Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 3

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

Page 77

48
CHAPTER ONE
arrows, like a cloud showers of rain. Neither the chariot, nor the charioteer, nor Tripsstha, nor anything else, was visible in the air darkened by Hayagriva's arrows. Triprstha drove back the shower of arrow with showers of arrows, like the blessed sun dispelling darkness with a mass of rays. Then Hayagrīva, enraged, the first of the powerful, strong as a rock, long-armed, raised up an arrow that was like a sister of lightning, like a companion of the thunderbolt, like the mother of death, like the tongue of the serpent-king, hard as rock. He made it whirl around his head like a shooting-wheel 68 on a pillar, like a dancer of Kīnāśa (Yama) with a girdle of tinkling bells. With all his strength he discharged it rapidly at Triprstha, a path being made for it by the gods fearing the destruction of their aerial cars. Then Triprstha picked up in his hand the club Kaumodaki from the chariot, a third arm, a second staff of Samavartin (Yama). Bala's younger brother struck the arrow as it fell with the club, like an elephant striking a toy-bellows 69 with his trunk. Instantly reduced to fragments it fell to the ground like a clod, imitating the fall of a hundred meteors with bright sparks.
Hayakandhara hurled an iron-bound club, terrifying as an uplifted tusk of Airāvana, at the lord of the club.70 Hari broke it, as it fell, with his club, like Patraratheśvara 71 breaking a serpent with the end of his beak. Hayagrīva threw a club that was shaped like a thunderbolt and hard as a rock, like a tusk of Pitspati (Yama), like a sister of Taksaka. Adhoksaja (Triprstha), long-armed, broke it, like a mud-pie, beautifully in the air with Kaumodakī. When his weapons had been broken in this way, Vājikandhara was embarrassed.
88 687. Rādhāvedha. See I, n. 360.
69 690. I have not been able to find any explanation of this allusion. Cf. below, 7. 196 and 7. 2. 571.
70 692. See App. I. 71 693. Jațāyuş, king of the vultures.