Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

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

Page 332

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into the ditch here. There is no suspicion of disrespect on your part to the master in testing the strength of my arm. Let this bad dream that we saw be repelled. For it will be ineffective, if its action is carried out by oneself."
Again and again instructed by the Cakrin, the kings with the soldiers reluctantly agreed. For the command of the master is very powerful. The soldiers pulled the series of chains on the Cakrin's arm, like the gods and demons the snake turned into a rope for the mountain used as a churning-stick.852 While they were clinging closely to the chains hanging from the Cakrin's arm they looked like monkeys in the top branches of a tall tree. The Cakrin himself, looked at the soldiers pulling him, like elephants dividing a mountain, for the sake of the spectacle. Then the Cakrin put ointment on his breast with the same hand (to which they clung), and they fell together like a row of jars fastened in a circle. The Cakrin's arm, with the soldiers close together clinging to it, looked like a branch of a wild date tree with its datefruit. Delighting in the master's strength, the soldiers at once abandoned the chains on his arms, as well as their former anxiety.
Then, mounted on an elephant, the Cakrabhṛt took again the former field of battle, like a singer the introductory part of a piece. Between the two armies there was an extensive flat plain that looked like the altar-like country between the Ganga and Yamuna. Then the Maruts, delighted at the preservation from destruction of the people, gradually removed the dust from the ground, like servants. The gods, knowing what was fitting, sprinkled perfumed water on the earth just as on the ground of the samavasarana The gods cast blooming flowers on the battle-ground, like sorcerers in a circle on the ground. Both the elephants of kings descended from their elephants and entered the battle-field, roaring See N. 89.
862 565. A reference to the churning of the ocean. Mt. Mandara was the churning stick.