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the head with it, like a cloud at the end of the world striking a mountain with a flash of lightning. From that blow, Bāhubali sank into the ground up to his knees, like a diamond beaten into an iron anvil. After striking Bāhubali, who was as hard as adamant, Bharata's staff flew into pieces, as if terrified at its own crime.
Buried in the ground up to his knees, like a mountain with its foundations in the ground, the rest of his body projecting, Bahubali looked like Śeşanāga. He shook his head from the pain of the blow as if surprised inwardly at his elder brother's strength. For a moment, Bahubali, suffering from that blow, heard nothing, like a Yogi rejoicing in the supreme spirit. Then Sunanda's son left the ground, like an elephant the mud on the bank of a dried-up river. He, chief of the angry, looked at his own arms and staff with glances red as lac, as if blaming them. The King of Takşaśilā whirled his staff, disagreeable to look at like a snake, constantly in one hand. The staff, whirled very rapidly by Sunandā's son, had the appearance of the revolving circle of the radhāvedha.800 Revolving like the Adimatsva 861 in the vortex of a whirlpool of the ocean at the end of the world, it made the eyes whirl when it was looked at. “Flying up, it will crack the sun like a brazen kettle; it will reduce to powder the moon-disc like a bhāranda's 862 egg; it will knock down the multitudes of stars like the fruit of the myrobalan, and will make fall the aerial cars of the Vaimānikas like nests; while falling, it will split the mountain-peaks like ant-hills; it will crush the arbors of trees like huts of grass; it will split the earth like a ball of unbaked clay, if the staff should fly from his hand by chance.”
800 690. In the rādhāvedha, the archer must hit the left eye of a doll fastened to a revolving wheel. According to some, he could not look at the doll, but only at its reflection in a basin of oil below.
861 691. The fish-incarnation of Vişnu. See Wilkins, pp. 113 ff. 362 692, Fabulous three-legged birds.
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