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Siddhasena Divākara and Vikramāditya
139
year, weak at the end of the day, and his joy in defeating (everything alive on the earth by his heat ) is marred by mad, mad clouds : how can it serve as a comparison with your lustre, O King, which is always in full display and cooling for all who approach you, without distinction ?
(25) Who indeed is he who creates or annihilates a world dependent on destinies? If there is an all-powerful God, was it not in his might to produce being of a higher order108 ? Now-a-days, whenever orator-renown is won, it is for a long time an occasion of grief to ambitious persons ( who ardently desire to gain it, but are every time outshone by your superior rhetorical achievements ). Just as the happiness of this your world ( of disputants ) exists in their desire only, the same is perhaps the case with God (i.e., as the desire of those disputants for fame is frustrated by your superiority, just so God may be prevented from creating a world according to his desires by the law of Karman )!
(26) If the rut (pun: excitement ) of your fighting elephants ( pun : disputants opposing each other ) spends itself on their temples ( pun: in the ganda-type of dialogue ), or if your ambitious ( warriors ) ( forced by long peace to stay inactive ) in the country, have to content themselves with hundreds of desires ( for battle ), or if your ministers are interested only in the patra-racanā ( decorative design drawn with sandal paste, etc.; pun : composition of political documents, or : array of chariots etc. for war ) on the faces of their beloveds : for all this your Fame alone must be made responsible who keeps haunting the minds of your enemies ( so that they do not dare to engage in war with you, and peace remains in the land ).
(27) Though it is still the turn of the era of Kali, you have shaken off its remaining portion, and have led in, without even allowing for the (traditional) break (between the two eras succeeding each other ), this manifestation of the Kệta Era ! ( In view of this authority thus displayed by you, one might ask whether ) the Lord of the Universe is really Maheśvara or Acyuta ( or whether it is not
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