The Slaying of Śiśupāla 17
English (machine translation) 17
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17.1
When these words, heavy as the wind agitated at the end of an aeon, / were spoken by that eloquent envoy, / the assembly, bent on a great cosmic dissolution, / was instantly agitated together like the ocean.
17.2
With reddened countenance, pouring dense sweat, / making their broad thighs resound with slaps of their hands, / repeatedly biting their lips with their teeth, / the kings embraced anger like a beloved woman.
17.3
On Gada, whose armlet had snapped in an instant / and who hurled the power of his arm onto his palm, / the fire of wrath was visibly seen as if full of sparks, / with bright, shattered pieces of rubies glittering.
17.4
When Bala laughed aloud in scorn, / the circle of rays from his teeth blazing forth, / his body, though reddened with fury, / instantly regained its own naturally white lustre.
17.5
When Ulmuka turned swiftly toward the envoy, / his broad leaping necklace, struck against his shoulder / hard as a great slab of stone, / made the whole assembly seem to spin around.
17.6
As he grew enraged, fanned all around / by the winds from the corners of his fine garments / with heat manifest from the impact of his heavy sighs, / Yudhājit's lotus face perspired even more.
17.7
Seeing Niṣadha intensely enraged, / instantly resolved to slaughter the enemies, / the people thought he was the fierce, unchecked fever of Rudra / risen to destroy the sacrifice of Prajāpati, for which there was no remedy.
17.8
As Sudhanvan ground his hands together in extreme fury, / his two hands, muddy with the crushed gold dust of his rings, / were instantly washed by the ceaselessly trickling waters / of his own sweat.
17.9
Āhuki waved his forefinger, extended long, / blazing like a flame of fire, / encircled by the rich luster of his gleaming fingernails, / shaped like a whirling brand of fire, as if to burn up the world.
17.10
Pradyumna became so hard to look upon / through his boldness, familiar from his burning of old, / that surely Hara, even with his third eye, / could not bear to gaze on him standing before him with arrow raised.
17.11
Reflecting with passion on the approaching battle, / Pṛthu with the palm of his hand / stroked his broad chest with its bristling hair, / from which the sandalwood had been rubbed off by the hard breasts of wanton women.
17.12
Seeing Akrūra, the son of Gāndinī, though grave, / transgressing decorum because of the enemy's harsh words, / the people then took him for the lord of mountains / overturned by the winds of the turn of the aeon.
17.13
Rolling his eyes clouded with fury, / raising a terrible roar by striking the earth with his hands, / Prasenajit, his body intensely red with anger, / resembled an elephant dyed red with ochre.
17.14
Gaveṣaṇa, covered continuously with saffron-tinged drops of sweat / red as ripe pomegranates, / bursting forth from his body inflamed with envy, / shone for a long time as if covered in drops of blood.
17.15
Śini excitedly brought the netherworld to light / by the rays of the sun, which found a path / through the fissures in the earth split by the stamping of his feet, / scorching the serpents unaccustomed to such heat.
17.16
As Śāraṇa shook his head from moment to moment, / the rays of his golden crown, bright as fire, / seemed to perform a waving of lights over the kings, / urging: 'Let them enter the battle without hesitation now!'
17.17
Wishing to speak, Vidūratha, with broad vine-like arms spread wide, / displayed a terrifying cave-like mouth / with a large tongue darting within, / like a hollow tree with a hood-waving serpent.
17.18
Though the assembly was in turmoil, the mind of the Slayer of Mura / suffered no perturbation at the words of his foe; / for the waters of the ocean suffer no change / from the clouds' torrential rains, heavy though they make the river waters.
17.19
Uddhava, knowing that such is the custom of the wicked / to slander others and praise themselves, / untroubled, brought no disturbance to his face, / which smiled like the charming autumn moon.
17.20
When the spy of the enemies was thus repulsed / by the wrathful Yadus and had slowly departed, / the army of the Foe of Mura, its drums sounding frightful, / instantly prepared for battle.
17.21
Thinking, “This is prudent policy,” the Vṛṣṇi kings, / whose coat of mail was their unceasing valor, / encased their massive bodies, solid as mountain flanks, / off which the weapons of their enemies had repeatedly glanced away in battle.
17.22
Hard to bear for others even for a moment, / swelling rapidly from the reports of battle, / the joy of those kings endowed with majesty / could not be contained within their bodies, nor the coats of mail without.
17.23
Though the charioteers, riders, and horsemen mounted for victory / made ready their troops of elephants and swift horses with their own hands, / the kings, spurred by haste, / urged on their officers again and again.
