Setubandha

SR No.: 001384
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1976
Total Pages: 812
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English & Literature
File Size: 14 MB

Page 231

70
SETUBANDHA
faced destruction, that was the grieyous result of Sita's tearful looks while she was carried off by the insolent lord of the demons.35
60. The spreading masses of gems, the best of the jewels, were reduced to dust, crushed by the rocks of the mountains in the depths of the sea; and the expanse of the sky, decked with unfaded clouds, was thronged with rows of swans, girdles, as it were, encircling the woods on the mountains.
61. The nether regions rumbled; the earth cracked; and the clouds were forced down.36 The apes moved about in the sky; the mountains were dropped; and the sea, pounded by the mountains, rolled on the beach for long, racked with pain.
The large and white ornamental pearls, issuing from inside the broken oyster-shells, and stuck in the coral reefs, seemed to be flowery adornment furnished with tender shoots, when they came into contact with the branches of the trees that fell into the
sea.37
62. The pollen of the flowers serving as a banner revealed the woods of the mountains sinking in the sea along with the nymphs; the woods that were crushed by the angry elephants, and unceasingly emitted the rich fragrance of the honey of flowers.
63. The apes brought over the mountains. The sky was spacious enough. The earth, too, surrendered the mountains, and the ocean received them. Yet verily the bottom of the sea was mostly empty.
64-69. Thus did the apes convulse the ocean. The buffaloes were happy to wallow in the mud of the mountains partly dissolving in the waters; the coral-reefs mingled with the trees; and the aquatic animals with those living on land.
The sea lions woke up and yawned, enraged by the smell of the elephants in the woods on the mountains; and the huge
35. i.e., the sufferings of the sea - were due to its indifference to Sītā's silent appeal for help.
36. i.e., came down with the mountains as they dropped on the sea.
37. i.e., in contact with the branches, the pearls looked like flowers, with the corals looking like rosy young shoots.