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Cutting of Mountain-Wings
17
145. The thunderbolt would not leave even those mountains which dropped (themselves ) in the sea, although their long downward descent had not yet completed and (hence ) their peaks were to be seen stretched far ( and high ) in the sky.
146. Only one mountain, however, could (successfully) submerge, without its slopes, base and top being seen (Thikka) in the high-mounting waves of the ocean, as in the ocean itself.
147. One would imagine that it was not the mountain that (entered) the ocean, but the ocean itself entered the mountain in impetuous haste, flooding in to roll ( leisurely ) inside (the region of) its valleys and caves, as huge as the interior of the nether world.
148. The earth quakes, shaken by the seas agitated by mountains, its shoulders thrashed by the excited quarter-elephants, and thus made to oscillate by the mountains wriggling in agony.
149. Mountains move on, as if escorted by the seas, although they had not reached them, hidden from view, as they (mountains ) were, by their own ) rivers flowing on their slopes and tossed up by the violence of speed.
150. The dense, smoky mass rarefies, its vast extent at the base made thin by falling rocks which cover it up (chhavvia) and the slow ( rising ) flames being cut off.
151. These very mountains, tossing up a mass of dust and shaking off big chunks of their caves and valleys, became lighter, as they were shattered (into pieces) on account of their fall.
152. The mountains languish (in pain ) on one side, (pierced ) by the rankling splinters of the thunderbolt's sharp edge, while on their other side, they had their wounds healed up by the potency of the medicinal herbs (growing) on their ridges.
153. Not against one single mountain even was the thunderbolt seen to fail or falter. The whole cluster of mountains was (simply) boiled up ( attai) like one hill-top.
154. The mountains, having all the blazing fires of the World's Destruction concentrated in the trap of their folding wings, were extinguished only at the time of the Deluge, when they were inundated by the oceans' tidal floods.
G. 2
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