Note 12 — Chapter CII

And Durgapiśácha, the king of the Mátangas, quickly came there from his own place, and his appearance justified his name.12 He seemed like a second Vindhya range, for his body was firm as a rocky peak, his hue was black as tamála, and Pulindas lay at his foot. His face was rendered terrible by a natural three-furrowed frown, and so he appeared as if Durgá, the dweller in the Vindhya range, had marked him with the trident, to claim him as her own. Though young, he had seen the death of many “secular birds;” though black, he was not comely; and he crouched to none, though he hugged the foot of a mountain.13 Like a fresh cloud, he displayed the peacock tail and the gay-coloured bow; like Hiraṇyáksha,14 his body was scarred by the furious boar; like Ghaṭotkacha, he was mighty and possessed a haughty and terrible shape;15 like the Kali age, he allowed those born under his sway to take pleasure in wickedness and break through the bonds of rule. And the mass of his host came filling the earth, like the stream of the Narmadá, when let loose from the embrace of Arjuna.16 And so the aggregated army of the Chaṇḍálas moved on, blackening all the horizon with a dark hue, making those who beheld it say in perplexity to themselves “Can this be a mass of rock that has rolled down from the Anjana mountain,17 or is it a premature bank of the clouds of the day of doom, that has descended upon the earth?”