Gaudavaho

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

Page 463

Gaüḍavaho
226. The upward flight of the mountains was slowed down by their deep and hollow caves, being filled with wind like sacks and their peaks became thickly covered (fer) with trees. whose branches spread out as a result of the velocity of stormy winds.
166
227. At higher altitudes the mountains come in line with stars which illumine their wide cave-mouths. Their flight is uneven and unsteady (fag), because of winds, differing in speed and intensity of the wings of many mountains, flying side by side.
228. The mountain Himalaya, in his graceful flight, discharged snow-showers. As a result, the people began to shiver (as), as the season of winter came over them, all of a sudden (3).
229. For people down on the earth, the mountains blocked the view of the sky as they went up in flight. At high attitudes, when the sky roundabout was cleared for view, they i.e. the mountains looked small in comparison with the vast sky. Thus the sky () looked small at the bottom and wide and vast at the top.
230. Mountains, looking big down bellow, appear conspicuously small at great heights; in fact, they lose their big forms, looking like specks of dust. The rivulets, showering their spray prominently visible at low altitude, are lost sight of midway, when mountains have reached greater heights.
232. The Poets' keen observation. He describes how when the big mountain lifts itself in the air, its shadow down below is quite thick, dense and almost of the size and shape of the base of the mountain. As the mountain goes up and up, the same shadow goes on withdrawing inwards from all its sides ( पासोसरंत ) until at last, gradually, it gets diminished to a very small size (H), formed and shaped, as it becomes on the way, according to its base (fear). The clipped wings of the mountains obstructed on the way the streams of ichor (दाणोज्झर ), flowing from the temples of Quarter-elephants. As a result, the ichor began to flow down now from the wings of the mountains.
Dig-Gajas are elephants who protect the eight points of the compass, or the extremities of directions. They are eight in