Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 2

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

Page 231

206
CHAPTER SIX
who afford protection, I flew up from this place into the sky, as if free from a burden. I, angered like an ichneumon at the sight of a serpent, saw the wicked Vidyadhara rushing forward in the air with rage. He and I challenged each other to a fight, bellowing mightily like two bulls, hard to conquer.
"Thank Heaven, I have met you, insolent of arm. Strike! Strike first! Today I shall satisfy the desire of my own arms and of the gods, also. Otherwise, surrender your sword, put your ten fingers between your teeth, like a poor man food, and go without hesitation, if you desire to live."
Speaking contemptuously in this way to each other, we two met like cocks, shaking sword and shield like wings. For a long time we moved about in the sky, avoiding blows, like stage-directors skilful in the execution of dancesteps, O king. Fighting with swords, we two approached and withdrew again and again, like two rhinoceroses fighting with their horns. At once cut off his left arm and made it fall here, like an addition to you. For the sake of pleasing you, I cut off a foot as easily as the root of a plantain tree and made it fall on the ground. Then his right arm was thrown on this ground, O king, by me after cutting it off as easily as a lotus-stalk. Then I cut off his second foot with the sword, like the trunk of a tree, and threw it down before you. Then after separating the head and body, I made them fall here. So I cut the enemy into six pieces like Bharatavarṣa.
By you alone, protecting my wife who had been made a deposit like a child, my enemy was destroyed. I was merely the means. Without your assistance the enemy could not have been killed by me. Fire, even flaming, is not able to burn dry wood without wind. For some time I was a woman, or rather a eunuch. Manhood was given me today by you who were the means of destroying my enemy. You are my mother, father, guru, or god. No one else is able to be such a manifold