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SETUBANDHA
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52. While the sylvan deities fled from the .creepers in fear when a mountain was violently uprooted, even their fresh blossoms dropped, and the young shoots withered, even though the stems were unhurt.
53. The earth seemed to disappear in a moment in the regions in which all the mountains were uprooted. Twin walls appeared to be built in the sky with the mountains;43 and the clouds, the crest of the creepers that were the regions of the sky, dropped in increasing abundance.44
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54. As each of the apes lifted up a mountain, held fast with his hands, the sky seemed to be half-hidden, and the depths of the earth seemed to be half-revealed.
55. Portions of the earth, held together by the mighty serpents,45 rose aloft, adhering to the slopes of the (uprooted) mountains, with sections of the river banks46 revealed by the tenuous flow of the streams.47
56. An intrepid herd of elephants dispersed, being rocked by a mountain, with the caves rocking;48 and the peaks of (other) mountains, moist with melting orpiment, inclined unsteadily when they were bent by the apes, thumping with the flat of the hand.
57. Rising from the top of the trees (on the mountains), and scattered by the force of the wind blowing from the Malaya woods, the pollen of the flowers pervaded the sky like the evening glow, obscuring the rays of the sun.
58. As the mountains were hemmed in by the slush, rising from the nether regions, and thickly accumulating at their uprooted
43. See Kulanatha in Extracts. The huge apes at the foot of the uprooted mountains constituted one wall, and the mountains the other. Madhava offers a simpler explanation: the (uprooted) mountains scattered the broken fragments of the Sallaki trees.
44. i.e., the clouds, scattered by the peaks of the mountains while they were lifted up, seemed to drop in masses.
45. The serpents supposed to bear the weight of the earth. See verse 19. 46. Or, 'the indentations in the banks' caused by current and weather. 47. i.e., large masses of earth came up with the uprooted mountains together with portions of the streams cut off from their course.
48. The elephants had taken shelter in the caves during the uprooting.
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