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SETUBANDHA
9 massive banks (crumbling under the weight), and were emptied of the waters, which poured into the cracking low lands.
59. They reached the Malaya as they smashed the sandal trees and made the ground tremble.48 Cool amidst the thickets, it appeared to be asleep, with the creepers green on account of constant rain, and the region free from forest fires because of the clouds.
60. They beheld the marks left by the coils of huge serpents on the sandal trees, with their slough clinging to them; marks that looked like the imprint of creepers, torn off and untwined.
61. They resorted to the mountain streams, touched by the sandal tree branches, growing luxuriant on the banks, and bowed down with their own weight; (streams) redolent with the ichor of wild elephants (sporting in the waters), and bordered by paths glistening with lovely grass.
62. They, then, reached the seashore, with the leafy Bakula trees, and the fresh cardamom plants with pollen fragrant like the ichor of elephants, and the pearls, partly released49 by the immature oyster shells, and hidden in the waters.
63. Blue with blossoming Tamala trees, and fragrant with groves of cardamom plants in full bloom, the seashore seemed to be a streak of ichor of the mighty elephant, the ocean, 50 touched ever and anon by it's agile trunk, the waves. • 64. The Shore, the mistress of the Sea, seemed to bear the imprint left by him when he enjoyed with her the pleasures of love. The foam was the ornamental paint of the limbs rubbed off at places; the corals were the bites (tinged with red) that lent charm to the face; and the flowers of the woods, crushed (by the waves), were the flowers of her ruffled hair. 51
65. With closed eyes in the shape of the oyster shells, the shore seemed to be listening to the melody of the songs of the Kinnaras, conforming to diverse musical modes, as it echoed through the groves of creepers.
48. Cf. Kulanátha in Extracts. 49. Lit. shown.
50. The ichor of an elephant is supposed to have a smell like that of cardamom. See the preceding verse.
51. The imagery is based on velä (seashore) being a feminine noun. S. 2
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