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CHAPTER THREE
and Bhadra, set out from the city Dvārakā like a lion from a cave. Disturbing the people, Rudra and Meraka, terrifying as Rāhu and Saturn,145 gradually came together at one point. A battle between the two armies took place, which made the sky terrifying from fire from blows of the weapons, cruel as the fire at the end of the world. Svayambhu blew Pañcajanya himself with a loud noise resembling a charm for the destruction of all enemies. Meraka's soldiers trembled at Päñcajanya's sound. Elephants do not linger when they have heard the lion's roar. Meraka made his own soldiers stand still, like cocks, mounted his chariot himself, and rushed against Svayambhu. Saying to each other, "Why should the armies fight uselessly?" carrying only bows, they twanged the bows. Making a wedding-pavilion for the Śri of victory, as it were, they both rained water in the form of arrows which hid the sun. They warded off each other's shower of arrows with a shower of arrows, like a fire by a fire, like poison by poison. The two appeared terrifying like two suns that had arisen with thousands of arrow-rays streaming forth. Both their hands, as they came and went between the quiver and bow, could not be seen (from speed), and were visible only from the gleam of their rings. The hands of both, quick-handed, falling now on the quiver, now on the bow-string, shone as if they had two forms. When he realized that the enemy was not to be conquered by arrows, Meraka rained weapons, clubs, etc., like mountainpeaks raised up by the wind at the end of the world. Svayambhu soon destroyed them by counter-weapons, like a poison-eyed snake 146 by terrifying flames from its eyes.
Wishing to conquer the enemy in battle, Meraka recalled the cakra, and it fell into his hand like a falcon into that of a hunter. Then Meraka said to Svayambhu, "You have been made into a soldier only by myself fighting
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145 136. See I, n. 136. 148 148. I.e., a Nāga.
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