17.24
Girths tightly fastened for battle against foes, / serenaded by swarms of softly buzzing bees, / the array of elephants gave unceasing gifts / of water from the hollows of their trunks.
17.25
Having handsome sword-belts, gleaming with brilliant ivory hilts, / possessing magnificent fine sheaths, / the creepers of swords clung to the necks of those longing for war, / who bristled with excitement, just like beloved women.
17.26
Naturally delightful in form, yet terrible in aspect in battles, / Murajit was served by his weapons, / enchanting yet inspiring fear, imbued with divine presence, / and ever inseparable, like his own limbs.
17.27
Unimpeded, having traversed frequently through both forces / and amidst the mountain passes and ridges, / he mounted his chariot, whose wheel-rims had repeatedly bathed / in the blood of the foes of the gods slain in combat.
17.28
Approaching with the wind of wings heavy with rushing sound, / tawnying the far quarters of the sky with his heavenly radiance, / the king of birds shook the firm flagpole / and at that instant took his place upon the standard.
17.29
Surpassing the resonance of drums with the depth of its roar, / destroying the joy of the swans that were the enemy with the beauty of its rumble, / that chariot moved forward like a fresh raincloud, / delighting the clamorous peacocks.
17.30
Beholding the army then advancing, / completely blotting out the distant horizons, / people ceased to marvel at the primordial deluge, / with the ocean waters wildly unfurling.
17.31
Lordly elephants trumpeted, great kettledrums boomed, / and victorious steeds neighed; / their own support, unable to hold the sounds echoing from great mountain caves, / seemed as if shattered by the uproar.
17.32
As the war drum of the Foe of Madhu resounded unceasingly for victory / with fruitful, deep echoes, / the mountains, through their cave-mouths disgorging lions, / seemed to laugh in supreme delight.
17.33
When the roar of the army, deafening the ears of the gods, / entered the caverns of Mount Meru, / the artful whispered moans of skilled passionate women / at the height of lovemaking became entirely inaudible.
17.34
Eager to seize the warriors who fought alongside their foes once slain in battle, / upon hearing the sounding trumpets of war, / the heavenly courtesans put on the adornments suitable for a first meeting, / which had long been cast aside.
17.35
Urged on by elephant-drivers skilled in the duties of mahouts, / who knew the disciplined use of the goad, / struck only once by bamboo poles flicked from their palms, / the elephants advanced with their bells loudly ringing.
17.36
Scattering the dust of the earth with their chowries waving here and there / as they bounded with brave strides, / the horses bearing brand-new harnesses / never ceased to hold the gazes of men.
17.37
With their trunks upraised as if with sprout-like trembling fingers, / a dance was performed to the clear rhythm of flapping ears, / and the swarms of bees clinging to the temple walls dripping with rut / sang a sweet song.
17.38
The earth was sprinkled by streams of rutting fluid that quelled the dust / from elephants whose newly raised forehead lobes were like full jars; / pleasant to the ear, heavy as the rumble of towering clouds, / trumpets were sounded by the mouths of musicians.
17.39
Banners waving in the wind and licking the sky / were raised on all sides, / because the elephant corps directly before the Foe, the Wielder of the Śārṅga Bow, / was performing an auspicious rite on its own.
17.40
That camping ground did not become empty, / even as the vast army moved away; / indeed, the ocean does not become emptied / when its water rushes over the earth at the close of an age.
17.41
Then, in the quarter toward which the Slayer of Madhu, like the sun, intended to go, / the people saw the region of the sky, / tawny as the horn of an old buffalo, garlanded with the dust of the enemy army advancing in front, / as if filled with smoke.
17.42
The sound of their own drums, though rising in great resonance, / did not so captivate the minds of the spirited warriors / as the rumble of the kettledrums of the hostile army, / ready for battle in front, drew their attention.
17.43
The closer the beat of the drum / advancing ahead of the noble Hari came, / the more the hostile host, its bodies thrilling with hair standing on end, / was filled with joy in its heart, like a woman [thrilled by her lover].
17.44
Then, extending across the wide vault of the sky, / smeared with pollen and dust swirled by the wind, / the line of banners of the enemy army was observed from afar, / resembling the line of clouds at the time of cosmic dissolution.
17.45
And in an instant, dazzling the eyes with the flash of swords / reflecting the fierce rays of the sun right before them, / that army of kings, demonic and terrifying, / nevertheless presented an exceedingly wondrous sight.
17.46
Like a reversal of heat by the sudden descent / of rain-bearing clouds all over the sky, / the ocean that was the army, marching evenly over smooth and rough ground, / instantly overspread the surface of the earth.
17.47
Appearing for a moment right before him, / the immense army of enemies was easily contained / within the long and exceedingly wide eyes / of the Crusher of Madhu, in whose belly rest the three worlds.
