The Slaying of Śiśupāla 3
English (machine translation) 3
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- English
3.1
Setting aside the path in the northern quarter and swiftly turning south, as did Agastya, / Hari, gentle with his urge for battle set aside, then set out for the city of Harihara.
3.2
Even with his rays that purify the world, the sun was not fit to touch him, the worshipful of the world; / for a large parasol, beautiful as the full moon, was held over him.
3.3
Standing between two waving chowries, spotless as lotus-fibres, / he took on an unprecedented beauty of the ocean with the divine river Gaṅgā falling on both sides.
3.4
By the fine, manifold splendours of the gems resting in his diadem above, / he imitated the form of Mount Govardhana, whose mass of stones is streaked with many minerals.
3.5
Through the radiance of the emeralds inlaid in the tips of his gleaming gold earrings, / his chest seemed to bear the crest of peacock feathers fitting for his childhood.
3.6
The two glittering armlets adorned him with a dense canopy of light / from the gems sharpened by rubbing against the peak of Mount Mandara.
3.7
With the tips of his nails naturally red and streaked with the rays of the rubies set in his bracelets, / he shone as if even today he were bathed in the blood born from tearing open the chest of the demon foe.
3.8
If two separate streams of the waters of the celestial Gaṅgā were to fall in the sky, / his dark chest, blue as the tamāla and adorned with a pearl necklace, could be compared to that.
3.9
He wore the jewel that was the essence of the ocean's waters, illuminating the directions with its light, / in which the universe, reflected as though abiding within his body, appeared visibly manifest.
3.10
A pearl necklace hanging down to his ankles shone upon him, / like the continuous stream of the three-pathed Gaṅgā falling upward, poured from his big toe.
3.11
With his form dark blue as a sapphire floor and clad in garments yellow like camphor, / he shone like the Yamunā’s water variegated with the spreading pollen of day-blooming lotuses.
3.12
It was fitting that when he was adorned, a completely different beauty arose upon the Slayer of Madhu: / for she, beloved of the whole world, was upon his entire body, whereas that other [Goddess of Fortune], devoted solely to him, was only on his chest.
3.13
While the maiden Fortune abode on his chest, broad and handsome as a door-panel, / another Fortune, delighting all people, embraced his entire body.
3.14
Bearing breasts marked with nail-scratches that took on the beauty of ornaments, / young women, displaying the quality of firmness, surrounded him who destroys the life of the demon king.
3.15
The excessively slender waist of the women bent, / as if drawn upward by the circle of their breasts because of its extreme elevation, / and utterly pressed down by its excessive weight.
3.16
Whichever timid-eyed woman her lover gazed upon, she bent her face in modesty; / while at that very moment other women, in whom jealousy was instantly aroused, / boldly seized him with their sidelong glances.
3.17
On him whose radiance equalled the flax flower, / his one arm with the cakra, flashing with its ring of whirling rays, / shone like the stream of Yamunā’s waters with a gleaming, mighty whirlpool.
3.18
Skilled at breaking the bodies of foes, / never faltering anywhere, / his mace, like royal power incarnate, / constantly near Hari, delighted his mind exceedingly.
3.19
Holding an exclusiveness not merely as belonging to Murāri, / Nandaka, his sword, who exceedingly agitated enemies, / brought delight, fittingly, to him alone even by its name.
3.20
Never brought to submission by another, / having its bowstring drawn near the ear during deeds of war, / his bow Śārṅga, staying near his hand, was obedient, / like an exceedingly firm friend who has attained qualities in assemblies.
3.21
Pāñcajanya was heard, sounding deep and steady like a swelling storm cloud, / a lone swan wandering near the black ocean, / sustaining a roar produced by the filling of gentle breath.
3.22
He, the mighty warrior and Discus-Bearer, shone / as he swiftly mounted his festival chariot, which achieved desired success, / its course unobstructed in all directions, / like the moon rising upon the asterism Puṣya.
3.23
Then, perched at the top of his banner, the foe of serpents was seen by the descendant of Śūra, / his form reflected upon the gem-paved grounds / as if wishing to enter the subterranean depths to terrify the hooded serpents.
3.24
As he desired to depart, the mighty sound of kettle-drums, / piercing the clefts of the mountains, / blocked out all other sounds, / just as the swelling of the great ocean engulfs the waters within it.
3.25
Beneath the place where the Lord of the worlds stepped forth, / the serpent who upholds the earth stretched out his arms in haste / to assist his thousand heads, bowed down by the enormous weight.
3.26
Then the armies of the lunar race followed him / who possessed good governance, / just as fruits of action follow a prudent man— / their standards lowered out of fear of collision and breakage against the towering archways.
3.28
Mixed with dark-red rutting fluid of elephants, / the dust of the golden ground, glowing like crushed peacocks' wings, / was trodden by hosts of chariots sunk up to their fellies.
