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INTRODUCTION wind; and the expanse of the beach was lashed by the waters, swollen by the streams of rays from the mountain that was the moon (2.34).' The gravitational effect of the moon on the sea is described with the aid of an abstract simile : The sea surged when the moonlight came, bringing joy by its cherished presence, and calmed down when it was gone; just as passion is strong at the advent of youth, delightful with the company of the beloved, and loses its turbulence when youth has passed (2.20).
Sunset, the oncoming darkness and moonrise form the subject of a large number of verses in Canto 10. The play of moonlight on the shifting shadows is described with an observing eye. With the darkness vanishing like a rainy day, the partly distinct woods, with lovely foliage, seemed to be dripping as the moonbeams came scattered through the branches (10.44). The trees, hemmed in by the lunar rays, and rocked at the top by the wind, with the shadows wavering on account of the branches moving to and fro, seemed to swim as they swayed in the current of moonlight (10.51). The mournful plight of a pair of Cakravāka birds supposed to separate in the evening is feelingly portrayed in Setu 10.24, and their reunion in the description of the morning scene at the beginning of Canto 12 (v.9). This is a recurrent theme in later Kāvya poetry.
: The lengthy description of the Suvela mountain in Canto 9 is often marred by exaggerated conceits and fanciful imagery. From a literary point of view, there could be no greater contrast than between Kalidasa's picture of the Himālaya in the Kumarasambhava and Pravarasena's portrayal of he Suvela in the Setubandha. It redounds to the credit of Kālidāsa that he steered clear of the artificialities that had begun to appear in the literature of the age. Nevertheless Pravarasena's description of
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| SR No. | 001384 |
| Book Title | Setubandha |
| 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 |