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skin-jewel set out, as well as the wonderful umbrellajewel, possessing the power of expanding to the size of the whole royal camp.878 The gem- and the cowriejewels went along, able to destroy darkness, like the sun and moon, by their light. The sword-jewel went: with the King, as shining as if made from the essences of the best weapons of the gods and asuras.
Then the Lord of Bharata, the Cakrabhrt, with the army in cakra-formation went following the cakra on the road, as if following a door-keeper. Everywhere this universal conquest was announced by favorable winds and favorable omens, as if by astrologers. The general, going in advance of the army, smoothed the uneven ground, that was like a ploughed field, with the staff-jewel like a harrow. The sky, cloudy from the dust raised by the army, shone with the pennants of the chariots and elephants that were like cranes. 279 The Cakravartin's army with the rear-guard invisible appeared like a second Gangā, having an unimpeded course everywhere. The chariots by creaking, the horses by neighing, the elephants by roars, hastened each other as if to the business of a conquest-festival. The cavalry's lances shone in the dust dug up by the army as if laughing at the rays of the sun hidden by the dust. The best of kings, advancing surrounded by devoted crowned kings, looked like Sakra with his Sāmānikas.
When it had gone to the end of a yojana;- the cakra stopped, and in accordance with its march the measure of a yojana resulted. Then the King, traveling by marches of a yojana, arrived in a few days at the right bank of the Gangā. The King, reducing the broad sandy beach of the Gangā by numerous, contiguous dwellings, took a rest. Then the earth of the river Mandakini's bank became as muddy from the flowing ichor of the
5. Both the skin and umbrella had this power. 279 51. These are rainy-season birds.
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