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and his hand on the backs of those seeking protection, as if impartial to both. His sword, drawn from its scabbard on the battle-field, became itself a treasury for the Śrī of victory who had come. Law was his brother; fame his sweetheart; pure virtues his friends; majesty his footman. So there was a retinue originating in his body. He, enjoying an exalted rank, bestowing delight on the world, had a wife, named Acirā, like the lightning of a cloud. Just as the queen was the crest-jewel of women, so good conduct was chief among her virtues, courtesy, et cetera. The first among good wives, day and night she put her husband inside her heart as an ornament, like a pearlnecklace on the outside. At the sight of her beauty, even goddesses seemed created, as it were, from particles left over from her creation. She, honored by the world, purified the earth by her footsteps as she walked, like the Jahnavi by its stream. Her neck bent from modesty, she always looked at the ground alone, as if from affection at the thought, "It must be protected by my husband." All the virtues of women shone in a high degree in her, like species of flowers in the row of gardens in Saumanasa. Some time passed for King Viśvasena and Queen Aciră absorbed in the pleasure of sovereignty, rejoicing, like Indra and Indrānī.
CHAPTER FIVE
Birth (25-51)
Now Megharatha's soul, immersed in pleasure, completed its life in Sarvārthasiddha, the best palace in Anuttara. On the seventh day of the dark half of Nabhasya, the moon being in Bharani, he fell and descended into the womb of Queen Acirā. During the last part of the night, while the queen was comfortably asleep, the fourteen great dreams were seen entering her mouth in succession. An elephant, asking permission to enter her mouth, as it were, by the sound of the bees intoxicated by the fragrance of flowing ichor; a bull spotless as a crag of Kailasa that had become alive, stealing the beauty of an erect
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