RAMA 



RAMBO LILLET 



Kama is, in Hindu mythology, tlie name com- 

 iiion to three incarnations of VUhn'u, of I'arasurama, 

 Kamachandra, and Balatama. Sec VlSHNU. 



Itam ailan. tlie nintli inonlli in the Mohani- 

 in.', Inn year. In it Mohammed received his first 

 revelation, and every believer is therefore enjoined 

 to keep a strict fast throughout its entire course, 

 from the dawn when a white thread can lie dis- 

 tinguished from a lilnck thread -to sunset. Elating, 

 driii kin;;. smoking, bathing, smell in;: perfumes, and 

 other bodily enjoyments, even Hwallowing one's 

 spittle, are strictly prohibited during that period. 

 Even when obliged to take medicine the Moslem 

 must make some kind of amends for it, such as 

 spending a certain sum of money upon the poor. 

 During tin; night, however, the most necessary 

 wants may be satisfied a permission which, 

 practically, is interpreted by a profuse indulgence 

 in all sorts of enjoyments. The fast of Ramadan, 

 now much less observed than in former times, is 

 sometimes a very severe affliction upon the ortho- 

 dox, particularly when the month the year being 

 lunar happens to fall in the long and hot days .if 

 midsummer. The sick, travellers, and soldiers in 

 time of war are temporarily released from this 

 duty, but they have to fast an equal iiuinlier of 

 days at a subsequent period when this impediment 

 is removed. Nurses, pregnant women, and those to 

 whom it might prove really injurious are expressly 

 exempt from fasting. The principal passages treat- 

 ing of the fast of Ramadan are found in the second 

 Surah of the Koran, called ' The Cow. 



Kantrtynna i- the name of one of the two 

 great epic ]>oeni8 of ancient India (for the other, 

 see the article M A n A mi \ i: \ r \ ). Its subject-matter 

 is the history of Rama (q.v.), and its reputed 

 author is Valmiki, who is said to have taught his 

 poem to the two sons of Kama. But though 

 this latter account is open to doubt, it seems 

 certain that Valmiki was a real personage, and, 

 moreover, that the Hiimtiyana was the work of 

 one single poet not, like the Mahabhurata, the 

 creation of various epochs and different minds. 

 As a poetical composition the Ramayana is there- 

 fore far superior to the Mahdbhdrata ; and it may 

 be called the best great poem of ancient India. 

 Whereas the character of the Mahabhdrata is 

 cycloptedic, its main subject-matter overgrown by 

 episodes of the most diversified nature, the Kama- 

 yana has but one object in view, the history of 

 Kama. Its episodes are rare, and restricted to the 

 early portion of the work, and its poetical diction 

 betrays throughout the same finish and the same 

 poetical genius. Whether we apply as a test the 

 aspect of the religious life, or the geographical and 

 other knowledge displayed in the two works, the 

 Rdmayana appears tlie older. Since it is the chief 

 source whence our information of the Kama incar- 

 nation of Vishnu is derived, its contents may be 

 gathered from the article VISHNU. The Itama- 

 yana contains professedly 24,(KH) epic verses, or 

 Slokat, in seven books some 48,000 lines of six- 

 teen syllables. The text which has come down to 

 us exhibits, in different sets of manuscripts, such 

 considerable discrepancies that there are practi- 

 cally two recensions. The one is more concise in 

 ite diction, and has less tendency than the other to 

 that kind of descriptive enlargement of facts and 

 sentiments which characterises the later poetry of 

 India; it often also exhibits grammatical form* 

 and ]>cculiarities of an archaic stamp, where the 

 other studiously avoids that which must have 

 appeared to its editors in the light of a gram- 

 matical difficulty. There can I* little doubt that 

 tin- former is tin- older and more genuine text. 



A complete edition of the older text, with two oom- 

 meiiUrif*, wan pnbliihed at Madnw in 185<>, at Calcutta 



in 1860, and at Bombay in 1861. Of the later version 

 (lorresio edited the first MX books without a commentary, 

 [lit with an Italian translation in poetical prose (18*3- 

 Ml A complete translation of the Ramawn of \ al- 

 mlti in English Terse, by K. T. H. Griffith, appeared 

 in 1H70-75 in five large volumes. See Williams, Indian 

 A/,iV Poetry (1863); and Weber, Peter dot lidatdyana 

 (1870). 



