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44
SETUBANDHA
54. The mace-like tusks of the sea elephants, carrying aloft the animals pierced by them, flew in pieces, being severed (by the arrows) and flung up by the waves), and lightly struck the billows resembling mountain slopes.
55. The fish, dazed by the glare of the flames, their eyes hurt and reddened by the smoke, shunned the coral reefs38 as they went astray, wandering through the waves.
56. The (dead) serpents, floating on the waters, their white bellies turned upwards, and the withered twin tongues slightly protruding, filled the wide gaps between the massive waves.
57. The sea elephants were seen partly emerging from the waters, with the flow of their ichor heated and dried up by the flames, and their heads cruelly torn by the claws of the sea lions.
58. The conches, helpless in the dwindling waters, and anxious to go ashore, tumbled about on the rugged gem rocks as they moved back and forth.
59. The mountains, abandoning the bosom of the sea, and fiving aloft in confusion, stirred up the flames lingering on each other's peaks with the flutter of their wings.39
60. The roaring waters of the nether regions issued forth, terrible with the severed heads of the demons emerging with them; with the helpless serpents turned upside-down, and the gems cast up from the bottom.
61. Raised aloft by the impact of the arrows, the waves, assailed by the flames, and breaking into foam, dried up in the sky, being scattered and thinned by the wind.
62. Washed up 40 by the lofty billows, the totally overturned serpents, loth to drag themselves along, crawled as they spurted jets of poison.
63. As the rivers fell into the sea, with loud wailings as it were, their waves quivered, as if they were their hands caressing
38. Because they mistook them for fire. 39. See verses 37 and 51. 40. Lit slipping off....
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