Would make nice betel, with cloves, cardamums,
mace, and nutmegs, for her beloved. "Each produced a daughter fair as
Rukminee; each ten sons, brave sons were they! 161,000 and all alike,
such were the sons of Krishna!"
Such is part of the history of the favourite divinity of the benighted
Hindoo as related in the flowery pages of the "Ocean of Love," and
the history may be, more or less, read in the every-day scenes of
Indian life which pass around one.
The description of Rukminee, strange as it is, corresponds with many
other fair portraits in the Hindee; witness that of "Oonmadinee,"
the daughter of "Rutundutt": -
"Her beauty was like a light in a dark house - her eyes were those
of a deer, her curls like female snakes, her eyebrows like a bow,
her nose like a parrot's, her teeth like a string of pearls, her
lips like the red gourds, her neck like a pigeon's, her waist like
a leopard's, her hands and feet like a soft lotus, her face like the
moon, with the gait of a goose, and the voice of a cuckoo!"
More apparent even than in the earthly nature of the Hindoo's
conception of the Divine attributes, the falsity and the human
origin of his Faith may be seen in the effect it produces wherever
it is allowed to obtain undivided sway.
