Gaudavaho

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

Page 420

Moon-rise
123
1101. The other (western ) direction, full of bright light (sāloa) with the sun's rays now lingering in straight lines ( rehāvasesa ) and thus building up (at intervals, criss-cross ) massive patterns of columns, looks like a huge latticed window (jālāai) of the Universe-Palace.
1102. The thick mass of darkness, dark-blue both on the (upper ) surface in the sky and on the (lower ) surface of the earth, but interjected in the middle by the remnant of twilighty rolls and reels, rosy-coloured (pādala ) like the trunk of a Kharjūra tree.
1103. Over the directions, the line of smoke, full with clusters of female fish ( sahari) in the form of stars, appears like the stream of the river ) Yamunā, who has started going back, as it were, impetuously in her excitement, while attempting to fall on (the lap of her father ) the sun.
1104. The quarters, filled with the gradually developing, coiling columns of darkness, meet ( one another ), the guardian elephants (of each ) coming out into view because of their proximity
1105. (It appears that) some one digs up the moon's orb, observed to be the bulbous root of the dark-red creeper of darkness, which has now sprouted up.
1106. The directions, darkened by dusk at the end of the day, gather to-gether, as it were, drawn by their curiosity ( to hear the life-story of the King (soon) to be narrated.
1107. Even elevated tracts, with very little light left over them and with their surfaces (appearing) depressed, when enveloped by the tufts of darkness emerging (üsasia) from the caverns (roundabout ), having been thickly massed up (inside ), give the doubt (and the illusion of their being ) valleys.
1108. The moonshine, cut up in between by the interspersion (nivesa ) of the evening) shadows, spreads falteringly (gholai), its path made variegated, as it were, by the dark lustre projecting in conformity ( anusāra ) with (the size of) the black spot (on the moon ).
1109. The sky, at nights, looks torn and tattered ( jajjara ) by the long passage of time, appearing like the outer shell of Brahmā’s (primordial) egg, its bowl-shaped interior now cracked and porous, (the minute holes appearing) in (the guise of stars ).