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156 taught, did not transgress the Lord's command. At the proper time the cloud rained for the maturity of the grain, as if praising the Lord of the World's law under pretext of thundering. The countries, filled with fields of grain, plantations of cane, herds of cattle, indicated by their wealth the Master's lack of greed. The Lord made Bharata-zone like Videha-zone in general by the people being made to know discernment about what was to be accepted and what rejected. From the time of his coronation as king, the son of Nābhi passed sixty-three lacs of pūrvas directing the earth.
A spring festival (985-1017) One day, when Spring, the abode of love, had come, the Lord went to a garden to please his retinue. There in a bower of flowers, the Master of the World, adorned with ornaments of flowers, sat like Spring personified. The Lakşmi of Spring, as it were, gave welcome to the Lord of the World by humming bees intoxicated by the juice of blossoming mango-trees. An overture, as it were, being performed by cuckoos singing the fifth note, the wind from Malaya, the leader of the dance, showed the dance of the creepers. Gazelle-eyed maidens gave embraces, kicks, and nectar from their lips to the henna plant, aśokas, and bakula,204 as if to lovers. A bee, delighted with strong fragrances, like a tilaka, made the wood look like the forehead of a young man. The lavalicreeper was bent with the weight of clusters of blossoms, like a slender-waisted maiden with the very great weight of her swelling breasts.
The wind from Malaya slowly, slowly embraced the mango-shoot, like a well-versed lover an innocent young girl. Love, like one carrying a club, was strong enough to kill the travelers with his clubs in the form of stalks
204 989. These trees are said to blossom from this treatment by
women.
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