Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

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

Page 200

HANUMAT'S BIRTH AND VARUŅA'S SUBJECTION
165
Prahlāda gave Añjanasundari a seven-storied palace for a home like a heavenly palace placed on earth. Pavanañjaya did not salute her even with words. For the proud do not forget a slur from any source at all. Without Pavanañjaya, like the night without the moon, her face dark from tears, she remained a receptacle of distress. The nights seemed very long, like a year, to her tossing against both sides of the couch, again and again. Giving her undivided attention, her lotus-face resting on her knee, she spent the days only with paintings of her husband. Even when her friends talked to her often with flattery, she did not abandon silence, like a cuckoo in winter.
One day, as time passed in this way, a messenger from the king of the Raksasas came to King Prahlada and said:
"Now the wicked king of sea-animals (Varuņa) is at intense enmity with the lord of the Rāksasas, disregarding submission. Asked for homage, the wretch, a mountain of conceit, looking at his arms, said: 'Who, indeed, is this Rāvana? What has he done? I am not Indra, nor Kubera, nor Nalakūbara! I am not Sahasraraśmi, nor Marutta, nor Yama, nor Mt. Kailāsa; but I am Varuna! If there is arrogance on the part of the wretch because of the jewels presided over by deities, 188 let him come and I shall remove his insolence accumulated for a long time.'
Angered by this speech, Rāvana marched to battle with an army and surrounded his city, like ocean waves a mountain on the coast. Varuna came out of the city for battle, red-eyed, surrounded by his sons, Rājīva, Puņdarīka, et cetera, and fought. Khara and Düşana were led away (prisoners) by the heroes, the sons of Varuņa, who had fought and captured them in this great battle. Then the army of the Rākşasas was destroyed completely and Varuņa entered his own city, considering his purpose
188 56. See above, p. 117.