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ŚRNGÄRAMAÑJARIKATHÅ
ing with bows and two-three wooden arrows, being controlled by their chiefs who had dark bodies, snub noses, red open eyes, well-built joints of the bodies, beards formed of two-three hairs, knitted eyebrows, shrivelled chins, high cheeckbones, small unpierced ears, curly hairs, and wearing plumages of peacocks; (53) which (forest) though very quiet was doubly causing fear though the reasons for the fear such as, wild beasts on the mossy, slippery stones in the streams flowing from the terrible cavities of the high mountains and the sounds of various birds were not known; which (forest) was presided over by mountain villages at intervals, where the boundaries of the ploughed fields were inferred even from a distance by the delicious odor of the frying of fresh cakes of grains; where the loud crowing of the cocks was heard; where the kodrava pounded by the youthful arrogant wives was inferred by the slow creaking of the machine; where the courtyards of the huts were fragrant with the crushing of cooked barley; on whose dangerous boundaries could be seen some grass huts pleasant with the songs of the women following the rhythm of the pestle while pounding rice; where the settlements which were located near the deep lakes, and which gave solace to the travellers were difficult to be approached due to the tall bamboos; which (forest) was full of thousands of old trees some withered and some turning dry; which at some places touched the sky with hundreds of hard and long branches, the interspaces of whose branches were occupied by aged pigeons frequently cooing, whose hollows were pecked by the wood-peckers desirous of eating small worms, which because of few leaves and few branches offered little shade, and which had hardened trunks because of their natural hardness. In which (forest) were other dense trees on both the sides of the roads beneath which it was pleasant to live because of the cries of the peacocks intoxicated at the sight of the untimely dark clouds; which were always green even in summer as if they had constantly and in greater measures drawn greenness from other trees and which drew water from the springs; which (forest) was a place of all mishaps; the house of terror, the sister of fear, the abode of difficulties, the origin of agitation, the cause of tremour, the primary cause of pain, the residence of wickedness, the land of illusions, the mine of fatigue, the market of sorrows, the abode of despondency, the climax of anguish, the mine of the fruits of all bad actions, the cause for nourishing consumption, the friend of confusion, the bosom companion of miseries and the mother of delusion.
Those two, going through that (forest) with their provisions for the journey exhausted, spent there seven nights. Afflicted with hunger and thirst they somehow came upon a sweet and pure watered lake with a banian tree on its bank. ... Under the tree they spent the day. When it was night they enkindled a fire out of fear of
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