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CONQUEST OF BHARATAVARȘA BY SAGARA 151 attack is painful, haughty from pride in their strength, said to each other angrily and sarcastically : “Oh, all you powerful men, say who is this, seeker of the unsought (death), devoid of dignity, shame, intelligence, and renown, lacking in favorable marks, thinking himself a hero, blind from conceit, who enters this country now, ha! a buffalo into a forest occupied by a lion ?”
Saying this, the mighty Mleccha-kings attacked the van of the army of Cakrapāņi, like the asuras that of Vajrapāņi. Instantly the army appeared defeated, its elephants disappeared, its horses killed, its chariots with broken axles. When the Cakrin's general saw his own army defeated by the Kirātas, angered like Yama, he mounted his horse-jewel. After drawing the sword-jewel that was like a comet that had risen, like a powerful wind he rushed against the Mlecchas. He rooted up some Mlecchas, crushed some, and made some fall, like a forestelephant trees. The Kirātas, broken by him, powerless, ran away for many yojanas quickly, like cotton blown by the wind. After they had gone a long distance and had come to the bank of the Sindhu river, they remained supine on a couch of sand, their clothes removed.
Thinking of their family-deities, the MeghamukhaNāgakumāras, they, very impatient, commenced a three days' fast. At the end of the three days' fast the seats of the gods shook, and they saw by clairvoyance resembling eyes the Kirātas in such a condition. Like fathers, they suffered pain from their pain from sympathy. Approaching them, standing in the sky, the Meghamukhas said: “O children, why are you like this? Tell us the reason without hesitation, so that we may assist you."
Then the Kirātas said, “Some one came into our country though difficult of access, like submarine-fire into the ocean. We, defeated by him, have come to you for protection. See to it for us that he goes away and does not return again."
The gods replied, “You are ignorant of him like
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