That is, the male and female of the Chakravaka, commonly called Chakwa and Chakwi, or Brahmani duck (Anas casarca).  These birds associate together during the day, and are, like turtle-doves, patterns of connubial affection; but the legend is, that they are doomed to pass the night apart, in consequence of a curse pronounced upon them by a saint whom they had offended.  As soon as night commences, they take up their station on the opposite banks of a river, and call to each other in piteous cries.  The Bengalis consider their flesh to be a good medicine for fever.

57. The great sage Durvasas.

A Saint or Muni, represented by the Hindu poets as excessively choleric and inexorably severe.  The Puranas and other poems contain frequent accounts of the terrible effects of his imprecations on various occasions, the slightest offence being in his eyes deserving of the most fearful punishment.  On one occasion he cursed Indra, merely because his elephant let fall a garland he had given to this god; and in consequence of this imprecation all plants withered, men ceased to sacrifice, and the gods were overcome in their wars with the demons.

58. Propitiatory offering.

Compare note 25.

59. His blushing charioteer.

Compare note 11.

60. Night-loving lotus.

Some species of the lotus, especially the white esculent kind, open their petals during the night, and close them during the day, whence the moon is often called the ’lover, or lord of the lotuses.’

61. The very centre of the sacred fire.

Fire was an important object of veneration with the Hindus, as with the ancient Persians.  Perhaps the chief worship recognized in the Vedas is that of Fire and the Sun.  The holy fire was deposited in a hallowed part of the house, or in a sacred building, and kept perpetually burning.  Every morning and evening, oblations were offered to it by dropping clarified butter and other substances into the flame, accompanied with prayers and invocations.

62. As in the sacred tree the mystic fire.

Literally, ‘as the [S’]ami-tree is pregnant with fire.’  The legend is, that the goddess Parvati, being one day under the influence of love, reposed on a trunk of this tree, whereby a sympathetic warmth was generated in the pith or interior of the wood, which ever after broke into a sacred flame on the slightest attrition.

63 Hastinapur.

The ancient Delhi, situated on the Ganges, and the capital of Dushyanta.  Its site is about fifty miles from the modern Delhi, which is on the Jumna,

64 E’en as Yayati [S’]armishtha adored,

[S’]armishtha was the daughter of Vrishaparvan, king of the demons, and wife of Yayati, son of Nahusha, one of the princes of the Lunar dynasty, and ancestor of Dushyanta.  Puru was the son of Yayati, by [S’]armishtha.