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SETUBANDHA
49
the flowers, and the precious gems worn by Gangā, slim as a creeper, were the fruit.
8. Thereafter Gangā, too, overcome with fear, and turning her face aside, fell at Hari's feet, rosy as the day lotus, the very feet from which she had emerged.*
9. The Ocean then uttered words that were cogent though soft in tone; deeply significant though brief; dignified though polite; and outspoken though accompanied with praise.
10. "Somehow have I incurred thy displeasure by maintaining my stability, fortified by my untraversable character, thinking it would please thee, because it was ordained by thyself,5 and sustained by me with unflinching fortitude.
11. "The seasons give the trees flowers in bloom, tinted by pollen, with the humming bees glutted with honey, but do not themselves take them away.
12. 'Have I forgotten that I was destroyed by the fire of the epoch of universal ruin; and was filled by the waters of the Gangā emanating from thy feet;7 and (again) crushed by thee at the time of uplifting the earth?8
13. 'I was crushed by thy feet during thy fight with the demon Madhu,9 and by the thrusts of the tusk of the Primeval Boar at the time of raising the earth;10 and, overcome with grief, thou hast now whelmed me with thy arrows on the eve of slaying Rāvana. 11
4. Rama is identified with Vişņu from whose feet the sacred river is said to have issued.
5. i.e., Rāma as Vişnu. The Ocean maintains that he resisted Rama to preserve his preordained stability.
6. i.e., the stability of the ocean is an irrevocable gift from Rāma himself, considered as Vişnu.
self, C
CE. Withe eartilation oface in the
8. i.e., the earth submerged in the ocean during the deluge. A reference to the Boar incarnation of Vişnu. See 4.22, 39; 5.44.
9. The fight took place in the ocean. 10. See the preceding verse.
11. The Ocean recounts the exploits of Rama as Vişnu, pointing out the cruelty with which he was treated in each of them.
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