Kamboiiillet, CATHERINE in. VIVONNK, 

 M viii.'MsK DE, one of the most accomplished and 

 illustrious women of the 17th century, was Inirn 

 at Home in 1588. Her father was Jean de Vivonnc. 

 afterwards Marquis of I'Uani ; her mother, Julia 

 Savclli, belonged to an old Italian family, and 

 through her mother was connected with the Him 

 en tine banking house of Sdu//i. At twelve Cathe- 

 rine was married to Charles d'Angennes, son of 

 the Marquis de Kamlmuillet, who succeeded to the 

 family estates and title on the death of his father 

 in 1611. From the very l>egiiining she disliked 

 alike the morals and manners of the French court, 

 and she early determined to gather round herself 

 a select circle of friends. At once virtuous, spirit- 

 uelle, sympathetic, and appreciative, she gathered 

 together in the famous Hotel Kamlmuillet for a 

 long series of years all the talent and wit of 

 France, and in her salon met for the first time on 

 an equal footing the aristocracies of rank and of 

 esprit. For fifty years she received the wits, critics, 

 scholars, and poets of Paris : Malherbe, llacan, 

 Balzac, Voiture, Corneille, Menage, Chapelain, 

 Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Benscrade, La Roche- 

 foucauld. But half of the glory of the Hotel 

 belonged to the brilliant women who frequented 

 it, among them Mademoiselle de Scudery, the 

 beautiful Duchesse de Chevreuse, the Marquise 

 de Sable, who inspired the Marimet of La Roche 

 foucauld, .Mademoiselle de la Yergne, afterwai.ls 

 Madame de La Fayette, the inimitable Madame 

 de Sevigne j but conspicuous beyond all by her 

 splendid beauty and faultless grace, the idol of 

 both sexes, shone the sister of the great Com!.-. 

 and the heroine of the Fronde the Diiches-e. de 

 Longueville. As the centre of this group reigned 

 the Marquise de Ramlioiiillet 'la grande Mar- 

 quise, ''the divine Arthenice ' and her lie.-uiiitnl 

 daughter Julie (the Parthenie of CUlie), after 

 fourteen years of suing, wife of the Duke of Mon- 

 tausior, who presented her with the famous Gar- 

 liinii of Julia, a collection of love- verses, illustrated 

 with exquisite paintings on vellum. 



The frequenters of the Hdtel were celebrated for 

 the elegance of their manners and the refinement 

 of their language; but the latter, on the lips of 

 imitators, degenerated into extravagant affectation 

 ami palpable pedantry a mark for the comic satire 

 of Moliere in Lea Prtdeuses Rulieitlet and Let 

 Femmea Sanantes. It must be rememl>ered that 

 the title PrMcuse originally meant 'distinguished* 

 in its best sense, and that the ladies of the coterie 

 a generation l>efore hail been proud to wear it. 

 Madame de Kambouillet's good taste in everything 

 was conspicuous, and she led the fashion also in 

 the decoration of houses. Her famous ' Chambre 

 bleiie.' furnished with blue velvet relieved by gold 

 and silver, with large windows from floor to ceiling. 

 and her alcove with it* ritflle at first adopted 

 merely to save her from the heat of the fire, which 

 she could not bear were imitated in many a great 

 house in France. Her ini|>ortancc declined under 

 I/mis XIV., who distrusted clever women, but she 

 survived till December Io67>. 



See the Hutnriette* of Tallemant des Reanx and the 

 nictiannairt. drf Prfntwtet of Somaize ; Kodercr's 

 Mtmoire pour uneir d I'Jfutoirc de la SofiftS polie en 

 Franef pendant le nix-K t itieme Siitle (1834); Victor 

 Cousin's Jcunetie de Mde. de Loniuerille, Jtfde. dr KaUf, 

 <<r. ; Livet'n Precieux et Prfeinaei (1869); lirunet cro's 

 JfounHet titadei Critir,uei (2d ed. 1886). 



