Note 172 — KĀDAMBARĪ.

‘“That king had a minister, by name Çukanāsa, a Brahman, whose intelligence was fixed on all the affairs of the kingdom, whose mind had plunged deeply into the arts and çāstras, and whose strong affection for the king had grown up in him from childhood. Skilled in the precepts of political science, pilot of the world’s government, unshaken in resolve by the greatest difficulties, he was the castle of constancy, the station of steadfastness, the bridge of bright truth, the guide to all goodness, the conductor in conduct, the ordainer of all ordered life. Like the serpent Çesha, enduring the weight of the world; like the ocean, full of life; like Jarāsandha, shaping war and peace;172 (118) like Çiva, at home with Dūrgā173; like Yuddhishṭhira, a dayspring of Dharma, he knew all the Vedas and Vedāngas, and was the essence of the kingdom’s prosperity. He was like Bṛihaspati174 to Sunāsīra; like Çukra to Vṛishaparvan; like Vaçishṭha to Daçaratha; like Viçvāmitra to Rāma; like Dhaumya to Ajātaçatru; like Damanaka to Nala. He, by the force of his knowledge, thought that Lakshmī was not hard to win, resting though she were on the breast of Nārāyaṇa, terrible with the scars of the weapons of the demons of hell, and a strong shoulder hardened by the pitiless pressure of Mount Mandara as it moved to and fro. Near him knowledge spread wide, thick with many a tendril, and showed the fruits gained from conquered realms like a creeper near a tree. (119) To him throughout the earth’s surface, measured by the circumference of the four oceans, and filled with the goings to and fro of many thousands of spies, every whisper of the kings was known as though uttered in his own palace.