________________
314
mistaking them (to mean that he had not defeated another hero), filled with hidden rage, he impetuously assailed the lord of Gauda, put down the prince of Kamarapa, and defeated the Kalinga.
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(V. 21.) "You seem to consider yourself a hero, Nanya." "Why do you boast of yourself, here, Raghava ?" "Give up your rivalry, Vardhana!" "Has your pride not yet come to an end, Vira ?"-Such mutual bickering, which went on day and night among the kings (imprisoned by him), lightened to the watchmen of his prison-houses the weary task of keeping off sleep.
(22.) The moon's crescent shines (on Siva's head) as if it were a boat, stuck fast in the mud formed by the ashes in the water of the river on Bharga's" crest and abandoned there, when (the king's) fleet in its playful conquest of the western regions was sailing up the whole course of the Ganges.
(28.) Through his favour the Brahmans versed in the Vedas enjoy so much wealth that their wives are taught by the wives of the towns-people (the knowledge of pearls with cotton-seed, (e) emeralds with grass-leaves, (e) silver-pieces with gourd-flowers, (of) jewels with the ripened contents of pomegranates, (and of) gold with the blooming flowers of kushmandi creepers."
(24.) His doing it was that Virtue, though in the course of time she had become one-legged," was walking about on earth, by nimbly leaning on the rows of posts of the sacrifices which he never was tired of offering.
(25.) Engaged in sacrifices, he called down the immortals from Meru, the slopes of which were crowded with the enemies slain by him, and thus made the inhabitants of heaven and earth to change places; and building lofty temples and digging extensive lakes, he made what there was left of heaven and what remained of the earth" to appear the one like the other.
(26) That ruler of the earth built a high temple of Pradyumnesvars, the ground-part of which takes up the several quarters, while its middle is clad by the great sea of heaven; (a temple which is) the midday mountain of the sun who at his rising and setting touches the eastern and western mountains, (which is) the one column of support of the house of the three worlds, (and) the unique representative of all mountains.
(27.) Since the path of thy horses is obstructed already by this edifice, it is useless, O sun, to keep the sage (Agastya) still an inhabitant of a corner of the southern quarter. Let him give up his compact" and proceed to other quarters, and let the Vindhya rise as much as it may! It never will cross the path of this temple.
(28.) When the creator shall fashion a jar, using the earth as a wheel and turning on it, like a lump of clay, the Sumeru, then the result will be something to which one may compare the golden cupola, placed by the (king) on this (temple).
I. e. Biva's.
I understand this verse to mean that the wives of the Brotriyas, suddenly become rich in pearls, emeralds, etc., of which they had no knowledge before, had to be told by the wives of the townspeople, that the things looking like cotton-seeds were, pearls, etc.
As she is represented to be in the Kali-age. Compare Journal Amer. Or. Soc., vol. VII, p. 26, verse 10. Earth and heaven had their size reduced, the one by extensive lakes, and the other by the tops of temples which reached to and filled as it were part of the sky.
Vis. the compact by which the Vindhya mountain, which had prostrated itself before Agastya, was to remain in that position, so long as the sage should stay in the south. Bee e.g. 8. P. Papdit's note on Raghuvashia, vi, 61.