalaya Mountains.”