Trishasti Shalaka Purusa Caritra Part 4

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

Page 300

BRINGING NEWS OF SITA
265
pletely, resembled for a long time cowries on a gamblingboard. The sky, dark as collyrium, with distinct constellations resembled a pool of the Yamuna with erect white lotuses. With the flood of darkness making everything one shape, penetrating in every direction, the whole universe became deprived of light like Pātāla. In dense darkness women-messengers, unafraid, eager for lovers' meetings, spread out as they liked, like carp in a pool. Women went to meet their lovers, their anklets pushed up to their knees,170 their clothes dark as a tamāla, their bodies anointed with musk.
Then the moon rose, resembling the golden finial on a palace on the eastern mountain, the bulb for the shoots of moonbeams. The spreading darkness in the guise of the mark on the moon appeared to be having a fight with the moon from inborn enmity. The moon sported at will with the stars in the broad sky, like a bull with cows in the cow-pen. The moon with its spot clearly visible in the interior shone like a vessel of silver containing musk. The rays of the moon, tripped by lonely men with their hands held out, streamed ahead like arrows of Love. The bees abandoned the day-blooming lotus which had fallen into a poor state, though enjoyed for a long time, and resorted to the night-blooming lotus. Shame on friendship with the low! The moon made the sephali's 171 blossoms fall by strokes with its rays, as if to prepare arrows for its friend Puspeśu. Making the moonstones drip, the moon, by making new pools, caused panegyrics on his own good works, as it were. The moonlight which lighted up the face of the sky exhibited the sad faces of unchaste women moving about, like day-blooming lotuses. The son of Pavanañjaya passed the night without anxiety in dalliance with Lankäsundari.
Then the sun rose, adorning the quarter dear to Prãcinabarhis with rays resembling threads of gold. The
170 298. To keep them from tinkling.
171 305. See II, n. 458.