Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 3

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

Page 72

ŚREYĀNSANATHACARITRA
43
elephant's trunk; varālakas 68 beating the ground with their tails and grinding trees with their tusks, terrible from their form of a lion and elephant; others became beasts of prey, panthers, tigers, bulls, serpents, bears, et cetera, like Rakṣases that had become animals. Making terrifying noises, as if summoning Death, they quickly attacked Tripṛṣṭha's army. Gloomy-faced, their eagerness broken in a moment, all the soldiers of Prajapati thought:
"Have we mistaken the road here to a city of ghosts? Have we come to an abode of Rākṣasas, or have we come to the Vindhya-plateau? Have these cruel demons and animals come from their homes to fight with us at Asvagala's command? I think destruction caused by a girl is at hand for us. If Tripṛṣṭha himself should be victorious, our courage would last.'
While they, absorbed in such thoughts, their wits distracted, were turning back, Vahnijațin said to Tripṛṣṭha: "This is magic of the Vidyadharas. It is nothing real, I know. For the serpent, no one else, knows the track of the serpent."4 His lack of power has been made known by themselves, slow of wit, in this way. Who, if he is powerful, creates something to terrify a child, as it were? So, arise, hero. Get into your chariot. Make the enemy descend from the high peak of conceit. With you in your chariot with your hand raised and with the sun in the sky with its lofty rays, whose splendor, pray, will spread?"
At this speech of Vahnijațin, Tripṛṣṭha, first of charioteers, got into his great chariot, encouraging his own army. Long-armed Rama also got into his battlechariot. At no time does he leave his younger brother alone. How much less in battle! The Vidyadharas, Jvalanajațin and others, mounted their chariots like lions a mountain-plateau. Then drawn by merit, the gods gave
68 609. I have not found this word elsewhere, but one of the Jain temples in Baroda is adorned with numerous figures of such an animal. 64 617. Cf. the Gujarati: coranām pagalāṁ cor olakhe: 'a thief knows the footprint of a thief.'