Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

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

Page 323

302
from all the soldiers advancing, each soldier keeping to his own place.
Splitting the earth with the iron-bound chariot-wheels, digging it up with the horses' hooves like iron hoes; cutting it with the mules' hooves like iron half-moons; shaking it with the infantry's feet with adamantine heels; reducing it to bits with sharp hooves of buffaloes and oxen like arrows with horse-shoe heads; making it into dust with the feet of elephants like hammers; concealing the sky with dust like darkness; lighting it up with swords and missles like rays of the sun; injuring the back of the tortoise with their great weight; bending the turned-up tusk of the great boar; making relax the serpent-king's firm expanded hood; crippling all the elephants of the quarters; making resound the universe with loud battle-cries, as it were; splitting it open, as it were, with vigorous handclappings; observing continuously their powerful opponents and hearing their names called by their well-known cognizances, as it were; challenging each other, the proud and valorous soldiers in the van of both armies met. While elephant-riders drew near to elephant-riders, like sea-monsters to sea-monsters; while cavalry drew near to cavalry, like waves to waves; while charioteers drew near to charioteers, like wind to wind; and infantry to infantry like horned animals, angrily making dart meet dart, sword meet sword, hammer meet hammer, staff meet staff, then the gods approached in the sky, god after god, terrified from fear of the shaking of the three worlds.
Intervention of the gods (436-518)
"What is this conflict of the two sons of Rṣabha, like that of two hands of the same body?" With this reflection, they said to the soldiers of both armies, "Rşabha Svamin's order is that no one is to fight here, while we are enlightening your proud masters." At the command of the Lord of the Three Worlds, the soldiers of both sides stopped just as they were all of them, as if painted