Gaudavaho

Author(s): Vakpatiraj, Narhari Govind Suru, P L Vaidya, A N Upadhye, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 41

(xxiv) shadows and paths on the forest outskirts (echo) the songs of cow-herdesses ( Gopīs) returning from cities " (644). The moon, shedding off the rising glow, his rays now yellowish like an old piece of ivory, looks beautiful, as his orb rests on the mountain-peak” (646). “At the time of the first shower of rain, water (in different pools), which becomes cool at the surface but (hot down below) because of its retention over heated grounds, is drunk by the forest deer, touching their mouths just a bit (hesitatingly) to the surface of the water” (649). Desolation of Enemies' Cities : • Having fully satiated himself with his, ramblings in the various lovely spots of nature over wide areas of lands, the Poet resumes his task with a graphic description of the sad, lamentable conditions of desolation to which the homes, cities and territories of the kings, who joined Yašovarman in his expedition, were reduced. He devotes 30 Gāthās (659-688) to this description, for which he, perhaps, has a parallel in a similar description of the city of Ayodhyā, given by Kālidāsa in R. V. XVI. “The interior halls of houses, with their roofs demolished and their walls sloping outwards, now look like dry, big wells" (662). “In the parks, the swings underneath the trees have their ropes snapped and the remnant parts are tied in knots and left over their boughs, where the grass grown, has become thin and old” (669). “The structural monuments of past kings have collapsed and are now reduced to fine reddish dust, their existence now to be inferred from old reptiles crawling about " (670). “The premises of houses cause distress, when it is observed that their palms and date-trees are despoiled and left bare by people in their greed for fruits and foliage, while the old, water-drawing wheels on the wells have their iron-bars