Note 38 — KĀDAMBARĪ.

‘There is a forest, by name Vindhya, that embraces the shores of the eastern and western ocean, and decks the central region as though it were the earth’s zone. (39) It is beauteous with trees watered with the ichor of wild elephants, and bearing on their crests masses of white blossom that rise to the sky and vie with the stars; in it the pepper-trees, bitten by ospreys in their spring gladness, spread their boughs; tamāla branches trampled by young elephants fill it with fragrance; shoots in hue like the wine-flushed cheeks of Malabārīs, as though roseate with lac from the feet of wandering wood-nymphs, overshadow it. Bowers there are, too, wet with drippings from parrot-pierced pomegranates; bowers in which the ground is covered with torn fruit and leaves shaken down by restless monkeys from the kakkola trees, or sprinkled with pollen from ever-falling blossoms, or strewn with couches of clove-branches by travellers, or hemmed in by fine cocoanuts, ketakīs, karīras, and bakulas; bowers so fair that with their areca trees girt about with betel vines, they make a fitting home for a woodland Lakshmī. Thickly growing ēlās make the wood dark and fragrant, as with the ichor of wild elephants; (40) hundreds of lions, who meet their death from barbaric leaders eager to seize the pearls of the elephants’ frontal-bones still clinging to their mouth and claws, roam therein; it is fearful as the haunt of death, like the citadel of Yama, and filled with the buffaloes dear to him; like an army ready for battle, it has bees resting on its arrow-trees, as the points on arrows, and the roar of the lion is clear as the lion-cry of onset; it has rhinoceros tusks dreadful as the dagger of Durgā, and like her is adorned with red sandal-wood; like the story of Karṇīsuta, it has its Vipula, Acala and Çaça in the wide mountains haunted by hares,38 that lie near it; as the twilight of the last eve of an aeon has the frantic dance of blue-necked Çiva, so has it the dances of blue-necked peacocks, and bursts into crimson; as the time of churning the ocean had the glory of Çrī and the tree which grants all desires, and was surrounded by sweet draughts of Vāruṇa,39 so is it adorned by Çrī trees and Varuṇa39 trees. It is densely dark, as the rainy season with clouds, and decked with pools in countless hundreds;40 like the moon, it is always the haunt of the bears, and is the home of the deer.41 (41) Like a king’s palace, it is adorned by the tails of cowrie deer,42 and protected by troops of fierce elephants. Like Durgā, it is strong of nature,43 and haunted by the lion. Like Sītā, it has its Kuça, and is held by the wanderer of night.44 Like a maiden in love, it wears the scent of sandal and musk, and is adorned with a tilaka of bright aloes;45 like a lady in her lover’s absence, it is fanned with the wind of many a bough, and possessed of Madana;46 like a child’s neck, it is bright with rows of tiger’s-claws,47 and adorned with a rhinoceros;48 like a hall of revelry with its honeyed draughts, it has hundreds of beehives49 visible, and is strewn with flowers. In parts it has a circle of earth torn up by the tusks of large boars, like the end of the world when the circle of the earth was lifted up by the tusks of Mahāvarāha; here, like the city of Rāvaṇa, it is filled with lofty çālas50 inhabited by restless monkeys; (42) here it is, like the scene of a recent wedding, bright with fresh kuça grass, fuel, flowers, acacia, and palāça; here, it seems to bristle in terror at the lions’ roar; here, it is vocal with cuckoos wild for joy; here it is, as if in excitement, resonant with the sound of palms51 in the strong wind; here, it drops its palm-leaves like a widow giving up her earrings; here, like a field of battle, it is filled with arrowy reeds;52 here, like Indra’s body, it has a thousand netras;53 here, like Vishṇu’s form, it has the darkness of tamālas;54 here, like the banner of Arjuna’s chariot, it is blazoned with monkeys; here, like the court of an earthly king, it is hard of access, through the bamboos; here, like the city of King Virāṭa, it is guarded by a Kīcaka;55 here, like the Lakshmī of the sky, it has the tremulous eyes of its deer pursued by the hunter;56 here, like an ascetic, it has bark, bushes, and ragged strips and grass.57 (43) Though adorned with Saptaparṇa,58 it yet possesses leaves innumerable; though honoured by ascetics, it is yet very savage;59 though in its season of blossom, it is yet most pure.