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No. 25.]
water thrown up by the waves of the holy river Gangå (that flows through the coils of his hair); which has for fresh sprouts his dangling matted hair; which has as its growing fruit the ambrosia-rayed moon (on his forehead); which is pleasing with boughs that are his arms; and which is embraced by a creeper that is the goddess Gauri (Pârvati),-give to Rama,1 in particular, with perpetual activity, an abundance of such fruits as are longed for by a petitioner! May Srikantha (Siva), who is Isa (in the form of) Vira-Sômêsa, surrounded by all the Ganas, who is adorned by feet in which there are set here and there the numerous crimson rays of the clusters of the jewels in all the tiaras of the multitude of the gods; who is the best of the immortals; and who is the abode of the splendour of the rays of the glances of (Pârvati) the daughter of (Himalaya) the lord of the mountain of cold, always confer good fortune upon Ramadeva, upon him who is of unequalled greatness !
INSCRIPTIONS AT ABLUR.
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(Line 5)- Round about it (namely Jambudvipa) is the ocean, which is met by banks of clouds that are the trunks, blowing out spouts of water, of numerous herds of elephants which agitate the waters by the blows of the tips of their tails that are as efficient in doing so as the shoals of great fish which fall out from the mouths of the fierce monsters of the sea that glide to and fro; from which there rise the rays of many jewels and the lustre of large pearls; which has lines of mountains on its shores; and which is enclosed by the broad hips of the woman who is the Earth. And there, on the south of Jambudvipa, which is girt about by the salt ocean which is thus beautiful as being the abode of numerous marine animals and the place of very high waves, among all the Nila, Nishadha, and Himalaya mountains, the cold mountain (Himalaya),- which has vast glens for rest after the fatigue of the great dalliance of love of the crowd of the daughters of the Siddhas; which is full of rows and rings of huge rocks falling down from the many piles of mountains that are pounded by the torrent of the waters of (the Mandakini) the river of heaven; and which is irradiated by the mass of the tremulous lustre of the cold-rayed moon,-is beautiful with a length stretched out so as to measure the eastern and the western oceans.
(L. 10)-In the land of Bharatavarsha, which lies on the southern flank of that same Himalaya, the king of mountains, there shines, with exceedingly great comeliness, the country of Kuntala; and there there is beautiful the city that is called Alande, full of grace and splendour, and ever esteemed to altogether surpass Amaravati (the city of the gods) with learned people and with a countless wealth of cattle and grain and water. Moreover:-As is well known, in Amaravati there are Sukêsi and Mañjughôshe, these two; but in that town there is a whole multitude of women, all of them with beautiful hair and sweet voices. It is charming with various plantations of sweet-smelling rice, with parks and gardens which are
1 I.e. to the Ramayya, or Ekantada-Ramayya, who is the subject of the record. In the next verse he is mentioned as Ramadeva. He is called simply Rama again in lines 41, 42, 43, 99, 101.
The Ganas are the attendants of Siva. Mention is made of them again in lines 21 to 23, below. The leader of them was Narada (line 22); and some of them were deceased or translated Saiva saints, who are named in the same passage.
According to Monier-Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary, Nila or Niladri "the blue mountain," is "one of the principal ranges of mountains dividing the world into nine portions and lying immediately north of Ilâvrits or the central division," and Nishadha is a similar range "lying immediately south of Ilavrita and north of the Himalaya."
Compare the opening verse of the Kumdrasambhava, which describes Himalaya as reaching to the eastern and the western oceans, as if it were the measuring-rod of the earth.
These are two of the nymphs of paradise; for the first name, see Kittel's Dictionary. The verse contains a play on the meanings of their names.
Gandha-édli is explained in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary as a sweet-smelling kind of rice. He also gives mahd-ádli, 'a kind of large and sweet-smelling rice.' And Hiuen Tsiang mentions the "Mahdidli-rice; this rice is as large as the black bean, and when cooked is aromatic and shining, like no other rice at all; it grows only in Magadha, and nowhere else; it is offered only to the king or to religious persons of great distinction, and hence the name rice offered to the great house-holder," (Life, p. 109; see also Records, Vol. II. p. 88, where it is called "the rice for the use of the great"). The gandha-idli is mentioned again in G. below, line 4, and also in one of the Managôli inscriptions (page 30 above, line 13).