3.27
It did not rise above the heads of noble men, / nor did it rise into the air at all; / trampled underfoot, the dust of the golden ground acted in a manner worthy of its weight.
3.29
Though restrained with difficulty by the Yadus, the horses repeatedly raised their forefeet: / they surely wished to jump over the mighty elephants blocking the path and march ahead.
3.30
Mothers came quickly and snatched their children from the roads, / where they were playing in the dust before the long reins, / watched over by the horsemen who were restraining their steeds with great effort.
3.31
Crowds of people, longing to behold him, went to each street / near the faultless Murāri: / deep love makes even that which has been praised many times appear ever new.
3.32
Looking at that city, the wise one did not notice the slow progress / of his chariot, whose path was breathless, filled with unbroken ranks of troops.
3.33
She who made the quarters tawny in the middle of the sea / with the splendour of her golden ramparts, / shone forth, cleaving the waters / like the flame of the submarine fire from the mouth of the mare.
3.34
Resorted to by thousands of mountains, / her form surrounded by the waters of the ocean, / she was fashioned by the untiring Creator / as if an image of the earth itself.
3.35
The culmination of the expanse of knowledge and architectural skill Tvaṣṭṛ had mastered by constant practice, / she was seen in the waters of the celestial ocean, pure as mirror-surfaces, / like a reflection.
3.36
Given in marriage like a daughter to a newly arrived bridegroom, the Lord of the Discus, / around her close proximity the ocean out of love repeatedly tied strings of jewels / that clung to her form.
3.37
With its rampart crowded with swarms of conches cast up by the spray of tossing ocean waves, / her rampart was imitated by the rampart of Mount Sumeru, / upon whose slopes circular orbits of stars wander.
3.38
Where on the market road the ocean, with waters that arrived wandering, / stealing heap-formed jewels that possessed unmoving lustre, / truly attained the state of being a 'treasury of jewels'.
3.39
The ocean, with arms of waves, spread out heaps of soft jewels cast up from its waters, / their lustre veiled in foam, / as if to lay them in the sun upon the couch [of the shore].
3.40
The sea's great waves that had risen from afar to surpass her rampart by their height, / their desired aim thwarted, / melted away upon approaching, as if out of shame.
3.41
Approaching swiftly out of curiosity, / but suddenly blocked by the surface of her ramparts, / a cloud outside roared loudly and wept copiously / under the pretext of a shower of rain.
3.42
When the apsarases, desiring some distinguishing mark from the beauty of her women, / worshipped Manu, / he verily marked his own offspring [of mortals] with the sign of blinking.
3.43
Ascending the terraces of crystal concealed by the shining rays of the moon, / the women in that city shone at night / like goddesses walking in the sky.
3.44
Where, on mansion terraces paved with bright moonstones, / the gutters every night carried off / a mass of waters, even though the rain-clouds hung high and discharged their showers far below.
3.45
Where the mistresses of the house, having extinguished the lamps in bed out of modesty, / were terrified within their chambers by moonbeams entering through the lattice windows / onto lapis-lazuli walls, fearful like the eyes of cats.
3.46
Where young men, unable to paint pictures in their houses / because of their extreme smoothness, / turned the jewelled walls into living paintings, / with their own limbs mirrored on them.
3.47
Where the beauty of jewelled mirrors belonged to pillars possessing the lustre of gold, / on account of the women’s cheeks that had the same color, / reflected in them, identifiable only by the paleness of love.
3.48
On whose porticoes smeared with the radiance of thresholds / made of sapphire green as a female parrot's body, / the simple women did not apply cow dung at all, [mistaking them for freshly smeared].
3.49
Where houses shone as if having eaves attractive with green grass of emeralds, / thanks to the drooping tails with eye-markings / of peacocks perched for a moment on the rafters.
3.50
She shone with palaces that had large beams yet were matchless, / hung with rows of canopies yet spacious, / multifaceted yet adorned with paintings, / wide and possessing many halls.
3.51
Where, because a cat kept its limbs completely motionless / on the pigeon-cotes of the dwellings in order to seize the flock of artificial birds, / the people thought it was merely an artificial cat.
3.52
Though standing on the earth, the women surpassed the moon with their lotus faces; / in vain did they climb the palace spires that reached beyond the pathway of the stars.
3.53
Youths enjoyed with their wives the rooftop chambers, which were lovely and possessed flags, / secluded and thus heightening passion, their eaves sloping down.
3.54
Bearing an unartificial fragrance to delight the men, / the wines and the faces of the passionate women exchanged their fragrant qualities.
3.55
During lovemaking in the inner rooms, the flocks of birds, nesting in the corbels and cornices of the balconies, / clearly became the pupils of the women, listening to their cooing cries.
3.56
Though covered, the fine garments over the women's prominent breasts / bore a resemblance to space, not only in name but also in fact.
