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8
SETUBANDHA
50. When he moved, the host of apes, too, began to move, bright with their flowing mane, and flashing like the rays of the sun as they spread out on all sides.
51. The multitude of apes swelled as they followed close one on the other. Kindled by the fuel45 of hatred, and stirred by the gale of wrath, and roaring, it was a forest fire to consume Lanka for a woodland.
52. Surrounded by the apes, resplendent with their agile mane, Rāma advanced like the ocean (of the epoch of destruction), thronged with mountains blown over (by gales) from all sides, and lit up by the fire of universal ruin.46
53. The spotless regions of the sky, revealed by the brilliant sun, reeled in his mind, clouded with grief, even though the path ahead was manifest to it.
54. He saw the Vindhya, capable of standing the pressure of the bow-shaped sea, as if it were the powerful string of the bow attached to both ends, with the rivers joined to it as arrows.47
55. The Vindhya could not endure even the leisurely march of the apes, which levelled the expanse of its peaks, and laid bare its lofty sides by destroying the woods on the slopes, and filled the caves (with the broken trees).
56. They reached the Sahya, with the clouds tinged with diverse hues as they rested upon its mineral rocks drenched with their spray; with the wine-like fragrance of Bakula flowers issuing from the mouths of the caves, laughing with the brooks.
57. They passed on as they looked at the rivers, which, with the white clouds reflected in the waters, seemed to dash over rugged masses of clear crystal rocks.
58. Large streams looked like broad well-beaten paths at the heavy tread (of the multitude), because they filled up with the
45. Lit. fire-sticks (the two pieces of wood used for producing fire by friction).
46. The apes who are represented as giants throughout the poem are likened to the mountains, and their ruddy mane to the blazing fire.
47. The southern sea is fancied as meeting the mountain at the eastern and the western end, like the arch of a bow, and the mountain as the string attached to both ends of the bow.
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