Note 24 — KĀDAMBARĪ.

(15) When the thousand-rayed sun, bursting open the young lotus-buds, had not long risen, though it had lost somewhat of the pinkness of dawn, a portress approached the king in his hall of audience, and humbly addressed him. Her form was lovely, yet awe-inspiring, and with the scimitar (a weapon rarely worn by women) hanging at her left side, was like a sandal-tree girt by a snake. Her bosom glistened with rich sandal ointment like the heavenly Ganges when the frontal-bone of Airāvata rises from its waters. (16) The chiefs bent before her seemed, by her reflection on their crests, to bear her on their foreheads as a royal command in human form. Like autumn,24 she was robed in the whiteness of haṃsas; like the blade of Paraçurāma she held the circle of kings in submission; like the forest land of the Vindhyas, she bore her wand,25 and she seemed the very guardian-goddess of the realm. Placing on the ground her lotus hand and knee, she thus spake: ‘Sire, there stands at the gate a Caṇḍāla maiden from the South, a royal glory of the race of that Triçaṃku26 who climbed the sky, but fell from it at the murmur of wrathful Indra. She bears a parrot in a cage, and bids me thus hail your majesty: “Sire, thou, like the ocean, art alone worthy to receive the treasures of the whole earth. In the thought that this bird is a marvel, and the treasure of the whole earth, I bring it to lay at thy feet, and desire to behold thee.” (17) Thou, 0 king, hast heard her message, and must decide!’ So saying, she ended her speech. The king, whose curiosity was aroused, looked at the chiefs around him, and with the words ‘Why not? Bid her enter?’ gave his permission.