3.57
Where their long corner-glances, never deviating from their extensive bounds, / were never abandoned by people with unswerving conduct, having disciplined ways.
3.58
Having fashioned the city's women, whose priceless beauty rivalled one another, / the Creator thoroughly wiped away the blemish of reproach: that he had used all his skill in creating Śrī alone.
3.59
Whatever is imagined in the mind, that alone the wish-fulfilling trees yield; / but the riches of the people dwelling there were beyond the reach of even the mind.
3.60
Possessing all the arts, illumining the directions with splenders white as stuccoed palaces, / neither Balarāma nor the moon wished to leave that city.
3.61
Having attained proximity to Janārdana, who had thwarted Śambhu's power in the battle with Bāṇa, / the god of love, embodied, with victorious arrow, dwelt there without fear.
3.63
Served by auspicious breezes and occupied by Hari for a long time, / that city in the ocean, the abode of radiant jewelled sprouts, mocked Amarāvatī on Mount Meru.
3.62
Dark as glossy collyrium, perfectly round, / that city was like an ornamental mark of black pigment painted on a woman whose complexion was unmarred, beautifying her—the ornament of the three worlds.
3.64
Looking upon that city before him, he of matchless valour reached the main avenue, / insurmountable by enemies, radiant with the beauty of divine weapons gleaming with the lustre of diamonds, like the army of the gods.
3.65
Like creatures from the body of the Lotus-Navelled, like the waters from Śambhu's mass of matted hair, / or like the Vedas from the mouth of the Creator, the armies of Murajit marched out from the city.
3.66
With unsteady horses pressing against one another, their bits slipping as their muzzles touched, / the horsemen rode forth with difficulty, their knees jammed against one another.
3.67
Even when the crowded path was cleared far ahead by the throng of living beings, / the elephants, mighty in splendour, advanced without obstruction, as lamps do through darkness.
3.68
From the platform over the city gate, the chariots rushing down with speed were slowly brought to the ground / by the horses, free from exhaustion, their necks curved by the reins pulled tightly by careful charioteers, their yokes firmly engaged.
3.69
When the Discus-Handed departed, the city, whose street-arms were abandoned at that moment / by the waves of soldiers like bracelets, no longer seemed to possess the true nature of Dvāravatī.
3.71
Across the waters of the ocean, Murāri saw lines of forests with dark-blue leaves, / which looked like masses of moss tossed upon the shore every moment by thousands of surging waves.
3.70
Beholding the trees growing on the shore of the ocean, which possessed beauty, shone dark blue as clouds, / and were entwined with vine-wives, he seemed to look upon his own manifold forms multiplied along the coast.
3.72
Embracing the earth, roaring loudly, its large waves shaped like fluttering banners, / covered with foam, the lord of rivers appeared to him like an epileptic.
3.73
Having drunk the ocean through intense greed, and even though swelled, unable to contain them within itself, / the sea seemed to cast up strings of pearls, resembling the rays of the moon scattered along the shore.
3.74
He saw the clouds, which with tremendous roar would flood the earth all around without cease, / quietly drinking the waters of the ocean from a single part of it.
3.75
Hari beheld the rivers falling into the ocean, bearing waters raised from it by the clouds, / just as sacred codes, composed by the best of sages, bring back the meaning derived from the Veda.
3.76
Selling large stores of local goods, bringing immense profit from across the islands, / he rejoiced at the sea-merchants arriving with precious cargo in their ships.
3.77
Willing to rise up from within the lord of rivers with the mighty wind of their breath, / the serpent kings, out of devotion to the Garuḍa-bannered Lord, raised the waters high like banners.
3.78
Seeing him arrived, his friend at the end of the aeon who rests upon the bed of his lap, the ocean, / as if rising to meet him with intense joy, stretched out its arms in the form of lofty waves.
3.80
A wind bearing drops of ocean-spray wiped away the perspiration of him / who was journeying along the seashore, bringing the fragrance of cardamom creepers shaken by the breeze.
3.79
The soldiers reached the coastal regions of the salt-sea, / where ketakī flowers were parted by breezes blowing from tall groves of palmyra trees.
3.81
With garlands of cloves worn as ear-ornaments, drinking the water inside coconuts, / and chewing fresh betel nuts, they paid homage to the sea that had come before them.
3.82
Between the advancing army of the younger brother of Bala, crowded with hundreds of horses, destroying hostile kings at every step, ever possessing glory, / and the ocean, from which only one horse was born, which had been thoroughly churned by Mount Mandara, and whose wealth had long departed, there was at that time a great difference.
Commentaries (2)
- Sarvaṅkaṣā — Mallinātha Sūri, Sanskrit
- Śiśupālavadhaṭīkā — Mallinātha, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Śiśupālavadha — Māgha, Sanskrit