Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Helen M Johnson
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

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There were three flights of steps to the car that were like Mt. Himavat's rivers with shining waves. 150 In front of them arches made of jewels of various colors had the beauty of a three-fold rainbow. Inside it, the floor, level and round, shone like the moon, like a mirror, like an ālingimrdanga, like an excellent light. It made curtains, as it were, over the pictures on the walls by the dense masses of light from inset jeweled slabs. In its center was a theaterpavilion made of jewels, adorned with puppets superior to Apsarases. Within the pavilion was a dais made of beautiful jewels, like the pericarp of a full-blown lotus. Eight yojanas in breadth and length and four yojanas in height, it shone like the couch of the Sri of Indra. On it shone a great jeweled lion-throne, as if it had been made by collecting the essence of all the constellations. Above the throne shone a canopy of perfect beauty, studded with various jewels, filling the sky with rays of light. In its center shone a diamond-goad, as if in an elephant's ear, and a kumbhika-string 15 of pearls resembling the pleasure-hammock of Laksmi. With adjacent halfkumbhika-strings of pearls, half so wide as it was, that
160 357. The Mountain-range Himavat is the southernmost of the seven ranges of Jambudvipa and the northern boundary of Bharatavarsa. Three rivers rise in it: Ganga and Sindhu flowing to the south, and Rohitānśā flowing to the north. K., pp. 220 f.
151 359. The alingimrdanga is one of 3 kinds of mṛdangas-anki, alingi, and urdhvaka. Abhi. 2. 207 and com. The name is not in use at the present time, and no present-day mṛdanga could be compared with the moon or a mirror. There are, however, flat, circular drums in use, one variety of which is held on the left arm, and beaten with a stick.
152 366. Kumbhika is not quite clear in this connection. It might refer to the origin of pearls from the elephant's kumbha, or it might refer to the measure kumbha. Hem. evidently has the measure in mind, as he uses kumbhameya in 6. 590 and ardhakumbhaprama in Tri. 2. 2. 297. Kumbha is a bulk measure, but it apparently does not refer to the size of the pearls, as in 6. 590 it says they are the size of a myrobalan. Perhaps it refers to the quantity used in the necklace.