Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 1

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

Page 376

355
the tamarind trees twisted together by the tails of monkeys on their branches; adorned with bread-fruit whose fruit always has erect hair 898 as if delighted at the wealth of their great extent; marked with śleşmātaka-trees resembling the darkness of the night before the new moon, like peaks of the Añjana Mountains that had been brought here, adorned with kińsukas with a wealth of flowers red like parrots' bills, like an elephant with marks of saffron ; 894 with parties formed of Sabara-women drinking wine sometimes made of grapes, sometimes from date-palms, and sometimes from palmyra-palms; wearing an armor, as it were, in the form of pavilions from groves of betel-creepers, not to be pierced even by the unhindered arrows of the sun's rays; with the cud being chewed by groups of deer delighted with the sweetness of green dūrvāgrass shoots, under the big trees; adorned with parrots close together, like real cat's eye, their closed bills buried in the sweetness of mango-fruit for a long time; the slabs of stone dusty from the pollen of the ketaki, campaka, asoka, kadamba, and bakula trees blown up by the wind; with the ground of its slopes and at the foot of the mountain made muddy all around by the juice of the cocoa-nuts split open by caravans of travelers; adorned with a mass of trees like one grove distinguished by abundance from
pandu' here, and in B. p. 46, sinduvāra blossoms and tears are compared. Hence some other identification is probably necessary.
808 406. Kantakita is used, of course, with double meaning. The bread fruit (panasa) has a spiny rind. Both the tree and the fruit are very large.
894 408. This does not refer to real saffron, but to the preparation called 'kunkuma' at the present time, which is really a preparation of turmeric and chunam (lime). This is regularly used for the tilaka on the forehead, for decorating elephants, etc. It is to be noted that saffron is spoken of as 'red', not yellow'. Though it produces a yellow color in puddings, etc., the powder from which the dye is made is an orange-red, made from the tip of the stigma. The blossoms are purple. The kunkuma preparation is a decided red. Watt, p. 429 f.