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Notes
173
not exist at all. For those who are all the time inside the caves, and have never gone out, the feeling is that there is no such thing as the mountain Vindhya !
282. The mountain has many lofty ridges with as many huge caves burrowed underneath. The Poet fancies that the mountain was fashioned by God, utilising two substances as material, viz. half of the earth and half of ether (TT-31779). Ether or Ākāśa was used to make the insides of caves and the earth was used for manufacturing the outer covering of caves and high ridges (4537). Having thus made the Vindhya mountain, it was placed (fract) in the intervening space (31TT) of the earth down below and the sky up above.
283. The mountain-peaks have gone up and pierced the sky in various places, while the sky too, viz. ether has penetrated and pervaded the caves situated at different places on the mountain. The Poet imagines that the surfaces (3068TT) of the earth are secured firm, as it were, with the surfaces of the sky by joining them to-gether by means of nails ( 37-furca). The Poet seems to believe that the sky or ether is some substantial, thin and rarified material, which could be fastened with nails inside the solid earth.
284. tefuriare -'Thick-growing ?.
Now the King goes over to the temple of the mountain goddess, Vindhya-Vāsini and offers his homage to her in a hymn of 53 Gathās ( 285-337) forming a Kulaka.
286. The foot-stool on which she rests her foot, is the head of Mahisāsura and is tinged red by the rays of her toe-nails. The Poet imagines that to be a block of snow donated by her father to assist ( HTË FET) her to ascend.
287. The rows of bees, hovering in the court-yard (BTFETT) of the temple, are fancied to be the chains of worldly life disentangled (377153) from creatures, as soon as they offered just a prayer (FÀTT) to the Goddess.
288. Mere recollection (470) of the Goddess puts to rout clusters of elephants, as if by the roar of the Lion serving as her vehicle. The Goddess is supposed to ride a lion.
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