332 The Birth of Uma— [Juuy, 
2. 
Him once the gay hills, so they tell, all agreed 
* To make the prime Calf of their glorious high breed ; 
And Merv himself, skill’d in milking of yore, 
Stood milker for all of the genial Earth’s store : 
en SE a 
measurement of the great waters, exactly answers in meaning to our Sanscrit ala 
—as its derivative 100 (do) in the latter, which I now quote, might both from 
its form and its parallelism with the cord in the 4th line, be almost conceived to be 
synonymous with our Hl: (the word not occurring elsewhere in Scripture.) 
YIR— 102 MT TWD Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
mya ny? ox tat Tell, if thou art acquainted with knowledge. 
yin >> nm DW—'D Who disposed the dimensions (or dimensors?) of it if thou 
knowest ? 
yp my mm2— 7 Ww Or who stretched over it the measuring line ? 
St. 2. Him once the gay hills, &c.—The truly Indian legend of this verse is con- 
tained with somewhat more particularity in the 6th chapter of the Hari-Vansa, the 
last book of wees sacred epic, the Mahabharata. 
wee aye Uist yaera agai | 
greta afawdtcarta fafasifa Wil 2H 
aaa fenararetaeg a FT UUs: | 
wag weaadtaa Kear feafear: il ve |i 
And also in the 18th chapter of the 4th book or Skandha of a more recent my- 
thological authority, the Bhagavat Purana. 
4zqaqy ata: VaWWAy Wa! | 
facat feaaqar Aaa, SINAT RY II 
But the legend which has given to both these chapters of the Hari-Vansa and the 
Bhagavat respectively the title of Prithvi-déha, or “ the milking of the earth,” is 
not confined to the subject ofthese lines, i.e. to the Mountains and their chosen Calf 
Himalaya. The injunction of Priruv to his obedient wife (or as some authorities 
have it, his daughter) Priravi, i.e. the Earth, extends to the suckling of all orders 
of the creation, from the ultra deified saints or Rishis down to the trees of the 
forest : each of which, according to the high authority first quoted, were desirous 
of the favour, and had its own Calf, its milker, and its appropriate milk or nutri- 
ment, drawn by him from the udder of Mother Earth in an appropriate pail. 
The fable is sufficiently curious and illustrative of Indian mythology in general, to 
be stated at greater length. 
The Rishis chose for their prime calf, Soma, regent of the moon: and the 
sage Vrihaspati, son of Angiras, acting as milker for the rest, drew the pure 
milk of austere and spiritual science from the earth’s breast into a pail composed 
of the metrical Vedas.—The celestial Gods chose Indra for their calf: and their 
milker Surya, or the Sun, milked the earth of strength ina pail of gold.—The 
Pitris or Dii Manes having chosen Yama (the Indian Pluto), for their calf, 
their milker, Fatal Time, drew from the earth’s bowels the sacred food offered 
to deceased ancestors, into a pail of silver.—The Nagas or serpentine deities of the 
