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(xviii)
March across the Marudesa (Marwar): :
From the banks of the Narmadā river, where he encamped for some time in an atmosphere charged with romantic memories of the legendary love of the River ( 465 ), the King goes over to that part of the seashore, where the gods witnessed the miracle of the emergence of the nectar-jar from inside the ocean (470). Having stayed there for a while,' he trudged onward over the dreary paths across the desert of the Marudesa, where great elephants happened to be killed by haughty lions and the water of the small wells was made turbid by his soldiers, crowding over to draw it from them '( 471). The legend of the Sarpa-Satra (Snake Sacrifice) : : He now arrives in the vicinity of the suburbs of the city of Srikantha (Thanesar ) 'where Janamejaya, the descendent of Pandu, performed a serpent-sacrifice in revenge of the murder of his father and he stays there for a long time' ( 484). This episode inspires the Poet to give a graphic description ( 472–483 ) of this sacrifice. Says he, “Strips of sloughs in rows were cast off by the serpents, getting prematurely old through panic, having been afraid of being speedily burnt " ( 475). “The female cobras, trailed by the red glow of jewels on their pink, spread-out hoods, drop themselves in fire, wearing decorations, as it were, in their endeavour to die ( as Sati) soon after their mates ” (479). “ With his belly fully stuffed with coiled clusters of burning snakes, the fire appears to have his circling entrails bloating and wriggling after his feast (on serpents ) ” (481). “The lord of gods (Indra), whose feet are clasped by the king of snakes with his. twisted hoods, trembles in fear, as if mounted on the ladle dispatched to the heaven to bring him down as an
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