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158
SETUBANDHA
71. Hanūmat slew him too, tearing asunder his limbs one by one, and scattering them about; while he destroyed the weapons confidently brought down by the demon on his proflered breast.
72. Thereafter ordered by Rāvana to fight, Prahasta, who had escaped from a trial of strength with Hanūmat in single combat, chanced to come face to face with Nila,29 who was unhappy because he had not had the pleasure of fighting.
73. Thereupon as Nīla rushed at Prahasta an iron arrow, discharged by the latter, hit the former's bosom, and was marked by the blood spurting out from the wound.
74. The ape, too, hurled at Prahasta a Kalpa tree, fragrant with the ichor of the celestial elephants that rubbed their shoulders against it; with the bees following in its wake, and the branches bent back by the speed, and the scarves streaming backwards (in the wind).30
75. All along the track of the tree as it came pearls dropped from the swaying branches, resembling drops of rain from a passing cloud.
76. "The tree, hurled by Nila's arms, crashed on Prahasta's bosom, filling the wounds with pearls; while the flow of blood caused by the impact was absorbed by the white scarves slipping off the broken branches.31
77. The ape evaded Prahasta's arrows, and covered the sky with trees all at once; while at the same time the boulders hurled by him appeared in the four quarters of the sky.
78. The regions of the sky were seen to fill with crumbling boulders split by the arrows, and falling fragments of severed trees, and cascades cut off from the mountains riven asunder.32
79. Nīla appeared in the sky, with his body coloured by the dust of the red earth of the mountains (hurled by him), and the
29. One of the leaders of the apes.
30. Cf. 9.25 and 82 where white scarves are described as hanging from the Kalpa creepers, explained as branches of the all-giving Kalpa trees.
31. See verse 74.
32. The verse describes how the trees, stones and mountains hurled by Nīla were cut up by Prahasta's arrows.
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