17.48
Profusely sweating, their bodies blossoming with horripilation, / with reckless daring set in minds flooded with passion, / the ranks of women in the kings' army were filled with fluster / at the brink of battle, as if at the onset of lovemaking.
17.49
As though forcibly summoned by the cloth of the flags / extended by a favorable wind, / the enemies, with upraised weapons, / attained the height of swiftness in anger against the Yadus.
17.50
The soldiers of Hari's army likewise advanced at top speed / against the forces of the enemy; / indeed, spirited men cannot endure to delay / when they see an enemy eager to fight.
17.51
With windproof mail donned upon their bodies, / having needles of rays darting from flashing gems, / the kings on the battlefield shone continuously, / as though densely covered with clusters of arrows.
17.52
Then the earth-dust, having a pale glow / like the mass of feathers on an old pigeon's throat, / shaken by moving feet, rose high, / ascending in dense lines stirred by the armies.
17.53
With their upward exit blocked everywhere / by horses pressing closely against one another, / the dust clouds, struck step after step by restless hooves, / whirled around for a long time only below.
17.54
Veiling existence, the fierce passion-dust / of the great, multiform army desiring to remove ruin / rose high, just like the intense rajas of the lotus-born [Brahmā] / who, vast and manifold-faced, passionately desires to create the world.
17.55
“Lest the blood issuing from arrow-wounds in battle / soon turn us violently into mud,” / so indeed, seized with fright, / the banners of fire’s friend [the wind] soared high into the sky.
17.56
Here dappled like a gleaming mass of clouds, / there reddish-yellow with heaps of gold particles, / somewhere pale like a crescent of the autumn moon, / the dust of the earth trampled by hooves rose up.
17.57
When the great dust, born of the army, / clung to the faces of the huge elephants of the directions, / their lines of rut-water, dark as a row of cuckoos, / shed their spreading flow like water poured by clouds.
17.58
“Let these [kings] not vainly mistake you for young men / because of your hair soft as swarms of black bees,” / so saying, as it were, the dust raised by the army / whitened their hair and turned the men into old men.
17.59
Even one possessing splendour, if surrounded by many united foes, / is undoubtedly brought to eclipse: / for the fine atoms comprising parts of the earth / veiled even the body of the sun, the treasury of splendours.
17.60
Shrouded by the abundant dust thrown up from the ground / crushed by the wheels of fast-rolling chariots, / the world appeared as if submerged in the ocean's water / unchecked at the moment of the dissolution of an aeon.
17.61
With the brilliance of their sun-faces blazing forth, / filled with dust and menstruation, their garment-splendours sullied, / the maidens of the quarters, unfit to be seen for a moment, / became objects to be avoided by embodied beings.
17.62
Having assembled out of curiosity in the sky / to watch the kings’ valour at the forefront of battle, / the hosts of thirty gods fled, / because the spreading dust pained the lotuses of their unblinking eyes.
17.63
With their lightning destroyed, when the wind, bearer of clouds, / clinging closely, drank up their waters at every step, / the clouds, devoid of rain, moved slowly away, / their burden of mud gradually increasing.
17.64
Their bodies washed by contact with the heavenly river, / the elephants of the quarters standing in the sky attained / the pleasures of bathing in the rising earth-dust / thrown up by the hooves of horses of the marching army, pleasures unknown before.
17.65
Because the earth, bowed down under the weight of advancing elephant herds, / sank all the way to Rasātala, / while the sky was filled with extremely dense dust, / the three worlds evidently attained oneness.
17.66
The great caves of the mountains, filled with the armies' dust / that smoothed out their chasms, / served as useful shelters for sky-dwellers / seeking love-play with their brides distressed by modest shame.
17.67
Though the dense dust blocking the path of their vision / was like a cloth covering their faces, / the elephants, guided by rut-breezes smelling like spring mangoes, / rushed impetuously against the opposing elephants.
17.68
By means of rut-fluid pouring down in seven streams, / the elephant-cloud laid low the masses of dust below, / and looked upon the dense circular canopy of dust hovering above / as if it were an outstretched pavilion of cloth.
17.69
Incomparably lofty, exceedingly massive, bearing the majesty of mountains, / fashioning a likeness to chains of lightning with their golden chains, / with decorations shining like rainbow-weapons, their bodies dark as the body of Kāliya, / the elephant-clouds rained down rut, settling the dust at that moment.
Commentaries (2)
- Sarvaṅkaṣā — Mallinātha Sūri, Sanskrit
- Śiśupālavadhaṭīkā — Mallinātha, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Śiśupālavadha — Māgha, Sanskrit