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the impending sacrifice.
Careful not to frighten the young persons, the guards told them in a friendly manner that a great teacher, who had been apprised of their arrival, was waiting to see them in the temple. The frightful appearance of the guards, however, betrayed their real purpose; and the boy and the girl, resigning themselves to their fate, followed them to the temple of the goddess.
The temple of Chandamundi presented a strange spectacle, being full of the victims of all kinds brought there for sacrifice, and held fast by armed guards resembling the attendants of Siva. There could be seen sheep, buffaloes, camels, elephants, and horses frightened by the halfbrandished swords of the keepers. There were aquatic animals like crocodiles, alligators, frogs, crabs, tortoises, and fish, all trembling with fear at the sight of the spirits waiting to drink their blood. The keepers were at pains to hold together the numerous birds, scared by the movements of the circular sacrificial blade of the sword and the other victims that were there such as antelopes, tigers, lions, wolves, boars, and apes. The mass slaughter of the animals was to take place after the king had sacrificed the first victims.
The young ascetics saw before them the grim figure of Māradatta. Standing on the floor of the temple, with drawn sword, he looked like a mountain in the middle of a river, with a serpent with raised hood on its slope. The king 'seemed to be aflame with his valor flaring up in his inner being' which would burn everything with his angry look. He was extremely ferocious like an angry, venomous serpent and seemed to consume everything with the fury of his deportment. The appearance and character of the goddess Chandamundi was still more terrible.
The young ascetics whose minds were bent on the highest beatitude were not in the least afraid of the danger before them, and never lost their balance and composure when ushered into the presence of the king in the grim setting of the temple. They encouraged each other to be firm and resolute, scorn death, and regard salvation as the highest object of human endeavor. Māradatta's heart softened at the sight of the tender boy and the girl; and although he could not recognize
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