Note 24 — Chapter CI

And when the fourteenth day arrived, they were all taken thence by the orders of the king to the temple of Durgá to be sacrificed. It seemed like the mouth of death, the flame of the lamp being its lolling tongue, the range of bells being its row of teeth, to which the heads of men clung.24 Then Sundarasena, when he saw that goddess, bowed before her, and praised her with mind humbled by devotion, and uttered this prayer, “O thou goddess that didst quell the oppression of the Asuras with thy blood-streaming trident, which mangled haughty Daityas, thou that givest security to thy votaries, look upon me, goddess, that am burned up with the forest-fire of grief, with a favourable nectar-shedding eye, and refresh me. Honour to thee!”