The story of this monarch is told in the Ramayana.  He is there described as a just and pious prince of the solar race, who aspired to celebrate a great sacrifice, hoping thereby to ascend to heaven in his mortal body.  After various failures he had recourse to Vi[s’]wamitra, who undertook to conduct the sacrifice, and invited all the gods to be present.  They, however, refused to attend; upon which the enraged Vi[s’]wamitra, by his own power, transported Tri[s’]anku to the skies, whither he had no sooner arrived than he was hurled down again by Indra and the gods; but being arrested in his downward course by the sage, he remained suspended between heaven and earth, forming a constellation in the southern hemisphere.

45. Ointment of Usira-root.

The root of a fragrant grass (Andropogon muricatum), from which a cooling ointment was made.

46. The very breath of his nostrils.

Compare Lam. iv. 20.  ’The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken.’

47. God of the flowery shafts.

The Hindu Cupid, or god of love (Kama), is armed with a bow made of sugar-cane, the string of which consists of bees.  He has five arrows, each tipped with the blossom of a flower, which pierce the heart through the five senses; and his favourite arrow is pointed with the chita, or mango-flower.

48. E’en now in thy unbodied essence lurks The fire of [S’]iva’s anger.

The story is thus told in the Ramayana.  Kama (Cupid) once approached [S’]iva that he might influence him with love for his wife, Parvati. [S’]iva happened then to be practising austerities, and intent on a vow of chastity.  He therefore cursed the god of love in a terrible voice, and at the same time a flash from his eye caused the god’s body to shrivel into ashes.  Thus Kama was made incorporeal, and from that time was called ’the bodiless one.’

49.
                    Like the flame,
  That ever hidden in the secret depths
  Of ocean, smoulders there unseen.

This submarine fire was called Aurva, from the following fable.  The Rishi Aurva, who had gained great power by his austerities, was pressed by the gods and others to perpetuate his race.  He consented, but warned them that his offspring would consume the world.  Accordingly, he created from his thigh a devouring fire, which, as soon as it was produced, demanded nourishment, and would have destroyed the whole earth, had not Brahma appeared and assigned the ocean as its habitation, and the waves as its food.  The spot where it entered the sea was called ‘the mare’s mouth.’  Doubtless the story was invented to suit the phenomenon of some marine volcano, which may have exhaled through the water bituminous inflammable gas, and which, perhaps in the form of a horse’s mouth, was at times visible above the sea.

50 Who on his ’scutcheon bears the monster-fish.