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SETUBANDHA
80. The Suvela, with its foundations reaching into the nether regions, and its streams incessantly flowing, fitted in with the forepart of the bridge of mountains, even standing where it stood 50
82
81. The lord of the apes (Sugrīva), even though he was on the summit of the Malaya, standing beside Rāma, knew from the jubilation of the apes that the causeway was completed with the last of the mountains.
82. The selfsame sea appeared to be different now and again. When Nala's Way was begun, it looked entire; when it was partly erected, the sea was divided unequally into three parts;51 and when it was complete, it was divided in twain.
83. The massive causeway, starting from the summit of the Malaya, and weighed down by the passing apes, was supported as it rocked by the Suvela, like as a falling tree is supported by another tree.52
84. With the eastern and western regions divided by the great causeway, the sky seemed to be raised up in the middle and uneven, inclining with both sides sloping downwards.53
85. Stretching across the waters of the sea resembling the sky, the causeway, joined to the Malaya and the Suvela, was clearly visible, like the track of the Sun's chariot extending from the mount of Sunrise to that of Sunset.
86. With the great mountain peaks resting on the bosom of the sea,54 rocked by the wind, the causeway looked like a floating mountain with its wide-spread wings.55
50. i.e., the Suvela became the last mountain of the causeway on the southern shore.
51. i.e. the two sides of the causeway and the open front.
52. The causeway extended from the Malaya mountain on the northern shore to the Suvela in Lanka.
53. The sky is likened to a pavilion with the eastern and western regions looking like sloping roofs, with the bridge of mountains standing in the middle like a row of pillars.
54. i.e., reflected in the sea.
55. The reflections of the mountain peaks on both sides of the causeway are likened to the legendary wings of the mountains that took refuge in the sea. See 5.37.
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