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TWELFTH INCARNATION AS SANTI
311
action of these stupid men, which was undertaken by them together, like a quarrel by jackals! 354 However, enough of looking at them. For an enemy must be regarded as poison. We shall kill them, like ravens destroying grasshoppers."
After speaking so to each other, they advanced, carrying many kinds of weapons, to fight with the vanguard of Cakrin Sänti. They struck down the elephants, like ant-hills, with iron clubs; they crushed the chariots, like earthen jars and dishes, with clubs. Some pierced the horses with arrows and spears and made them like porcupines; some staked down the foot-soldiers with spikes, like ghosts with charms. So the ill-behaved Kirātas, jumping up like monkeys, killing in various ways, spreading a great tumult, giving slaps and shouting in turn, broke down the cakravartin's vanguard like a forest.
Because of the destruction of the soldiers that had taken place, Śrī Santi's general, terrifying, blazing like a fire from an oblation, armed Hike Kṛtānta, taking the sword-jewel in his hand, mounted the horse-jewel and dashed forward against the Kirātas. These three jewels, the general, the horse, and the sword combined, looked like three fires in one place. The king of horses, moving like Garuda, splitting open the earth, as it were, ran forward equal (in speed) to the general's thought. The Kirātas, cavalry and infantry, were not able to stand before (the attack), like trees in the current of a river. Some jumped into chasms; some hid in thickets; some went to the mountains; some fled into water. Some abandoned their weapons; others left their clothes; some remained motionless as if dead, rolled on the ground. Of some the arms fell, like branches of trees; heads fell like fruit and hands like petals. Of some the teeth dropped, of others the feet, and of some the skulls cracked like empty dishes. When the general traversed the ocean of battle with the horse
864 178. See above, p. 37. It is obvious that 'lion' for jāgara would not do at all in this case. See App. 1.
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