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SANATKUMĀRACAKRICARITRA
175
small retinue, or even alone in some places like a spy, O lord. That is not suitable here and there for Your Majesty with a large army because of the inequality like the entrance of an elephant into a small road."
Mahendrasinha goes in search of the prince (III-123)
Aśvasena, restrained by him saying this again and again, clinging to his feet, returned in grief to his own city. At once Mahendrasinha entered the great forest with a small choice retinue, hard to restrain like an elephant. He penetrated it in every direction to hunt for Sanatkumāra, (the forest) whose paths were uneven from stones thrown up by the horns of rhinoceroses, whose pools were muddied by boars entering them because they were tormented by heat, whose thickets were echoing with the loud growls of bears, terrifying from the cries of tigers lying in thickets, filled with herds of black antelope bewildered by packs of leaping leopards, 234 whose trees were encircled by strong boa-constrictors who had swallowed animals, with trees whose shade was a path frequented by herds of deer, the paths to whose rivers are blocked by lions drinking water with their lioness-friends, and difficult to travel because the roads were covered with branches of trees which had been broken by rutting elephants.
His army was scattered as he wandered over the great forest which was horrible from thorny trees and wild animals, from holes and mounds. Deserted by ministers, friends, et cetera, who were completely exhausted, he gradually became solitary like a muni who has abandoned all association. Again he wandered alone in deep thickets and caves of the mountains, like the lord of a settlement of a wild tribe, carrying a bow. At the trumpeting of forest-elephants, at the roars of lions he ran with the idea
284 115. Citraka. In Abhi. 4. 351 citraka and śārdula are given as synonyms, but obviously a distinction must be intended here. is, of course, the Hindi cita, the hunting leopard.
Citraka
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