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236
KALPA SOTRA.
9. Then she saw a full vase of costly metal", splendent with fine gold, filled with pure water, excellent, of brilliant beauty, and shining with a bouquet of water lilies. It united many excellencies and all-auspicious marks, and stood on a lotus(shaped foot), shining with excellent jewels?. It delighted the eyes, glittered and illumined all about; it was the abode of happy Fortune, free from all faults, fine, splendid, exquisitely beautiful, entwined with a wreath of fragrant flowers of all seasons. (41)
10. Then she saw a lake, called Lotus Lake, adorned with water lilies. Its yellow water was perfumed by lotuses opening in the rays of the morning sun; it abounded with swarms of aquatic animals, and fed fishes. It was large, and seemed to burn through the wide-spreading, glorious beauty of all kinds of lotuses 3. Its shape and beauty were pleasing. The lotuses in it were licked by whole swarms of gay bees and mad drones. Pairs of swans, cranes, Kakravâkas, ducks, Indian cranes, and many other lusty birds resorted to its waters, and on the leaves of its lotuses sparkled water-drops like pearls4. It was a sight, pleasing to the heart and the eye. (42)
11. Then she whose face was splendid like the
The original has raya ya, silver, but as the commentary remárks, this would be in conflict with the epithet which we have put next, but which, in the original, is separated from it by many lines. Unless the author has blundered, which from his vague style seems far from impossible, the word must here have a more indefinite meaning than it usually has.
* This passage may also be translated : standing on a lotus filled with pollen, of excellent workmanship.
• Specialised in the text as kamula, kuvalaya, utpala, tâmarasa, and pundarîka.
According to the commentary; the textus receptus is, many water-drops.
