340 The Birth of Uma— (Joxy, . 
11. 
His steep defiles climbing, with petrified snows 
Heap’d up, shooting aches through the strain’d heels and toes,— 
The dames of Heaven’s horse-headed quire, in array, 
To high upper regions pursue their slow way: 
nee eee eee eee ee een 
Were it an ancient author of the western world who thus enumerated the cave- 
illuminating herbs among the wonders of Himalaya,—we should have little hesita- 
tion in referring his story to the phenomenon of the fire-fly, presenting to the eye of 
an unobservant stranger the appearance of sparks inherent in the trees or shrubs 
on which those insects play. But this origin can scarcely be ascribed with any 
probability to the existence of such a belief among the Hindus, to whom every thing 
regarding the @qra or fire-fly is most familiar : and its mention in this manner 
can only be accounted for by the disposition which characterizes them beyond all 
other people, not only to admit the customary occurrence of prodigies, (as more 
enlightened nations have been prone to do,) but to cease to consider them as such, 
and to class them among the most familiar objects of their daily experience. 
I should add, however, that this particular belief, founded wholly on the Tan- 
tras, is one not commonly adduced in Hindu poetry : except in these instances of 
Calid4sa’s present work, and one in the Sisupdla-badha of the poet Magha, 
I am not aware of its occurrence, nor do I think it has attracted the notice of any 
European scholar. The jydtismati or luminous plant, which as was observed in 
St. 2, is mentioned by some as pre-eminent among the herbs divinely given to Hi- 
mAlaya, is one of the most common of Indian plants, the heart-pea (so called from 
the shape of its fruit), or halicacabum cardiospermum: and notwithstanding its 
name in Sanscrit, together with 18 others of which several are equally splendid in 
import, found in the Amara Césha and other vocabularies, it has no properly 
luminous or blazing quality ascribed to it by any of those respectable authorities. 
And if we inquire concerning the most ‘‘sparkling”’ of Himalaya’s medicinal herbs 
according to the scholiast on St. 2, I mean the magic Visalya-arant, which was 
sought to restore life to the slain brother of Rama himself, we find in the Lanca- 
kanda, § 80, the monkey warrior Suséna, in his minute directions given to his 
chief Hanuman, (that he might recover it from the millions of Gandharvas, Raxasas, 
and others who jealously watched it,)—describing indeed its yellow leaves, green 
fruit, its red and golden flowers, &c.,—but not aword of any WTA or tluminat- 
ang property. 
Ibid. To spirits that rove, &c.—The English word spirit will rather be un- 
derstood of a superhuman being, than of the spirit of a man: and indeed I am 
rather anxious for an interpretation which European taste requires, in order to give 
dignity to a circumstance like this, when introduced in connexion with the mysteri- 
ous and supernatural fires that light up the caverns of HimAlaya. The truth, 
however, must be told in the note, whether such management in the text be excus- 
able or not: viz. that the aaa: or “ forest-rovers’’ here mentioned were 
doubtless, in the mind of CAlid4sa as well as of his Indian commentators, mere men ; 
1, €. facraey: the Cirrhadz and other troglodytes of these mountains. 
St. 11. Heaven’s horse-headed quire.—Amongst the bizarreries of Hindu mytholo- 
gy, is that of giving the heads of horses to the heavenly musicians, who are thence 
