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CHAPTER ELEVEN of the power of dharma, cruel-minded, he watched for weak points continually for eleven years.
When the twelfth year came, the people thought: “We will enjoy ourselves, since Dvaipāyana, crushed by this penance, has fled, defeated.” They began to sport at will, drinking wine and eating meat. At that time Dvaipāyana, knowing a weak point, seized the opportunity. Many portents, resembling portents at the end of the world, appeared in Dvārakā, showing the gate to death. Meteors fell, thunderstorms took place, and the earth shook. Planets discharged smoke imitating fire. The disk of the sun, faulty, made a rain of coals and suddenly there was an eclipse of sun and moon. Clay puppets in the houses gave loud bursts of laughter and the gods painted in pictures laughed, too, frowning. Within the city wild animals roamed and Asura Dvaipāyana wandered, attended by witches, ghouls, vampires, et cetera.
In dreams the people saw themselves with red garments 292 and ointment, sunk in mud, being dragged, facing the south. Bala's and Kțşņa's jewels, the plow, cakra, et cetera disappeared; and then Asura Dvaipāyana created a whirlwind. He gathered up the wood, grass, et cetera everywhere in the city; and he brought the fleeing people from (all) quarters and threw them in the city. The whole city of Dvārakā, its trees uprooted by wind from eight directions, was filled with wood. After crowding together sixty crores of families from outside and seventy-two living inside into the city Dvārakā, the Asura lighted a fire. The fire blazed, like fire at the end of the world, with the sound dhagag, dhagiti, darkening the universe by the unbroken masses of smoke. The townspeople with their children and old people, unable to take a step as if chained together, remained made into a solid body.
Hari and Rāma put Vasudeva, Devaki, and Rohini in a chariot to remove them from the fire. The horses did not
292 67. A corpse is usually wrapped in a red cloth. The south is Yama's quarter,
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